Doctor of Public Health – Health Policy Leadership and Management

Available Fall 2025

Enhance Your Leadership Skills and Explore New Management Principles in the Public Health Sector with a Doctor of Public Health in Health Policy Leadership and Management

Are you a leader in the public health sector or looking to become one? If so, understanding the complexities of policy, management, and financial systems is essential to making a lasting impact. Liberty University’s Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) in Health Policy Leadership and Management can help equip you with the knowledge and skills to navigate these challenges. Through specialized coursework, you’ll explore vital concepts like accounting theory, financial planning, and resource management, helping enable you to make informed decisions that can secure the financial well-being of healthcare organizations.

To further enhance your work in health systems leadership, you’ll study how to engage stakeholders, lead strategic initiatives, and foster effective teams in public health environments. You can also gain critical skills in risk communication and crisis management.

Throughout the program, you can develop essential public health skills, including social action, organizational development, and policy advocacy. Special emphasis is placed on qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods research approaches to community diagnosis, social networking, and coalition building, helping you address public health challenges and improve the quality of life in communities. Whether through capacity building or policy advocacy, you can pursue the skills that can help you lead transformative change in the public health sector.

 

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Why Choose Liberty’s Doctorate of Public Health – Health Policy Leadership and Management Degree?

At Liberty University, you’ll experience a distinctive combination of academic rigor, professional development, and a Christ-centered community. By choosing Liberty for your DrPH in Health Policy Leadership and Management, you become part of a university dedicated to both scholarly excellence and personal growth. Liberty’s faculty, composed of experienced professionals, bring their practical knowledge into the classroom, offering you insights that go far beyond traditional learning. As a residential student, you can benefit from in-person collaboration with professors and peers, fostering an environment where innovative ideas and solutions can thrive.

This program stands out for its commitment to hands-on, practical learning. With a strong focus on real-world applications, the DrPH program offers a practicum experience that enables you to engage directly with communities and public health organizations. This allows you to tackle pressing issues from a management and leadership perspective and apply the knowledge you have gained in your studies.

Beyond academic excellence, Liberty provides a well-rounded support system aimed at your success. From personalized academic advising and career support to spiritual mentorship, Liberty seeks to equip you with the resources you need to pursue your professional aspirations. Rooted in a Christian worldview, the program integrates faith into every aspect of public health and ethical decision-making, empowering you to grow not only as a skilled public health professional but also as a compassionate leader.

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What Will You Learn in Our Doctorate of Public Health Management and Health Policy Leadership Program?

In Liberty’s health policy leadership program, you will explore how effective leadership and strategic planning drive organizational success in the public health sector. You can pursue the skills needed to analyze team dynamics and recognize the most appropriate strategies to enhance team performance. This includes studying how to prioritize activities and resources to create value for stakeholders as well as how to communicate and implement strategic plans effectively. By examining different frameworks and perspectives, you can refine your ability to critically assess and improve the performance of public health teams and organizations.

A key component of this program is understanding the foundational principles and current issues in public health management. You will explore the essential concepts and challenges that leaders face today in the health sector. The program can help equip you to navigate complex organizational environments by focusing on essential skills such as organizational development, policy advocacy, and capacity building. In your financial management coursework, you will focus on the application of accounting theory, budgeting, and resource management within the context of public health.

Leadership is a crucial aspect of public health, and you can develop the skills necessary to engage communities and lead public health initiatives. You will study how to collaborate with diverse stakeholders, design strategic plans, and foster teamwork to achieve organizational goals. The coursework emphasizes practical leadership skills, such as building cohesive teams and promoting multilevel cooperation. Through real-world examples, you will explore how to effectively communicate strategies and lead initiatives that create lasting change in public health settings.

The program can also help prepare you to manage crises and communicate risk appropriately in the face of public health emergencies. You will examine the principles of crisis communication and how to apply them during catastrophic events. You will also study how to navigate decentralized models of information dissemination. In addition, the program covers the complexities of policymaking, where you will study the roles of government, economic, and political factors in shaping health policy. Understanding these dynamics can help you learn how to contribute to the development and implementation of policies that address public health challenges in the 21st century.

Your leadership and management program will culminate in a dissertation that will explore an area related to public health. You will have the opportunity to develop your dissertation through in-depth research and then give your dissertation defense. In addition to the dissertation, you will have the chance to apply your learning to real-world settings in a practicum.

View the Degree Completion Plan (coming soon) and check out our featured courses below for more information!

Featured Courses