Key points
- Throughout the two-year program, associates complete a comprehensive training curriculum and work at a host organization.
- Associates gain hands-on experience that serve as the foundation for their careers in public health.
Opportunities & Updates
Associate Application
The 2024 associate application period is closed. The next application period will open in early 2025.
Host Site Application
The 2024 host site application period is closed. Check back in early 2025 for the next opportunity.
What associates learn
The Public Health Associate Program (PHAP) is a training program for early-career public health professionals who have a recent college degree and an interest in public service and public health.
PHAP was designed to provide associates with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to fulfill the program's competencies and improve public health preparedness.
Associates are given the support required to excel in performance standards while on the job. In addition to associates' unique field assignments, senior CDC employees mentor associates and offer career guidance. Associates are also required to travel to Atlanta, Georgia, for multiple CDC-hosted, in-person PHAP training events. PHAP provides associates the opportunity to make substantial contributions to public health and earn recognition as a CDC employee.
PHAP provides opportunities to expand and enhance associates' skills and development in key public health areas, including but not limited to:
- Chronic disease prevention
- Environmental health
- Global migration and quarantine
- Immunization
- Injury and violence prevention
- Maternal and child health
- STD, TB, HIV, and other disease prevention
How associates serve
Associates are assigned to state, tribal, local, or territorial health agencies; non-governmental organizations, such as community-based organizations, public health institutes, associations, and academic institutions; and CDC Port Health Stations throughout the United States and its territories.
Associates' day to day responsibilities will vary depending on what the host site to which they are matched includes on their PHAP host site application. Associates are indistinguishable members of their host sites' teams, and work alongside other host site employees and contractors.
Associates' work assignments offer valuable skill-building activities in the following areas of study:
- Analytic and Assessment
- Program Planning, Management, and Improvement
- Professionalism
- Communication
- Evaluation
- Community Dimensions of Public Health
- Public Health Funding and Budgeting
- Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response
- Public Health Science, Public Health Policy & Law, and Health Equity
The skills and experience gained through PHAP make this a highly competitive program that potentially opens the door for public health positions at CDC, state and local health departments, and nongovernmental organizations.
Read more on our associate fact sheet.
Career Paths After PHAP
With the skills and experience gained through PHAP, graduates are competitive candidates for public health positions at CDC, state and local health departments, and nongovernmental organizations. Graduates leave the program with the foundation for successful, long-term careers in public health.
Over two-thirds of alumni from the last six classes continue to serve in public health roles after they complete the program.