University of Colorado Denver

The environment encompasses all of the natural as well as the human-formed conditions that influence quality of life. From the air we breathe and the water we drink to the open spaces and urban dwellings that surround us, environmental and occupational health creates safe and healthy places for communities to live, play and work. As an MPH student in environmental and occupational health you will protect the public from the spread of disease and injury from the ground up.

Environmental & occupational health merges diverse disciplines like policy, biology, urban planning and engineering and brings public health​ issues to the attention of people outside the field.  Faculty have joined forces with Denver Urban Gardens to enhance healthy eating in urban communities, Garfield County Board of Commissioners to assess the health impact of natural gas exploration, and the Mountain & Plains Education and Research Center (MAP ERC) to train students in ergonomics, industrial hygiene and occupational psychology.

Explore the department’s cutting-edge research in air pollution, occupational safety, oil and gas activities and the built environment. Take classes in toxicology, environmental policy and geographic information systems. Leave trained to identify critical environmental exposures, draft environmental legislation, combat urban sprawl and mitigate disasters.  As a graduate, you’ll find jobs in corporations, hospitals, government agencies, poison control centers and universities as environmental protection officers, policy analysts, toxicologists, food safety specialists and industrial hygienists.

MPH Environmental & Occupational Health Curriculum 

Additional Resources

• EOH Concentration Student Handbook
• EOH Student Advising Sheet

Course locations and key

Master of Public Health courses are offered on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus unless otherwise noted:

• BC = Course located at University of Colorado Boulder
• DC = Course located at University of Colorado Denver

Concentration Competencies

• Describe the direct and indirect human, ecological and safety effects of major environmental and occupational agents.
• Explain the general mechanisms of toxicity in eliciting a toxic response to various environmental exposures.
• Specify approaches for assessing, preventing and controlling environmental hazards that pose risks to human health and safety.
• Specify current environmental risk assessment methods.
• Discuss various risk management and risk communication approaches in relation to issues of environmental justice and equity.
• Develop a testable model of environmental insult.
• Describe federal and state regulatory programs, guidelines and authorities that control environmental health issues.
• Understand the range of epidemiologic methods in the analysis of environmentally determined health and the strengths and limitations of these methods.
• Specify appropriate monitoring and other field methods for addressing environmental & occupational health problems.
• Understand the dynamics of ecosystems and how they affect the movement of toxic agents in the environment and mediate related risks for human disease as well as the quality of air, water and climate.
• Describe important current and emerging environmental health problems and variations in health risks across the global landscape.
• Define sustainability and describe how solutions to environmental and occupational health problems can be designed to be sustainable.
• Apply basic skills in geographic information systems (GIS) technology in the evaluation of environmental health problems.