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Major · Health Professions & Related Programs

Move the dial on community health, with an MPH usually waiting at the end

Behavioral Aspects of Health is a small public-health behavioral track that prepares you to design and run programs aimed at changing how populations eat, move, and seek care. About 380 degrees are awarded each year across 23 colleges, with both associate’s and bachelor’s pathways.

Schools offering
23
Annual completions
380
Typical degree level
Associate's + Bachelor's
Median earnings (5yr)
$58k

About this major

Behavioral Aspects of Health is a public-health major focused on the biological, behavioral, and socio-cultural drivers of how people make health decisions — and on the programs and policies that try to change those decisions at scale. The CIP definition (51.2212) puts it explicitly in the population-health camp: instruction in behavioral sciences, public-health practice and policy, human services, and research methods. Programs go by names like Health Behavior, Biobehavioral Health, and Health and Social Behavior, and they share a common spine of epidemiology, biostatistics, behavior-change theory, and program planning. Field placements typically land students in hospital health-promotion offices, county public-health departments, or community nonprofits running interventions on tobacco, nutrition, sexual health, or chronic disease.

This major rewards students who are curious about why people behave the way they do — and patient enough to study that question with data. You spend a fair amount of time reading research, working with public-health datasets, and planning interventions you may never personally deliver. A comfort with statistics and a tolerance for slow-moving institutional work tend to predict success better than charisma or bedside manner do. The orientation is decidedly non-clinical: this is not a path into therapy, nursing, or medicine, and the daily work looks more like designing a county-wide diabetes-prevention rollout than seeing patients in a clinic.

The career destinations tracked in the data are health education specialist (median wage $63,000, 4.5% growth) and community health worker ($51,030 median, 11.3% growth) at the entry level, with postsecondary health-specialties teaching ($105,620) sitting on the far side of a doctorate. About 380 degrees are completed each year across just 23 colleges — a small footprint that reflects how universities often roll these students into the broader Public Health, General category (10,951 annual completions) rather than break them out under this specific CIP.

Section 3 · Careers

Where this major leads

Occupations most often associated with this major, from the federal BLS+O*NET crosswalk. Job-growth projections and median wages are national.

Occupation Median wage Job growth Typical education
Health specialties teachers, postsecondary $106k +17.3% Doctoral or professional degree
Health education specialists $63k +4.5% Bachelor's degree
Community health workers $51k +11.3% High school diploma or equivalent
Section 4 · Earnings

Earnings at a glance

Median graduate earnings from the federal College Scorecard, 5 and 10 years out.

Median 5-year earnings

$58k

Associate's vs Bachelor's — early-career earnings

Associate's

$44k

Bachelor's

$58k

Who this major is for

You may thrive here if you are drawn to the question of why populations behave the way they do around health rather than the question of how to treat any one patient, if you are comfortable working with statistics and reading research papers as a regular part of your week, if a career at a county public-health department, the CDC, or a hospital health-promotion office sounds like a fit rather than a fallback, if you are already thinking about an MPH in Health Behavior or Health Promotion as the master’s step that unlocks $60,000-$85,000 mid-career wages, and if mission-driven work at modest entry pay is a tradeoff you are willing to make for the first few years.

Think twice if your real interest is clinical psychology, counseling, or social work — those live under different CIPs (42.0101, 51.1505, 44.0701) and lead to licensure tracks this major does not feed. Reconsider this route if your earnings target after a bachelor’s alone is six figures: the highest tracked bachelor’s-level destination here pays $63,000 and the field’s upper wages depend on an MPH or DrPH. Pause if you would rather do environmental or industrial-hygiene public health than behavior change, since Environmental Health (CIP 51.2202) is the sibling that fits that interest. And if the program you are looking at does not prepare you to sit for the CHES credential, ask the department directly how their bachelor’s graduates have placed into health-education roles, because CHES eligibility is what most public-health employers screen for at entry.

Section 6 · Where to study

Top colleges for Behavioral Aspects of Health

Ranked by annual completions at the associate's or bachelor's level — a proxy for program scale.

College Location Assoc. Bach. Total
The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX 0 111 111
University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 0 82 82
University of Houston-Downtown Houston, TX 0 48 48
University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth North Dartmouth, MA 0 30 30
University of Vermont Burlington, VT 0 27 27
Ozarks Technical Community College Springfield, MO 13 0 13
SUNY Polytechnic Institute Utica, NY 0 12 12
Three Rivers College Poplar Bluff, MO 12 0 12
Seton Hill University Greensburg, PA 0 9 9
Moberly Area Community College Moberly, MO 7 0 7
Section 7 · Explore sideways

Related majors to explore

Public Health, General

10,951 completions/yr

Health and Wellness, General

4,268 completions/yr

Public Health Education and Promotion

2,520 completions/yr

Community Health and Preventive Medicine

1,494 completions/yr

Public Health, Other

1,457 completions/yr

Community Health Services/Liaison/Counseling

1,429 completions/yr

Health Services Administration

1,283 completions/yr

Environmental Health

320 completions/yr

Considering this direction?

