diff --git a/c/CMakeLists.txt b/c/CMakeLists.txt
index c09400df..39186714 100644
--- a/c/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/c/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -22,9 +22,9 @@ set_target_properties(parallelproj_c PROPERTIES PUBLIC_HEADER "include/parallelp
 find_library(MATH_LIBRARY m)
 if(MATH_LIBRARY)
     message(STATUS "linking against libm")
-    target_link_libraries(parallelproj_c PUBLIC ${MATH_LIBRARY} OpenMP::OpenMP_C)
+    target_link_libraries(parallelproj_c PRIVATE ${MATH_LIBRARY} OpenMP::OpenMP_C)
 else()
-    target_link_libraries(parallelproj_c PUBLIC OpenMP::OpenMP_C)
+    target_link_libraries(parallelproj_c PRIVATE OpenMP::OpenMP_C)
 endif()
 
 install(TARGETS parallelproj_c EXPORT parallelprojTargets 
@@ -39,4 +39,5 @@ if(PARALLELPROJ_BUILD_WITH_IDL_WRAPPERS)
 endif()
 
 # add the test executables
-add_subdirectory(tests)
\ No newline at end of file
+add_subdirectory(tests)
+
diff --git a/cuda/CMakeLists.txt b/cuda/CMakeLists.txt
index ddde1137..a19f1c0f 100644
--- a/cuda/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/cuda/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ target_include_directories(parallelproj_cuda PUBLIC
   )
 
 # we have to add the openmp library to be linked
-target_link_libraries(parallelproj_cuda PUBLIC OpenMP::OpenMP_CXX)
+target_link_libraries(parallelproj_cuda PRIVATE OpenMP::OpenMP_CXX)
 
 install(TARGETS parallelproj_cuda EXPORT parallelprojTargets 
         RUNTIME DESTINATION ${CMAKE_INSTALL_BINDIR} 
@@ -76,3 +76,4 @@ endif()
 
 # add test executables
 add_subdirectory(tests)
+