Andee Wik’s Walking the Public Health Path

For someone whose aim is so clear, master of public health student Andee Wik’s path has been interestingly circuitous.

Obviously driven, she’s working hard to learn how to build programs that improve community health. She also hopes to bridge gaps in health care settings for marginalized communities, in particular.

But back to her path…

Wik was always interested in the human body. She took biology and AP biology in high school, which segued into the Biomedical Science program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her goal was to become a physician assistant. In fact, she did so well in her human anatomy class that she was a teaching assistant for several semesters.

Yet, when a friend who was a public health major explained the field to her, Wik “thought it sounded cool. So, I took a global health class.” The next stage on her path was declaring public health as her minor, still with being a PA in mind.

After taking more public health classes, “I didn’t even like my major anymore,” she said. Wik still wanted to be PA, but when the pandemic hit, she decisively shifted her focus from provider care to preventive care and declared a public health major.

“I switched so I could work with communities rather than treat symptoms. I wanted to get to the root of problems,” Wik said. She so loved her undergraduate public health experience that she wanted to expand her knowledge and came back to her hometown, Buffalo, to do so.

She chose SPHHP’s Department of Community Health and Health Behavior (CHHB) for her MPH because its emphasis is most reflective of what she wants to get out of education. "I hope to work in health education to try to improve health literacy, to help people understand what doctors are telling them,” she explained. “They know themselves better than anyone, and they are best to decide what they do next.”

CHHB’s program, she said, “totally delivers.” Her desire to focus on marginalized communities led her to Assistant Professor Dean Seneca’s Indigenous Health Disparities course, which opened her mind to an area of which she had been unaware. Next up are more courses in health disparities and in addictions.

Now that Wik’s path is clear, her drive has led to some early successes. For instance, her MPH advisor, Associate Professor Heather Orom, thought Wik was a perfect candidate to take the exam to become a Certified Health Educator and suggested she apply to UB’s Sanjit and Jharna Basak Student Assistance Fund to help pay the test fee.

Said Wik, “I received the award from the Basak Fund that allowed me to take the exam.”

For Wik, her career choice is meaningful because public health professionals “look out for every aspect of your life. Your health keeps you going, and if we better your health, we better your life. The world would be a scary place without us.”