Opinion
Grin and Barrett
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Also by Badger Herald Editorial Board:
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- The People's Choice Award: Jacqueline Hitchon et. al (May 7, 2009)
- The Lifetime Achievement Award: ASM (May 7, 2009)
- Honest representation (May 5, 2009)
- Junger for ASM Chair (May 5, 2009)
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Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has lobbied hard for a school of public health at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee throughout the past year. This is understandable — he is the city's mayor, and he's actively trying to rectify what he believes is a key liability of Wisconsin's most populous municipality: poor public health.
We question the wisdom of such a move, however. UW-Madison, the university system's flagship institution, only gained a public health school last year. Choosing Madison was a natural choice, given its status as a topflight research institution, strong pharmacy and medical schools already in place, demand for a public health school among prospective students, and qualified faculty members.
The UW System, frankly, does not need to build a second school of public health in just two years. Establishing it would present a large financial outlay for the system, and it is questionable if the Milwaukee version could offer anything — other than a different location — that the nascent Madison school does not or cannot provide.
While we are sympathetic to Mr. Barrett's pleas concerning the state of public health in Milwaukee, the school would not be a cure-all to the city's health care woes. A public health school in Milwaukee could have a positive influence on the city, but any solution to the problem would require large-scale municipal funding, not just state funding from UW.
On the other hand, the entire state of Wisconsin would be hurt by diverting limited resources away from Madison's public health school. Therefore, a collaboration between Milwaukee and UW-Madison is the best answer.
Perhaps conditions will change down the road, but with Madison's school of public health only a year old, a second such school would be too much, too soon for the UW System.
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The editorial "Grin and Barrett" misses a crucial fact. What a Milwaukee school will provide that the Madison version doesn't is diversity. And diversity is extremely important in reducing severe health disparities: an issue with which Mayor Barrett is very familiar.
Milwaukee County (ranked 70th in the state by UW School of Madison and Public Health) has a much higher level of health disparities than Dane County (ranked 6th). Not only will more underrepresented people be served by a local school of public health, but also more students of underrepresented groups will be recruited and educated, and stay in Milwaukee to work.
Diversity is essential to an effective public health workforce. UW-Madison cannot provide this level of diversity to Milwaukee. It simply is not possible. While UW-Milwaukee and UW-Madison currently enjoy a number of dynamic collaborations in many of its health programs, the medical students (which are quite different than public health students) they send to Milwaukee do not a public health workforce make. Far from it.