Health policy is a dynamic field with many career options. Because health issues are occurring in greater numbers and in new demographics, health policy jobs and related careers have experienced significant growth in recent years. Here are 8 interesting career paths you could embark upon to work with health policy and some of the things you might be doing.
Research
Health policy careers may have you working in a research capacity. Creating or evaluating health policies requires that you know what you are talking about when it comes to health so a great deal of research is needed. In fact, your job may revolve around doing research related to health policies and health issues.
Advocacy
You may very well advocate for better health policies. If health policies were already perfect then they would not require attention and there wouldn’t be quite so many shortcomings in healthcare systems. Because this is not the case, some career paths in health policy lead you to advocate for improvements in health policy and in the implementation of health policy.
Education
Those working in the field of health policy often work to educate others in health policy. If people do not know and understand what health policy is then they cannot fully take advantage of its attempts to better serve them. Educating everyone in the ways that health policies serve them and the ways in which health policies need to be improved can help to make sure that health policy does what it is supposed to in the way of helping people and that it grows to accommodate new needs as they are identified.
Planning
When you work in health policy then you may be the one planning out health policy as well as the one planning out how the good intentions of a health policy will be carried out in the real world. A policy cannot do everything by itself so you could be someone who contributes to the plan of action that makes sure that the goals of health policy are reached.
Cooperation
You may be working to help different groups cooperate to accomplish health policy goals. Whenever two groups come together to work toward the same goal there can be friction and disagreements about how to best accomplish that goal. You may be called upon to help groups cooperate so that healthy policy goals are reached.
Training
You may even be involved in training others. Not everyone takes the time to understand health policy or to make sure that it is carried out so you may train others in this field.
Connecting
Health policy careers can mean connection people to the resources that they need. When you work in the health policy field your efforts may not stop with creating or evaluating a health policy. You may have to monitor its implementation and work directly with people to connect them to the health services that they require.
8 Interesting Career Paths In Health Policy
- Health policy advisor
- Health policy manager
- Health policy analyst
- Health policy research economist
- Health policy researcher
- Health policy associate
- Health policy specialist
- Health policy consultant
M. Ellen really enjoys sharing blog posts with students who are curious about what it takes to earn a masters degree in health policy.