Public Health Personal Statement

I am writing to you today to apply for the Master of Public Health in Health Promotion program. I am a graduating Biology student at Ryerson University who is extremely passionate in achieving more equitable health care for all groups and communities through policy development, advocacy and research. At the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, I can accomplish my goals while thriving academically at an institution known for its excellence in education, connections to research opportunities, location in one of the most diverse cities in the world and highly respected faculty members. I strongly believe that more research needs to be conducted in Canada on the health care experiences faced by marginalized communities and I would like to be a
I have always had a strong interest and appreciation in learning about how living things work and interact with one another in order to understand the natural world we live in. This curiosity has led me to pursue an undergraduate degree in Biology which has equipped me with the core scientific skills needed to address the biological and environmental issues that impact human health. Although I have majored in Biology, I have supplemented my science degree with a variety of courses in the social science discipline in order to gain a better understanding of the social world and establish the ability to analyze issues from many different angles. By my third year I was introduced to the field of public health. I was personally drawn to the social science nature of the field, more specifically to the societal and personal determinants of health. My family comes from a place that has been ravaged by civil war and natural disasters over the past two decades, and it is very distressing to see the lack of progress in preventing and treating common diseases and the general lack of effective health care policies in my country of origin. Being a child of immigrant parents, I first handly know the various social and cultural barriers newcomers experience which ultimately impacts their health and the healthcare they receive.
I believe that health promotion is strongly connected to policy work. I would love to someday have the ability to translate my research for diverse knowledge users and decision makers and thereby be a part of implementing the next generation of needed policy reforms. With my educational background in Science and my previous senior-level course work in social science, I strongly believe I am capable of achieving this goal. Public health and, more specifically, health promotion is an activist career that will allow me to become a part of the scientific-knowledge using community that affects more equitable