College of Public Health

Centers

The College of Public Health houses three centers that help to advance its mission to protect and improve the health of the people of Ohio, the nation and the world.

Center for Public Health Practice

The Center for Public Health Practice exists within the College of Public Health to build the workforce to protect and promote the public's health and is home to federally funded programs including the Ohio Center for Public Health Preparedness, the Buckeye-Bluegrass Regional Leadership Academy and the Pennsylvania & Ohio Public Health Training Center. The office also provides grant and contractual services that support its commitment to public health organization development; technology enhanced learning for students and professionals; practice-focused academic programs and applied research that advances public health practice.

Visit the center's website

 

Center for Health Outcomes, Policy and Evaluation Studies (HOPES)

The Center for Health Outcomes, Policy and Evaluation Studies (HOPES) was established in 1994 to respond to the needs of health care policy decision makers at the local, state, and national levels through applied health services research. The center's constituencies consist of state and local governments, federal agencies, health care delivery systems, health care industry (pharma, device-makers, insurers, etc.), employers, professional associations, foundations, and community-based organizations.

The scope of policy areas addressed by the Center for HOPES includes patient care improvement, health plan satisfaction, health care services for vulnerable populations, efficiency and effectiveness of health care delivery, public-sector health care financing, state health care reform initiatives, and evaluations of the community benefits derived from specific health care practices and programs.

Along with this work, the Center for HOPES supports scientific inquiry and academic excellence by involving students in its research, hosting research seminars for the university and practice community, and sponsoring a doctoral research traineeship for study leading to the PhD degree.

Visit the center's website

 

Center for Health Equity and Multicultural Health

The College of Public Health has undertaken the creation of a Center for Health Equity and Multicultural Health and is currently searching for a director to provide leadership. The newly established Center will coordinate the academic research and service activities of faculty and students in the College of Public Health around issues of minority health, health disparities, health equity, environmental justice, and community involvement, and serve as a liaison between the concerns of community members and the college.

 

Targeted Investments in Excellence

As part of the continuing commitment to the Academic Plan, The Ohio State University set aside $100 million over five years to invest in targeted areas of excellence. Ten initiatives were selected, and the program started in FY 2007.

These initiatives include academic programs in colleges, departments and centers where Ohio State has an opportunity to achieve worldwide recognition in existing and emerging fields of significance. Of the four proposals submitted by the College of Public Health, two are funded centrally and two are funded locally. Here is a summary of those programs. Find more about the university's TIE initiatives.

Centrally funded

Public Health Preparedness for Infectious Diseases (PHPID)

Recent threats of disease pandemics, bioterrorism, foodborne illnesses, and natural disasters underscore the importance of public health preparedness for the United States. Six colleges at Ohio State will focus on emerging infectious disease threats and how we can respond. These colleges are: Biological Sciences; Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences; Medicine; Pharmacy; Public Health; and Veterinary Medicine. Key activities now advancing within the PHPID:

• Faculty membership. There are approximately 100 charter faculty members representing each of the six participating colleges.
• Faculty recruitment. PHPID resources are bringing at least 12 new faculty to Ohio State who will enhance our abilities to:
  1. Translate scientific discoveries into clinical applications.
  2. Detect the presence of emerging infectious diseases within communities, the underlying mode of transmission, and strategies for prevention, control, and treatment.
  3. Prevent human infection from antibiotic resistant zoonotic microorganisms through an understanding of livestock immune systems with an aim to reduce use of antibiotics in animals.
  4. Address food safety issues during production, food processing, transport, storage, retail, and consumer use.
  5. Train professionals in veterinary public health and infectious diseases public health preparedness
• Competitive pilot research program to spur interdisciplinary PHPID-related research and provide seed funding to two faculty-led projects per year with an investment of $50,000 each per year.
• Competitive scholarship program to inspire students interested in pursuing interdisciplinary PHPID-related research. It provides tuition and a stipend to two outstanding doctoral applicants per year.
• Open campus-wide dialogue on the most pressing PHP issues, including a seminar
  series to promote interaction among PHP college faculty.
• Presentations and programming. PHPID members present at national meetings and
  participate in programmatic grants.

Visit the center's website.

