University at Buffalo - The State University of New York

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  “This accreditation aids us in carrying out the mission of public health—to help prevent and treat health problems that shorten lives and sap the quality of life, and to train public health and health professionals in an environment focused on wellness, disease prevention, and environmental and population issues.”

  Dean Lynn Kozlowski

By LOIS BAKER

Published: November 11, 2009

The School of Public Health and Health Professions (SPHHP) has earned full accreditation from the Council on Education for Public Health for five years, the maximum for an initial accreditation.

Accreditation was the culmination of a rigorous multi-year, peer-review process. UB’s SPHHP now is one of only 43 schools in the U.S. to hold membership in the Association of Schools of Public Health.

“When the school was founded in 2003, the vision was to become accredited and join the first rank of public health schools in the country,” said Dean Lynn T. Kozlowski. “I’m proud that we have accomplished this on our first effort.

“This accreditation aids us in carrying out the mission of public health—to help prevent and treat health problems that shorten lives and sap the quality of life, and to train public health and health professionals in an environment focused on wellness, disease prevention, and environmental and population issues.

“We have a significant shortage of public health workers,” continued Kozlowski, “and this shortage challenges us in Western New York, in the state, in the nation and in the world. We will need more than 250,000 public health workers by 2020 to meet the world’s health care needs—a challenge that is compounded by the impending retirement of nearly one-fourth of the current public health workforce. SPHHP now can ramp up its training of public health workers and help deal with this shortage.”

Accredited schools of public health must provide master of public health (MPH) degree programs in each of five core public health areas: epidemiology, biostatistics, environmental health, social and behavioral sciences, and health services administration. They also must offer at least three doctoral degree programs. UB’s SPHHP offers these five MPH degrees, plus three highly regarded doctoral programs in biostatistics, epidemiology, and community health and health behavior.

“Our MPH degree programs, coupled with health professions programs in exercise and nutrition sciences, and rehabilitation science, and our affiliations with several other UB professional schools, make this school a valuable asset locally and beyond,” said Kozlowski.

“Also of note, our programs in assistive technology, occupational therapy and physical therapy indicate we are acutely aware, perhaps more so than schools of public health without these programs, that disability is a public health issue of critical and increasing importance.”