The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents recently approved a new Master’s of Public Health [MPH] degree at the University of Wisconsin Medical School. The MPH program will begin fall 2005, and aspires to augment the state’s public-health workforce.
The MPH degree will be a 12-month, 36-credit program that will follow the guidelines developed for accreditation of community-health graduate programs by the Council on Education for Public Health. The program will consist of five core curriculum areas of knowledge basic to public health: biostatistics, epidemiology, environmental health sciences, health sciences administration, and social and behavioral sciences.
The Wisconsin Partnership Fund (Blue Cross/Blue Shield) has approved financial support for this program.
Provost Peter Spear, who chairs the University Academic Planning Council — a committee that evaluates the sensibility of implementing, discontinuing, combining or changing the names of UW programs — said he supports the program.
“It makes sense … to create a Master’s of Public Health program,” Spear said. “Part of the goals of the gift is to work toward improving the public health of the citizens of Wisconsin.”
Surveys of students enrolled in UW programs such as medicine, nursing, public policy, environmental toxicology, law, veterinary medicine and pharmacy confirmed a strong interest in an MPH dual degree. Strong statements of need have come from public commentary obtained from Blue Cross/Blue Shield during statewide listening sessions.
“Demands on part of the student lead to our decisions,” Jocelyn Milner, director of UW’s Academic Planning and Analysis, said.
The Institute of Medicine [IOM] has concluded U.S. public-health workers need additional training to meet new public-health challenges such as bioterrorism, obesity, West Nile virus and influenza. Globalization, medical advances and an aging and increasingly diverse population contribute to these challenges.
“New programs get added as demands and ability to present them arises,” Spear said.
A Wisconsin Division of Public Health survey supported the demand for more formal, statewide training in public health. The IOM outlined a new vision of a broader workforce that goes beyond employees of state and local government.
The MPH is one element of the plan to promote such health initiatives and will engage UW faculty and staff who are active in research, teaching and outreach programs with a public-health focus.
Currently, UW-La Crosse is the only UW System school offering an MPH degree and ranks sixth among all programs of the sort nationwide. The Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee offers an MPH degree exclusively for physicians. The UW-Eau Claire program in Environmental Health and the UW-Milwaukee program in Health Sciences and Nursing have some overlap in content, but do not provide the focus of the proposed MPH.
UW Medical School professor of population health sciences, Patrick Remington, M.D., who earned a master’s degree in public health, will be the new program’s director.
Remington said in a release that the La Crosse program focuses on addressing quality of life through health education and health promotion. In contrast, he said the Madison MPH program will focus on elements of monitoring, diagnosis and intervention. Remington foresees the La Crosse and Madison MPH enterprises as harmoniously preparing a Wisconsin workforce trained in all aspects of public health.
Applicants for the fall 2005 semester must have a baccalaureate degree and at least two years experience working in a health-related field, or be currently enrolled in a graduate or health-science degree program. Application deadline for the first class of 25 students is March 1.