 

Population and Health

With the aging of the industrialized world's population, the spectacular advances in medicine, the spiraling costs for health care, and the differential access to effective health care among different populations, the interrelated issues of population and health have moved to the center stage of attention in modern times. Social and behavioral scientists are increasingly involved in addressing these issues from the perspectives of both the macro-level study of health across various populations and the micro-level study of individual health behaviors.

Many researchers across the university, including the College of Public Health, have been involved in studying issues of health and well-being. This initiative capitalizes on Ohio State's "critical mass" of scientists who study population and health.

In addition to the College of Public Health, other Ohio State colleges involved in the initiative are Social and Behavioral Sciences, Human Ecology, and Nursing.

Locally funded

Cancer Prevention

The College of Public Health has a strong record of research in cancer prevention. These areas of research include:

• Cancer screening;
• Tobacco control;
• Nutrition and energy balance, including obesity and exercise;
• Chemo-preventive therapies; and
• Health disparities and cancer care.

Cancer prevention scientists in the College of Public Health are full members of the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center (OSUCCC) Cancer Control or Molecular Carcinogenesis and Chemoprevention Programs.

 

Health Services Research

The Division of Health Services Management and Policy continues to have one of the nation's strongest Masters of Health Administration (MHA) programs.  The program is now the 12th ranked MHA program nationally (according to U.S. News and World Report).

The two components of the TIE initiative that were established for further enhancing the MHA program were:

Recruitment of new faculty and divisional leadership with strong research backgrounds, and
Enhancing the research profile of the division through expanded publications and research funding.

Excellent progress has been made in both of these areas, and this progress has contributed significantly to the rise in the program's national stature.

Another component of the TIE was to enhance the program and its research profile by strengthening and expanding the division's PhD doctoral training program. We are pleased to report that very significant progress has been made in this area. We have put the infrastructure in place to have a very successful doctoral degree program in health services management and policy. The doctoral program began in Autmn 2008 with four highly qualified doctoral students.

 

Across the University

Center for Biostatistics

Since 2001, The Ohio State University's Center for Biostatistics has served as a centralized sources of biostatistical expertise with which investigators from both within and outside Ohio State can collaborate in all aspects of stduy design, data management, and statistical analysis of clinical, epidemiological, public health, and laboratory research data.

The College of Public Health faculty collaborate closely with the center. David Jarjoura is the center's director.

Visit the center's website

Center for Clinical and Translational Science

The Ohio State University was awarded a Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) from the National Institutes of Health National Center for Research Resources. This mechanism is part of the NIH Roadmap Initiative. With this award, OSU has created the Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS) to improve the quality of care for all patients in the community by developing a transformative clinical and translational science discipline that is at the core of the OSU academic culture. The goal of the CCTS is to speed the translation of new scientific discoveries to enhance patient outcomes.

Mary Ellen Wewers, PhD, associate dean for research and faculty development, is the director of the Community Engagement (CE) Core for Ohio State's CCTS. This puts the College of Public Health in a unique position to ensure that CCTS community engaged research activities are coordinated, consistent, and complementary.

In addition, Allard Dembe, chair of the Division of Health Services Management and Policy, leads the Evaluation Core, and many of our faculty are involved in the Biostatistics Core.

 

Health Sciences Center For Global Health

The Ohio State University officially created the Health Sciences Center for Global Health in June 2007. Housed within the University's Office of Health Sciences, the center is co-directed by faculty from the Colleges of Medicine and Public Health. The mission of the center is to:

• Promote, develop and coordinate interdisciplinary global health education and research throughout the health science colleges and university
• Encourage global scholarship
• Create a nationally recognized program in global health

In late 2008, Ohio State was awarded a prestigious NIH Fogarty International Center global health grant designed to further advance the mission of the Health Sciences Center for Global Health. The three-year award will help support a multidisciplinary infrastructure and educational program that will ignite student interest in global health and will foster global health research and teaching within and between institutions. All colleges within the health sciences at Ohio State are participating in the project. In addition to infrastructure development, some specific goals of the Fogarty program include:

• Create an interdisciplinary specialization in global health within the Graduate School.
• Initiate development of a certificate program in global health.
• Provide participants with mentored hands-on research, outreach and clinical experience in global health.

For additional information, contact center administrator Pam Potter at pamela.potter@osumc.edu.

 

Through the projects and relationships built through these centers, the College of Public Health is able to reach further into communities, constituencies and achieve a greater impact in achieving its mission.