UH ready to revive School of Public Health

By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer

Less than two years after it was summarily executed — the victim of infighting, lagging research, money troubles, and dwindling enrollments — the University of Hawai'i School of Public Health is heading for a rebirth.

In its new incarnation, it could become a source of expertise for the state on both bioterrorism and unexpected threats such as the recent outbreak of dengue fever.

Dr. Edwin Cadman, dean of the John A. Burns School of Medicine, expects to name a new associate dean of public health within the next six weeks. Four additional epidemiologists already have been recruited for the faculty and for research.

After it lost accreditation in mid-1999, remnants of the School of Public Health became part of the medical school. Cadman is pushing to regain accreditation in epidemiology, the first of five areas of strength the school must build. The other four are biostatistics, behavioral health, environmental health and healthcare policy.

"This state needs to have a presence in public health and there's no better way to do this than get the school reaccredited," said Cadman, who has championed a reinvigorated School of Public Health since the first week he took over at the medical school two years ago.

"When they disaccredited it, it became part of the medical school. What we're committed to is reaccrediting it and splitting it off," he said.

That could happen as quickly as four years, considered "fast-tracking" in academic circles. Accreditation in epidemiology could come as early as spring, when the Council on Education for Public Health, the national independent accrediting body, makes a site visit.

"What we wanted to do was work on the educational program that most people in this country want to be trained in," said Cadman. "Seventy percent are in epidemiology. The epidemiology of disease — that's what dengue and anthrax is about."

While none of this recent activity is a direct result of the anthrax scares or the dengue fever outbreak, both have given new urgency to the effort to rebuild a strong and broadly based system of graduate degrees in public health.

"We would have expertise in some of these areas, and we would be a resource for the state," said Cadman. "Instead of calling people on the Mainland, we would have the intellectual resources."

F. DeWolfe Miller, chairman of the public health services department within the medical school, has been leading the drive to reaccredit a School of Public Health.

"It's like night and day," said Miller. "We've gone from having a lack of academic value (for public health) to support. It's so refreshing to have that. I'm wedded entirely to this vision."

When the school closed in June 2000, the research budget for public health was nonexistent; now it's $1.5 million annually, and growing. Commitments for research funding pulled in by the medical school as a whole have doubled in the past year, growing to approximately $60 million this year.

The dramatic increase in research money will help underwrite rebuilding public health capabilities, said Cadman.

An equally important reason for rebuilding the school is the traditional role it has played in training health officials throughout the Pacific and Asia, its supporters say. "Pick an Asian country," said Cadman, "and we've trained somebody there."

Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.