Welcome to the College of Public Health and Health Professions at the University of Florida
2008 marks two important milestones for the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions: the 50th anniversary of our college and our pursuit of accreditation as a college of public health.
This year we recognize the administrators, faculty, students, staff and alumni who have helped to shape the college over the past decades into a highly ranked health education institution. At the same time, we celebrate the transformation of our college into an organization that brings together public health and health professions disciplines to collaborate in research, teaching and service.
We are also proud to note several significant accomplishments over the past year, including a yearlong lecture series and a host of special events to take place at a 50th anniversary weekend celebration in November; the approval of two new doctoral programs in epidemiology and biostatistics by the Florida Board of Governors; and the completion of a major step in the public health accreditation process — the self-study report for the Council on Education for Public Health. In addition, we established a public health and health professions demonstration projects program to support research that combines the talents of faculty in the college’s traditional health disciplines with those in public health.
The integration of public health into our college mirrors the innovative thinking by our college’s founders more than 50 years ago. Then-UF President J. Hillis Miller envisioned not just a medical center on UF’s campus, but a health center that would encompass prevention and health promotion. Our college’s first dean, Darrel J. Mase, led the development of a college that brought together the health professions disciplines and created an environment where health professions students and students in the other Health Science Center colleges — Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and later Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine — could learn from one another.
That same collaborative spirit drives our new educational model that brings together health professions and public health disciplines. We believe that what we learn in the care of individual patients by those in the health professions can better inform community programs in disease prevention and health promotion developed by public health practitioners. And public health’s population perspective helps health care providers determine what issues need to be addressed at the individual patient level.
Please tour our Web site to learn more about the exciting research, education and service activities going on at our college. We appreciate your interest in the College of Public Health and Health Professions and hope to see you on campus soon.
Michael G. Perri, Ph.D.
Interim Dean and Professor
College of Public Health and Health Professions
Gainesville, FL 32610
P.O. BOX 100185
352-273-6214
