Public Health and Information Sciences receives national accreditation
October 9th, 2007
The Council on Education for Public Health has awarded the University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences (SPHIS) full accreditation, making the school one of only 40 accredited schools of public health in the nation. It is the only school that combines the disciplines of public health and information sciences.
“This is an outstanding achievement,” said Larry Cook, UofL Executive Vice President for Health Affairs. “Attaining national accreditation in only five years, and just one year after graduating the first class of master’s of public health students, is a testament to the dedication of Dean Richard Clover and all of the faculty and staff who have worked to make our vision for the school a reality.”
According to the American Public Health Association, the demand for highly-educated public health professionals has sharply increased in response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and other public-health emergencies. Vacancy rates are as high as 20 percent in some state public health agencies and turnover rates have reached 14 percent in some parts of the nation.
“This is a critical time for the field of public health, which must adapt to the challenges of frequent natural disasters, emerging infectious diseases, occupational health challenges, epidemiological surveillance, environmental contamination and an increasing focus on health behaviors and how they impact our citizens,” Clover said.
“We are proud to join this elite group of schools that is preparing the experts who will tackle these problems and who are applying state-of-the-art information sciences tools to track and analyze threats to public health,” he said.
SPHIS offers professional master’s degrees in public health, biostatistics-decision science, clinical investigation sciences and epidemiology and a certificate in clinical investigation sciences. Doctoral programs are offered in the fields of biostatistics-decision science, epidemiology, environmental health, health management and health promotion. Dual degrees are available in medicine and clinical investigation sciences and mathematics and biostatistics-decision science.
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School of Public Health and Information Sciences
