Promoting Health, Mitigating Disease Across Texas
UTSW launches School of Public Health to expand education, research, and patient care efforts in growing field
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought national attention to the need for strong public health systems. UT Southwestern remains committed to the cause, with a new School of Public Health in the works to enable scientists to pioneer more research, deploy knowledge in the field, and educate a strong pipeline of leaders with a wide range of training and specialization.
“As the first new school at UT Southwestern in more than 50 years, the School of Public Health represents an exciting chapter in the history of our institution and with the opportunity it provides to improve the health and well-being of communities of North Texas and beyond. The pandemic, as the latest in many challenges to public health, has underscored the need to develop science-based interventions as well as the need for an expanded public health workforce in Texas. In drawing on our nearly 80 years of experience in scientific discovery and research, teaching, and clinical care, we hope to help address this gap by training a new generation of public health advocates, leaders, and practitioners who are equipped to solve wide-scale health problems and respond to public health emergencies when they arise.”
“Medicine and public health are two sides of the same coin,” said Celette Sugg Skinner, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of the Department of Population and Data Science at UTSW and Interim Dean for the School of Public Health. “In medicine, we teach doctors how to care for people and cure their illnesses. Public health focuses on the health of entire communities and populations and how to prevent people from getting sick in the first place through development and dissemination of programs and policies that are implemented on a broad scale. UTSW has been doing both, but with the School of Public Health, we can add faculty members, advance discovery, train more leaders to promote health and reduce disease, and have a greater impact on the rapidly growing North Texas community.”
The School, approved earlier this year by the UT Board of Regents, is set to open in two years on the Dallas campus. Plans are underway to welcome the first class of Master of Public Health students in the fall of 2023 and Ph.D. students in the fall of 2024.
The state of Texas provided $10 million in startup funds to support the new School with a requirement that UT Southwestern match these funds 2:1 with private contributions. Philanthropy will be critical in enabling faculty recruitment, supporting student scholarships, and advancing promising research.
Public health needs are tremendous in Texas, where there is a serious shortage of workers for this field. Public health approaches are used to address our most challenging problems – including pandemics, poverty, and failing health systems – that make it difficult for people to access affordable medical treatments and preventive care. Because public health is a broad field, graduates of the School will be able to pursue careers in areas including government, health care systems, nonprofit organizations, and private industry.
“What sets UTSW apart is our close relationship with big health systems and with community organizations that serve our areas,” Dr. Skinner said. “The new School will be research intensive and will generate evidence about what works with large groups of patients and what can be implemented on a large scale across systems that benefit the citizens of Dallas, the U.S., and the world.”
Dr. Podolsky holds the Philip O’Bryan Montgomery, Jr., M.D. Distinguished Presidential Chair in Academic Administration, and the Doris and Bryan Wildenthal Distinguished Chair in Medical Science.
Dr. Skinner holds the Parkland Community Medicine Professorship.
Improving the health of Texas communities
UTSW has a successful history of addressing public health issues, working with local safety-net systems, community organizations, and public health departments. Our faculty transform lives, informing and influencing everything from individual habits to health care systems and government policies. Among numerous efforts, we have:
Developed a COVID-19 forecasting model
Increased HPV vaccination among adolescents and cancer screening for adults
Directed food referrals to people with nutrition-related conditions living in communities of food insecurity
Expanded effective health screening programs into more than 35 North Texas counties