We've taken a hard look at the debt, earnings trajectory, and degree-level tradeoffs for the Behavioral Aspects of Health field. Read our verdict before you commit.

Is Behavioral Aspects of Health worth it? Read verdict
Section 9 · Frequently asked

Common questions

What do Behavioral Aspects of Health majors actually study day-to-day?
The curriculum sits at the crossroads of biology, behavioral science, and public-health practice. Expect coursework in health-behavior theory, epidemiology, biostatistics, social determinants of health, health communication, and program planning. Upper-division courses commonly cover chronic-disease prevention, maternal and child health, substance-use prevention, and research methods. Many programs include a community-based practicum with a public-health department, hospital wellness program, or nonprofit. The orientation is population-level: you study why people behave the way they do around health, and how to design interventions that shift those patterns.
What kinds of jobs do graduates end up in?
The two direct bachelor’s-level destinations tracked in the data are health education specialist ($63,000 median wage, 4.5% projected growth) and community health worker ($51,030 median, 11.3% growth). Graduates land at hospital health-promotion programs, state and county public-health departments, federal agencies such as the CDC and HRSA, health-insurance wellness teams, and nonprofits running tobacco-cessation, diabetes-prevention, HIV-prevention, or maternal-child health programs. The third career in the packet — postsecondary health-specialties teacher at $105,620 — is a doctoral-level destination, not an entry-level one. Many bachelor’s graduates pursue the CHES (Certified Health Education Specialist) credential to formalize entry-level eligibility.
Does the bachelor’s pay off over an associate’s in this field?
The five-year earnings split shows bachelor’s completers at about $58,487 versus $44,278 for associate’s completers — a gap of roughly $14,200 per year. That premium is meaningful and tracks closely with which roles each degree formally unlocks. Health education specialist requires a bachelor’s as the entry credential, while community health worker is technically classified as a high-school-diploma role. If your target is running programs, qualifying for the CHES exam, or eventually moving into program management, the bachelor’s is the practical floor. The associate’s can still feed community health worker positions where local employers hire on it.
What’s a realistic earnings picture without a master’s?
Five-year median earnings across all completers run about $57,622, with bachelor’s completers near $58,487. The bachelor’s-level ceiling tracked in the career data is $63,000 at health education specialist. There is no embedded high-earning management track in this CIP that delivers six figures without further credentialing. The senior path in this field — DrPH or PhD-level academic and research roles, or program-director jobs at health systems and federal agencies — typically requires an MPH (Master of Public Health) at minimum. Plan on the bachelor’s as a starting wage in the high-$50Ks to low-$60Ks, with material gains tied to the master’s rather than time-in-seat alone.
Is this the right major, or should I look at a related public-health CIP?
Behavioral Aspects of Health is a niche slice of CIP-51 — only 380 annual completions across 23 colleges, far smaller than Public Health, General (10,951 completions) or even Public Health Education and Promotion (2,520). If you want broader institutional availability and a wider range of post-grad pathways, Public Health, General is the obvious umbrella. If your interest is specifically in the education-and-promotion side rather than the behavioral-research side, Public Health Education and Promotion is the tighter match with the same two career destinations. If you’re drawn to direct service in underserved communities, Community Health Services/Liaison/Counseling (1,429 completions) is closer. For environmental risk factors rather than behavior, Environmental Health (320 completions) is the sibling CIP. None of these are clinical psychology — that lives at CIP 42.0101 and feeds a different career arc.
What’s a common next step after this degree?
An MPH is the dominant next step for this major. Top destinations include Johns Hopkins Bloomberg, Harvard Chan, UNC Gillings, Columbia Mailman, Emory Rollins, Berkeley, Michigan, Washington, and Minnesota — most have explicit Health Behavior, Health Promotion, or Social and Behavioral Sciences concentrations that map directly onto this bachelor’s. With an MPH, mid-career wages typically move into the $60,000-$85,000 range, and program-management or epidemiologist roles can reach into the low six figures. A DrPH or PhD is the doorway into academic positions and senior research, including the postsecondary-teacher role tracked in the packet at $105,620. Many graduates also stack the CHES or MCHES credential alongside the degree to compete for hospital and health-system jobs.