UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill

Established 1940
Location Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Dean Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH
Website Gillings School of Global Public Health

The UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, formerly known as The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) School of Public Health, holds a unique position among the top-tiered public health schools in the United States. As part of a highly regarded state university system, the Gillings School is rooted in the strengths and needs of North Carolina’s mostly rural communities, yet has significant global reach and impact.

Through research and programs based around the world, and both residential and online training of international students as future public health leaders, the Gillings School has focused on the interconnections of global and local health. Discovering local solutions and applying them globally – and vice versa – is at the heart of the School’s research, teaching and service. Accelerating those solutions – transforming them more quickly from the academy to the community – is central to the School’s mission.

The UNC Gillings School has been ranked the top public school of public health by U.S. News & World Report since the magazine began its evaluations. The School has remained consistently in the top three of all public health schools. Most recently, the 2016 edition of U.S. News & World Report graduate school rankings listed the School as tied at second place overall.[1] Several of the school's departments and programs have been recognized as among the best in the country.

The Gillings School of Global Public Health is accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health and offers undergraduate and graduate programs both in traditional classrooms on the Chapel Hill campus and online. It is named for donors Joan Gillings and Dennis Gillings, a former UNC professor and the founder of Quintiles.

Academic Departments

The UNC Gillings School has eight academic units (seven departments and one program) that offer masters and doctoral degrees. Four (marked here with asterisks) also award undergraduate degrees.

Centers and Institutes

In addition to academic departments, several centers and institutes operate within the School, providing additional contributions to public health research and practice. Notable among these are the Water Institute at UNC, the UNC Nutrition Obesity Research Center and the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute. The School's service and outreach arm, the North Carolina Institute for Public Health, brings public health scholarship and practice communities together across the state.

Research and Innovation Solutions, a unit funded by a $50 million gift from Dennis Gillings and Joan Gillings,[2] enables the School to anticipate new public health challenges, quickly find solutions and accelerate the delivery of best practices to improve people’s lives. The Gillings Global Gateway™ advances the School’s global health activities in research, service and teaching through partnerships, internships, outreach and communications.

The School also collaborates with many external centers and institutes specializing in health care research and practice and works with other schools within and beyond UNC. Among these are the Carolina Population Center, the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and the Injury Prevention Research Center, all of whose directors are faculty members at the Gillings School.

History

The UNC Division of Public Health was organized in 1936[3] within the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina. Separate status as a school of public health was granted in 1939, making the School the first school of public health established within a state university. The school awarded its first graduate degrees in 1940.

Milton Rosenau, MD, often called the “Father of Epidemiology,” who had recently retired as dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, became the first director of the Division of Public Health in 1936 and served as the first dean of the School from 1939 to 1946.

In 1949, UNC added Schools of Dentistry and Nursing. Along with the Schools of Public Health, Medicine and Pharmacy, the five schools formally became the University's Division of Health Affairs. The Gillings School is one of only a few public health schools in the U.S. to be located on a single campus with four other health-profession schools.

Through the years, the School has grown into a collection of seven different departments and a Public Health Leadership Program. The Departments of Epidemiology, Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Health Policy and Administration (now Health Policy and Management) and Public Health Nursing (now the Public Health Leadership Program) were in place when the school was founded. The Department of Health Behavior and Health Education (now Health Behavior) was added in 1942, Nutrition in 1946, Biostatistics in 1949 and Maternal and Child Health in 1950. The Gillings School’s Department of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) is thought to be the only such department within a public health school in the country.

Seven deans have led the School, from Rosenau to Edward G. McGavran, MD (1947-1963); Fred Mayes, MD (1963-1972); Bernard Greenberg, PhD (1972-1982); Michel Ibrahim, MD, PhD (1982-1996); William L. Roper, MD, MPH (1997-2004); and Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH (2005 to present).

Dreaming of a Time, a published history of the first 50 years of the School, is available online.

In 2007, the School received a pledge of $50 million from Dennis Gillings and Joan Gillings to fund:

The Gillings School of Global Public Health continues to award doctoral, masters and undergraduate degrees and certificates to students who take courses on campus in Chapel Hill or via the internet as digital learners.

References

  1. ↑ "Best Public Health Programs | Top Public Health Schools | US News Best Graduate Schools". grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com. Retrieved 2016-08-03.
  2. ↑ Carolina First Campaign exceeds $2 billion goal early with $50 million gift from Dennis and Joan Gillings, UNC News Services, Feb. 21, 2007.
  3. ↑ Korstad, Robert Rodgers (1990). Dreaming of a time: the School of Public Health: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1939-1989. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina.

External links

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