Self-Study Report Prepared for the Council on Education for Public Health July 2017 the Public Health Oath
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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH SELF-STUDY REPORT PREPARED FOR THE COUNCIL ON EDUCATION FOR PUBLIC HEALTH JULY 2017 THE PUBLIC HEALTH OATH Health is a human right. The public health community exists to safeguard that right. I believe it is a defining element of a civil society. Public health represents the collective actions necessary to protect the health of all people. Through prevention science and practice we can accomplish this goal. As a public health professional, guided by these principles, I declare the following: I will work to ensure that people have the chance to live full and productive lives, free from avoidable disease, injury, and disability and supported in their pursuit of physical, mental, and social well-being. I will hold myself to the highest ethics, standards, values, and responsi- bilities as I move forward the science and practice of public health. I will respect the rights, values, beliefs, and cultures of those individuals and communities with whom I work. I will rely on evidence to support my decisions and actions, and translate that evidence into policies and programs that improve health for all. I will add to the body of research and knowledge and share my discoveries freely. I will continuously seek new information and be open to ideas that can better protect and promote the health of populations. I will advance health literacy for all and seek equity and justice for vulnerable populations. With this oath, I commit to the ideals and mission of public health. Executive Summary At the Mailman School of Public Health, we are constantly examining the challenges and opportunities facing the School, the landscape in public health education, and the complex and emerging issues of our world. Our CEPH self-study report is based on this examination and includes data and critical analyses of how the School meets CEPH standards. This period of self-reflection has provided an opportunity for the School and our internal and external stakeholders to come together, assess our progress towards achieving our mission, and determine how we can continue to transform what we can and should do to improve the health of populations in New York City, the United States, and across the globe. As we reflected on our challenges, opportunities, and future plans, some key points emerged and will guide our future path. The Mailman School is committed to identifying and implementing the innovations needed to lead in the 21stst century. In 2012, after an extensive school-wide strategic planning initiative, we transformed our MPH degree program and built a strong central Office of Education to assess continually what schools of public health need to teach their students to lead in in public health knowledge and translation into practice, now and in the coming decades—in 2020 and in 2050. We have worked to ensure that we assess in an ongoing manner our interdisciplinary model to improve its quality and thereby student experience. We also continue to share both process and results of the evaluations of educational programs through the peer-reviewed literature. The Mailman School offers an extraordinary range of venues for learning, service and engagement. We continue to create more opportunities, as exemplified by our leadership of the Global Consortium on Climate Change and Health, bringing together health profession schools across the world to deliver curricula on the health effects of climate change. At the same time, we are identifying ways to broaden our reach, diversifying our educational offerings beyond our well-established degree programs, and examining how to expand the School’s enrollment to new audiences with new learning formats. The dual goal is to increase the opportunities for training in public health and to diversify the funding base consistent with the mission of the School. Increasing interdisciplinarity in our research and in our approach to public health solutions represents a challenge and an opportunity. The School’s current research portfolio contains both strong discipline- based and collaborative research across multiple departments, schools and centers. At the same time, to pursue large-scale interdisciplinary science projects, the School needs to enhance its capacity for investigators to respond with agility, provide key administrative supports, and implement practices and policies that reward collaborative science. Toward that end, a school-wide initiative has been launched to create and support interdisciplinary research teams that can secure large grants and conduct high-impact science. We are also transitioning our research funding base to include not only NIH and CDC, but other federal agencies. The school has also invested in a new office, Columbia Population Health Partnerships, to build partnerships with the corporate and governmental sector to further the areas of our research and translation mission. One key goal for recruitment and for the shared experience of our faculty, students and staff—our entire community—is inclusivity. As the School launched the Office of Diversity and Inclusion in the last year and hired a dynamic new leader, we are determined to ensure that our community enriches and benefits from all its members. We recognize that this is a complex challenge. It demands providing access to diverse applicants in admissions and in faculty recruitment and retention, opening avenues for the entire community to engage fully, and in providing our faculty, students, and staff with skills and perspectives to ensure an inclusive environment where diversity is recognized, respected, and valued. The result is an agenda of curricular and co-curricular activities—our Self, Social and Global Awareness (SSGA) program for students, and an Inclusive Teaching Institute for faculty—that engage our community. We continue to share with our colleagues in public health that the work we do is more important now than ever. As we graduated the Class of 2017, we recognize that changes, from demographic shifts like aging and challenges like the opioid crisis and climate change, call for a skilled and empowered public health workforce. The School is responding in multiple ways, by diversifying funding sources to ensure solid financial footing in an uncertain funding environment, intensifying advancement efforts to support scholarships and endowments for a diverse community, and to expanding its efforts to increase access to public health training. Our commitment to advancing our mission, to our core public health values, and to ongoing transformative innovation has never been stronger. List of Abbreviations Abbreviation Name APHA American Public Health Association ARS Audience Response System ASPPH Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health AY Academic Year BCS Biostatistics Consulting Service BEST Biostatistics Epidemiology Summer Training Diversity Program BIO Department of Biostatistics BPI Bard Prison Initiative CAC Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center CAHME Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Management Education CAPRISA Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa CCCEH Columbia Children’s Center for Environmental Health CCNMTL Columbia Center for New Media Teaching and Learning CDC Centers for Disease Control CEHNM Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan CII Center for Infection and Immunity COAP Committee on Appointments and Promotions COAP Committee on Appointments and Promotions CPH Certified in Public Health CPHP Columbia Population Health Partnerships CPRC Columbia Population Research Center CTL Center for Teaching and Learning CTSA Clinical and Translational Science award CU Columbia University CUBED Columbia University Biostatistics and Epidemiology Digital education CUIT Columbia University Information Technology CUMC Columbia University Medical Center CUMC IT Columbia University Medical Center Information Technology CUNY City University New York CV Curriculum Vitae DAG Dean's Advisory Group DAI Development Alternatives, Inc. DDS Doctor of Dental Surgery DLT Dean's Leadership Team DOD Department of Defense DrPH Doctor of Public Health EHS Department of Environmental Health Sciences EHESP École des Hautes Études en Santé Publique EOAA Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action EPI Department of Epidemiology Abbreviation Name EPIC Epidemiology and Population Health Summer Institute ERF Electronic Resource File EXEC Executive program format Exec MS Executive Master of Science in Epidemiology FAIR Financial Allocation of Institutional Resources FDA Food and Drug Administration FTE Full time equivalent FY Fiscal Year GCD Genetics of Complex Diseases program GCR Greater Community Reach GOSO Getting Out and Staying Out GPH General Public Health GRA Graduate research assistantship GRAPH Global Research Analytics for Population Health GRS Getting Ready for School GSA Graduate Student Association HC Head Count HEOR Health Economics Outcomes Research HIPAA Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus HPM Department of Health Policy and Management HPMN Health Policy and Management course number designation HSL Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library IARC International Agency for Research on Cancer ICAP International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment ICR Indirect Cost Recovery IELTS International English Language Testing System IFPRI International Food Policy Research Institute IMSD Initiative for Maximizing Student Development INEE Inter-Agency Network for Emergency Education IN Incomplete notation