Brown launches public-health school

NEW SCHOOL: Brown University School of Public Health Dean Terrie “Fox” Wetle says the new designation will open the door to compete for federal funding available only to schools of public health. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
NEW SCHOOL: Brown University School of Public Health Dean Terrie “Fox” Wetle says the new designation will open the door to compete for federal funding available only to schools of public health. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

The new Brown University School of Public Health, officially launched on July 1, gives the university’s program in public health a new level of independence and the opportunity to better compete for federal funding. The program was previously part of Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School.
The schools will continue to work together in education and research, in Brown’s tradition of interdisciplinary studies across the university, inaugural Dean of the School of Public Health Terrie “Fox” Wetle said last week.
“We see this as a wonderful step forward. We’ve been working toward this goal for 10 years, so this is very exciting for us,” said Wetle, who came to the program more than a decade ago with the mission of developing the independent school of public health.
“We have worked to put all of the pieces in place. So in some ways it is a modest step, but in other ways it’s a very large step,” Wetle said.
The school continues at the same South Main Street address. And it is still working toward accreditation, expected to take two years. That would put it in the ranks of 49 U.S. schools accredited by the Council on Education in Public Health.
The new designation will open the door to compete for federal funding available only to schools of public health, Wetle said.
“In terms of our educational programs, I believe it will expand our pool of applicants to our various graduate programs and therefore improve the pool of already good students,” Wetle said. “When we talk with students who are accepted at several places and they make a decision not to choose us, one of the primary reasons they give is they want to go to a school of public health – and we will now be a school of public health.
“Another reason is we have, over the last several years, recruited faculty into our four public health departments with the promise that we were working toward a school of public health,” said Wetle.
The School of Public Health increases the capacity of what the previous public-health program and Brown’s medical school already contribute to the state, said Dr. Michael Fine, director of the R.I. Department of Health. “A lot of what we do is in partnership with Brown, supported by their capacity to analyze data and in epidemiology,” said Fine. “It’s very important because the work we do requires specialized knowledge and expertise. The process of epidemiology is a specialized area of analysis.”
Epidemiology, the scientific and medical study of the causes and transmission of disease, has been one of the major study areas of Brown’s program in public health. The areas of study continue in the new school, including undergraduate concentrations in community health and biostatistics; a master’s of public health degree; master of science degrees in biostatistics, epidemiology and behavioral and social science intervention; and doctoral programs in epidemiology, biostatistics and health services research.
A fourth doctoral program, currently going through the university’s internal approval process, is in behavioral and social health sciences, said Wetle.
The R.I. Department of Health collaborates with Brown on a variety of programs.
“Brown might analyze the impact of how we help primary care practices manage chronic disease,” said Fine. “Or Brown might study the impact of lead poisoning on the population.”
Brown’s 11 public-health research projects include the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, the Center for Gerontology and Health Care Research, the Center for Evidence-Based Medicine, Brown University AIDS Program, the Center for Statistical Sciences and the Center for Environmental Health and Technology.
“I think the school of public health will give us more traction and the ability to make Rhode Island the healthiest state in the nation at some time,” said Fine. “We’re No. 10, up from No. 13 a year ago. The school helps give us boots on the ground.”
Brown’s new school of public health is an important factor in Fine’s goal.
“I think we have the people, we have the health professionals, we have the health resources,” said Fine. “We want to make Rhode Island the healthiest state in the nation.” •

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