Undergraduate public health: preparing engaged citizens as future health professionals.

This paper addresses two questions: (1) How to explain, from the vantage point of the liberal arts, the value of integrative public health education for undergraduates, and (2) How, simultaneously, to make the case for such a program of study toward a career in health care. A new perspective is offered on baccalaureate study in preparation for engaged citizenship and for pre-professional healthcare education, including discussion of benefits to faculty.