My closest friend has her MPH. She does VERY well financially, even allowing for her husband to SAH (no kids) and run a small farm they bought.

That being said, she’s made a lot of very smart sacrifices in her career, like running health units in small towns, that have given her an amazing amount of experience and “job titles” that now mean she’s Director level in the big city.

Aside from that, she gets to do something that she loves, while helping people to a higher level of wellness. I’d say there’s nothing useless about her degree.

It’s a perfectly fine mommy job degree.

For most people with a brain wanting to make as much as an electrical engineer or more per annum, generally speaking (exceptions exist but let's talk about the rule).... the MOH degree without a professional degree (aka a degree / job that requiring a license) is on its face, worthless.

It's like getting a MFA and expecting to find a steady, well paying job. "Government" jobs don't count as the GOV makes allowances that many civ. employers do not.

Major in something that has far more earning power. Use your head and look at the market. Of COURSE an MD with a MPH has a job... just like an MD with an MFA has a job too.
What's amazing is the inability for young people today to spot a practically worthless major of study outside of special circumstances (military, working for the VA, etc..)

I have my MPH in Epidemiology and it has helped me a lot with salary and job offers, currently work for major pharma company in study management.

can be totally marketable, depending on specialization, interests, etc. I know several people working on women's health issues with MPHs that helped them obtain their current positions (one a physician, one doing pure research, one organizing community programs through a public hospital)

I've been in the public health sector for a few years and it seems that anyone serious about their career has a PhD, not necessarily in public health, but related fields. The only people I know who hold only an MPH are basically career middle managers (grant coordinators or program managers included), who incidentally, all have husbands with big jobs in high paying fields like finance or law. I don't know if this is the norm, but seems to be correlated. The MPH falls within the 'helping professions' (if it can be seen as a professional degree at all) similar to social work. There is also this 'me too' approach to primary care that i can't totally explain, as though an MPH has value to bring into primary care decision making.

It mostly distills to grant work in practice. Research is a different story, but one does not need the quasi-specialization of the MPH to perform statistical research. Although an understanding of epidemiology would help, biostats doesn't differ from statistics for the behavioral sciences and is less rigorous than a pure statistics degree, which would give you additional options. Point being, unless the letters after your name matter, then anyone with a technical MBA, MPPM, stats, even an MS in research psychology, would give you the same skillset needed for PH research. That's the other thing -- all the research PH people I know have technical masters degrees other than MPH.

All that said, I think there is some value for doctors, particularly those who have spent their lives exclusively inside the clinical setting, to have a look at the overview of public health concepts, but it's like comparing a social work degree to an MD or PhD in the natural sciences.