PhD in Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences

What You'll Learn

As a PhD student, you will learn how to:

• Conduct original research on identifying individual and societal determinants of health behaviors, illness, and disease
• Design, implement, and evaluate behavioral and structural interventions to prevent disease, reduce health risks, and improve quality of life
• Translate knowledge derived from research to promote public health

Click here to learn more about our current doctoral students and alumni. Here is a list of our current doctoral students' publications for the 2020-2021 academic year. View the competencies for this program here. 

• A master's degree in public health, or a related field, is required. If you have a master's degree in a field outside of public health, you may need to take some core master's-level coursework in the field.
• Baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university
• Application + $75 application fee
• 3 letters of recommendation
• Statement of Purpose (2-3 single-spaced pages)
• Transcripts from each post-secondary institution you have attended (should be uploaded through the online application, not mailed). Unofficial transcripts issued by the Registrar to you (the student) are acceptable.
• Resume/CV
• You will be asked to select up to three faculty advisors in the application.

Submitting a writing sample is required. The sample can be a journal article, paper, essay, or any other type of work that has been written by the applicant.

A small number of applicants will be invited to interview and visit the campus in late winter at no cost to the applicant.

International Applicants

In addition to these requirements, all departments require international students to submit Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) scores.

TOEFL scores should be at least 560 on the paper-based test or a 100 or higher on the Internet-based test. Students who earned a degree from an institution within the United States are waived from the TOEFL requirement.

Paying for your PhD

All full-time Emory PhD students receive merit-based support packages consisting of full tuition scholarships each year and annual living stipends for two years. The awards are renewed each year, contingent upon satisfactory academic performance. Beginning September 1, 2019, doctoral students will receive annual stipends of approximately $31,000 for the initial two years and will be supported by research projects, fellowships and/or grants for the following years. You may also choose to work as a research assistant or in other activities related to your professional development during the summer months for additional income.

Degree Requirements

The program is designed for full-time students and typically takes four years to complete. During your first two years, you'll take all required course work, gain teaching experience, and work as a research assistant before developing your own research project. During your third and fourth years, you'll develop, complete, and defend your dissertation.

Please see the most recent Student Handbook, which describes all degree requirements in depth.  You can also consult this data that the Laney Graduate School keeps on students and graduates of our program.

Dissertation

All PhD students are required to complete and defend a dissertation. Students are encouraged to begin exploring potential research topics as soon as they enter the program by meeting with faculty advisors. 

The doctoral dissertation must meet the requirements of both the department and Laney Graduate School. In particular, the dissertation must make a new contribution to the student’s field of study, or present a unique new interpretation on existing knowledge. Students are required to pass an oral defense of the dissertation proposal. 

Past Dissertations

• Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Intimate Partner Violence and Child Maltreatment: How TANF Generosity Affects Family Violence

• Understanding Capacity-building Efforts to Address Environmental Justice Concerns

• Exploring the role of acculturation on mammography utilization among Hispanic women in the United States

• Leaving the food desert: An activity space approach to understanding how community food environments affect health

• Tobacco Use among Sexual Minority Men and Women in the United States and China

• Examining multilevel socioenvironmental factors associated with pursuit of kidney transplant among predominantly African American end stage renal disease patients undergoing dialysis

• Evaluating the Implementation and Impacts of Integrated Depression and Diabetes Treatment in India: A Process Evaluation of the INDEPENDENT Study