Ever wonder if your public health skills could take you beyond traditional roles? Whether you're feeling stuck in your current position or wanting to expand your impact, your public health expertise can open doors you might not have considered. In this episode of Public Health Curated, we explore how to translate your public health superpowers into adjacent fields.
Key Takeaways
- Public health professionals possess unique and highly transferable skills valued in many sectors
- Your systems thinking, evidence-based decision making, and community engagement abilities are in demand
- Adjacent fields like corporate wellness, health technology, and environmental sustainability need your expertise
- Translating your skills requires understanding how different sectors describe similar competencies
Episode Highlights
Your Transferable Public Health Superpowers
1. Systems Thinking
In public health, we see interconnections between factors that others view as separate. This ability to see the whole picture is valuable in:
- Sustainability initiatives
- Corporate strategy development
- Urban planning
- Complex problem-solving roles
2. Evidence-Based Decision Making
Our ability to gather data, analyze it, and turn it into actionable insights translates beautifully to:
- User experience research
- Market analysis
- Program design and evaluation
- Data-driven organizations
3. Community Engagement and Cultural Competency
The skills we've developed to engage meaningfully with different communities and design with cultural nuances in mind serve as tremendous assets in:
- Customer experience
- Product development
- Education
- Inclusive program design
Adjacent Fields Where Public Health Professionals Thrive
Corporate Wellness
Your understanding of behavior change and program evaluation makes you uniquely qualified to create effective workplace initiatives that improve employee wellbeing and productivity.
Health Technology
Tech companies desperately need professionals who understand both health systems and human behavior. Your perspective brings crucial insights about equity, accessibility, and real-world implementation that purely technical teams often miss.
Environmental Sustainability
Our training in health impacts of environmental factors translates powerfully to sustainability roles where understanding human-environment interactions is essential.
Education
Your skills in translating complex information and designing effective programs are exactly what's needed in educational settings focused on health literacy and behavior change.
Your Skill Translation Framework
Follow this practical framework to make successful transitions:
- Identify your core skills—not just your knowledge.
What processes are you good at? What approaches do you take that get results? - Research how these skills appear in other fields.
Different sectors use different language for the same skills! "Program evaluation" might be "impact assessment" in nonprofits or "outcomes measurement" in healthcare. - Connect your experience to specific pain points in your target sectors.
If you're interested in user experience research, highlight how your needs assessment skills help you understand user requirements.
Quick Exercise: Skill Translation Matrix
Draw three columns:
- Public health skills
- How they translate to a different sector
- Your unique perspective
For example:
- Skill: Program evaluation
Translation: Product testing in tech
Unique perspective: Understanding how products impact different populations - Skill: Health communication
Translation: Marketing
Unique perspective: Communicating complex information in accessible ways that drive behavior change
Your Action Steps
- Complete the Skill Translation Matrix for your top three skills
- Have one conversation about your skills with someone outside public health
- Research job descriptions in an adjacent field that interests you to spot your transferable skills
- Share what you learn using #PHCSkillTranslation
Join the Conversation
We'd love to hear your experiences with skill translation! Have you successfully moved into an adjacent field using your public health expertise? What unexpected industries have valued your public health background? Share your stories and questions in the comments below.
Are you considering a career pivot? Let us know which fields interest you most, and our community of impact-shapers might have insights to share about the transition. Remember, your journey could inspire others who are looking to expand their impact beyond traditional public health roles.
About the Host: Veronica Sek-Shubert, MPH, is the founder of Public Health Curated and a DrPH candidate at Tulane University. With over 15 years of experience in non-for-profit and public health spaces, she's dedicated to helping professionals rediscover their spark while creating meaningful system change.