Employers

Nearly 58,000 health educators are employed in the United States. They work at health care facilities (hospitals, medical offices, etc.), colleges and universities, public health departments, nonprofit organizations, and private businesses.

Starting Out

Many health educators land their first jobs through contacts that they made during internships, co-ops, and volunteer positions. Others learn about openings through their personal and professional networks, via career fairs or job leads provided by their professors or their school’s career services office, or by accessing job listings at LinkedIn or those posted at a potential employer’s Web site.

A skilled and experienced health educator can advance to the position of director of health education at an organization. Others may advance by choosing to take a position at a larger organization—for example, moving from work at a local nonprofit to a national one. After successful careers, some health educators choose to become college professors. Others become managers and executives at health care nonprofits or government agencies.

Visit https://www.apha.org/Professional-Development/Public-Health-CareerMart/Careers-in-Public-Health-Newsletter to read the Careers in Public Health newsletter.

Read Health Education & Behavior and Health Promotion Practice (both are available at https://www.sophe.org/publications) to learn more about the field.

Check job listings on these Web sites:

• https://careers.apha.org/jobseekers
• https://www.sophe.org/careerhub
• https://www.usajobs.gov

Get certified. It will give you the edge over other applicants, and some employers require their health educators to be certified.