Question about MPH Personal Statement

[backwardinduction]

Hello everyone, I was wondering if someone could give me some advice on my personal statement. My basic idea to start it off is about how my family members fell ill with cancer when I was very young, and it inspired me to go into the field of disease prevention. My problem is that I don't know whether to go for a concentration in health policy and management, epidemiology, or environmental/occupational health. The last two concentrations work with this idea of disease prevention very well, however I'm not sure if it would be as relevant for health policy and management, since to me it seems to be more about improving the health care system and access to health care rather than preventing diseases, while epi and environmental health don't seem as focused on the access to health care as they are with prevention, however they may use the idea of disparities to remedy this discrepency.

Thanks for any help you guys can provide!

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[IntriguedStudent]

I have not looked into health policy and management programs very much as my interest is in epi, but I would guess that if you do it right, you could definitely swing a program like that into disease prevention. I would look at the programs you are interested in to see if you can take electives outside of your concentration. If so, you could take courses in other departments that focus highly on disease prevention so that you could tailor your interest in policy in that direction. I think your idea for your personal statement sounds fine as long as you can draw a solid connection between policy and disease prevention, as well as reasons for why a concentration in that area specifically would help you meet your career goals.