The School of Public Health (sometimes shortened to Pitt Public Health) is one of 17 schools at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

. The school, founded in 1948, was first led by Thomas Parran, surgeon general of the U.S. Public Health Service. It is ranked as the 13th best

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...

school in the United States by '' U.S. News & World Report''. In addition, it is ranked third among public health schools for funding received from the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the lat ...

. It was the first of only two fully accredited schools of public health in Pennsylvania (the other being

Drexel University Drexel University is a private research university with its main campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Drexel's undergraduate school was founded in 1891 by Anthony J. Drexel, a financier and philanthropist. Founded as Drexel Institute of Art, ...

's School of Public Health in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

). The school offers a Bachelor's of Science in Public Health (BSPH), Masters of Public Health (MPH), Master of Science (MS), Master of Health Administration, and doctoral degrees (PhD, DrPH) in areas such as behavioral and community health sciences, biostatistics, environmental and occupational health, epidemiology, health policy and management, human genetics, and infectious disease and microbiology.

History

A desire by Pittsburgh residents to better understand the health risks from pollution released from the city's many steel mills in the early 20th century led to the creation of Pitt's School of Public Health in 1948 with a $13.6 million grant from the A. W. Mellon Educational and Charitable Trust. Originating in the renovated former Municipal Hospital, now

Salk Hall Jonas Salk Hall at the University of Pittsburgh is a Pennsylvania state and Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation Historic Landmark. The Art Deco building is named after Jonas Salk, who conducted his research on the first polio vaccine in ...

, the school was accredited on April 6, 1950, and admitted its first class of 29 full-time and 5 part-time students in September 1950. The school moved into a new facility, now named

Parran Hall Parran Hall is the former name of an academic building on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh on Fifth Avenue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The building, constructed to house the Graduate School of Public Health, was comp ...

, completed for it in 1957. The school's first dean, Thomas Parran, had previously founded the

World Health Organization The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level o ...

and served for twelve years as

Surgeon General of the United States The surgeon general of the United States is the operational head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government of the United States. T ...

. Parran guided the early development of the school and recruited many of its prominent early faculty. An early focus of the school was occupational and industrial health and hygiene in the steel mills of Pittsburgh. These studies, and Pitt Public Health investigations of black lung among coal miners, strongly influenced the

Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is a US labor law governing the federal law of occupational health and safety in the private sector and federal government in the United States. It was enacted by Congress in 1970 and was signed by ...

which, based mostly on school generated data, created the first national standards for on-the-job worker safety and health. Although the scope of the school has greatly broadened, this theme of research has continued throughout the years with significant implications including, among other things, information on the hazards of

asbestos Asbestos () is a naturally occurring fibrous silicate mineral. There are six types, all of which are composed of long and thin fibrous crystals, each fibre being composed of many microscopic "fibrils" that can be released into the atmosphere b ...

. Pitt Public Health has become one of the top schools for sponsored research funding. It has also pioneered research directions: it the first school of public health to have a department of human genetics; it had the first and only public health school chair in minority health; and played a critical role in understanding diseases such as

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ma ...

for which it initiated the longest-running national study of the natural history of the disease. It continues to maintain strong relationships with regional and national government agencies such as the Allegheny County Health Department and the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the national public health agency of the United States. It is a United States federal agency, under the Department of Health and Human Services, and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georg ...

, and has produced over 5,000 alumni in its 60 years of history. On July 1, 2019, the school's longest-serving dean, Donald S. Burke, MD, stepped down and A. Everette James became interim dean. In January 2021, Maureen Lichtveld, MPH, MD, became the school's dean.

Interdisciplinary themes

The Pitt Public Health ranks among the top five public health schools in the United States, measured by National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding. Since 2000, it has won more than $1 billion in NIH funding for research and service in the following areas: * Designing, conducting, and analyzing clinical trials of new health interventions * Using computational models to prepare national responses to outbreaks of infectious diseases * Monitoring the quality of air and drinking water * Advancing policies to improve industrial hygiene and work safety * Evaluating new vaccine technologies for global diseases * Providing expert testimony to policy makers with respect to public health issues * Developing state-level systems models of legal, economic, and operational preparedness for emergency response planning * Addressing health disparities among under-represented populations * Providing policy makers with credible scientific information related to potential health impacts of shale gas extraction * Lowering the incidence of illness in schools * Improving the ability of seniors to live longer and more safely in their own homes * Limiting and reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS * Improving standards of care in nursing homes * Educating trustees of area health care providers on governance best practices * Providing practical and effective guidance to families and schools to combat childhood and adult obesity

Departments

*Behavioral and Community Health Sciences * Biostatistics and Health Data Science * Environmental and Occupational Health * Epidemiology *Health Policy and Management * Human Genetics * Infectious Diseases and Microbiology

Centers and institutes

Pitt Public Health is responsible for or participates in the operation a variety of different public health centers and institutes including: * Center for Global Health *Center for Health Equity * Center for Public Health Practice *

Center for Public Health Preparedness The Centers for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP) program was established in 2000 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to strengthen bioterrorism and emergency preparedness by linking academic expertise to state and local health a ...

* Pennsylvania & Ohio Public Health Training Center *

University of Pittsburgh Epidemiology Data Center The Epidemiology Data Center (EDC) is recognized as an official University Center at the University of Pittsburgh; and is part of the Department of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. The EDC was formed in ...

* Center for Healthy Environments & Communities * Public Health Dynamics Laboratory * Center for LGBT Health Research * Health Policy Institute * Epidemiology Data Center * Diabetes Prevention Support Center * Center for Aging and Population Health

References

Sources

External links

Pitt Public Health

University of Pittsburgh

Association of Schools of Public Health
{{DEFAULTSORT:University Of Pittsburgh School Of Public Health University of Pittsburgh Medical and health organizations based in Pennsylvania Schools of public health in the United States Educational institutions established in 1948 University of Pittsburgh Medical Center 1948 establishments in Pennsylvania