Message from the Dean

dean lemeshow

Public Health: The Next Generation

Teaching the next generation of public health leaders is an honor and a joy. Their education is our vocation. Recently, schools of public health have enjoyed significant enrollment increases as a new generation realizes the impact they can have through a career in public health. It is truly a way for young professionals and researchers to change the world.

The forecast is for continued growth in public health enrollment. Courses in epidemiology, public health and global health -- three subjects that were not offered by most colleges a generation ago -- are hot classes on campuses nationally. This interest is none too soon. Our country is on the cusp of a severe shortage of public health professionals as our population gets older and less healthy with emerging disease threats on the horizon. The threat of drug-resistant TB and mutating diseases increases with every retiring epidemiologist.

I believe student interest in a public health career is based on a desire to make a difference, and that desire aligns with our values.

We believe in the fundamental fairness of a healthy world. Your health is determined by your own genetics and personal choices, but also by the environment around you. Public health investigates health equity -- from social justice and health care to the environment. Then we find strategies to minimize those risks.

The globalization of health links us all. The movement of food, products and people across borders permits illnesses to move rapidly around the world. Poor sanitation on the other side of the world can lead to a pandemic that affects us in Ohio.

Public health as a discipline has a proven track record. It's why we don't get polio and why we live twice as long as our grandparents. It's why small pox exists only in Wikipedia. It's why traffic fatalities and cigarette smoking have decreased over the last 30 years.

Over the next 100 years, the milestones of public health will be global in scope. I invite you to be a part of those milestones, as public health students, alumni, teachers, and benefactors.

Sincerely,

Dean Stanley Lemeshow