Potential Practicum opportunities are explored during the fall semester and further formulated during the spring semester of the student’s first year.  The MPH Practicum plan includes information on the Practicum organization, site, and work to be conducted, as well as a description of the final deliverable products. The Practicum should have a community-based component and requires the student to work with an inter-professional team during the experience.

Students must complete at least 145 hours at a pre-approved organization/agency, which can be paid or unpaid. This is equivalent to approximately one month (4 weeks) of full-time (8 hours per day) work. Students can complete the Practicum longitudinally during the first academic year; during the summer between the first and second years; or a combination of these time periods. The Practicum should expose the student to real-world public health issues and other professions outside of public health that works to address public health issues.  Practicum activities may include (depending on the topic and the qualifications of the student) attending meetings; participating in ongoing activities; planning, implementing, and evaluating short-term projects; participating in health education and outreach; taking part in analytical discussions, and/or delivering health-related services.

The Practicum must include two final deliverable products.  The products should be an organic part of a student’s Practicum work and not something developed as an academic exercise. The products should be of practical utility to the organization or part of moving a larger project forward. The products may include, for example, designing a public health intervention, conducting a quality assessment, developing health education materials, designing a survey instrument for primary data collection; writing a communication brief; completing a research analysis/report, or developing/updating a website.  Students must consult with their respective Practicum supervisor/mentor and with the Assistant Director of Applied Learning or the Field Placement Coordinator (for the online MPH Program) to be sure that their proposed products are acceptable for the educational purposes of the Practicum. The final products need to demonstrate the achievement of at least three MPH Foundational Competencies (and/or MPH Concentration Competencies for the in-person MPH Program) that have been identified by the student.

Students enrolled in the in-person MPH Program must design a poster that showcases the student’s Practicum and final products.  Students must present their Practicum posters at a poster session held in the fall semester of the second year of the MPH Program as a part of the PHP2072 course.  

Our students’ Practicum experiences are as diverse as their interests:

• Rhode Island Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities, and Hospitals
• Rhode Island Department of Corrections
• Rhode Island Department of Health

• Community Care Alliance
• Day One Sexual Assault and Trauma Resource Center
• The Fenway Health Center (Boston)
• Green & Healthy Homes
• Greenhouse Social Enterprise
• HealthCentric Advisors
• House of Hope Community Development Corporation
• Institute for the Study and Practice of Nonviolence
• Maternova, Inc.
• Narragansett Indian Tribal Lands
• Neighborhood Health Plan of Rhode Island
• PACE Organization of Rhode Island
• Center for Prisoner Health and Human Rights
• Providence & Woonsocket Public High Schools
• The Providence Center
• Rhode Island Foundation
• Rhode Island Free Clinic
• Rhode Island Hospital
• Rhode Island Public Health Institute
• Center for the Study of Children at Risk
• Steward Healthcare Network
• Walden Behavioral Care
• The Watson School of International and Public Affairs
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute