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The Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is the public health school of Harvard University, located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. The school grew out of the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers,[3][4][5][6][7] the nation's first graduate training program in population health, which was founded in 1913 and then became the Harvard School of Public Health in 1922.
 | |
Former name | Harvard School of Public Health |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Established | 1913 |
Parent institution | Harvard University |
| Dean | Andrea Baccarelli |
Academic staff | 465[1] |
| Students | 984[1] |
| 422[2] | |
| Location | , Massachusetts , U.S. 42.335390°N 71.102793°W |
| Website | www |
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Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health traces its origins to the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers, which was founded in 1913. Harvard calls it "the nation's first graduate training program in public health." In 1922, the School for Health Officers became the Harvard School of Public Health.
The school was part of Harvard Medical School until 1946, when it became a fully autonomous institution with its own dedicated public health and medical faculty.[8] It was renamed the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in 2014 in honor of a $350 million donation, the largest in Harvard's history at the time, from the Morningside Foundation,[9] run by Harvard School of Public Health alumnus Gerald Chan, SM '75, SD '79, and Ronnie Chan, both of whom were sons of T.H. Chan.[10][11]
Leadership
The current dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health is Andrea Baccarelli, an environmental health scholar who entered the role in January 2024.[JS1] [JS2] Prior to becoming dean, Baccarelli previously served as the Leon Hess Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and taught at the Harvard Chan School as an Associate Professor from 2010 to 2016.[12][13]
Prior to Baccarelli, the role of interim dean was filled by Jane Kim, who also serves as Dean for Academic Affairs and K.T. Li Professor of Health Economics in the school's Department of Health Policy and Management.[14]
Other past deans include:
- Michelle Ann Williams, an epidemiologist who served from 2016 to 2023 and was the first Black dean of a Harvard School's faculty.
- Julio Frenk, the former Mexican government's Secretary of Health who led the school from 2009 to 2015. Following his tenure at the Harvard Chan School, Frenk became president of the University of Miami and will become chancellor of UCLA in 2025.[15]
- Harvey V. Fineberg, a health policy expert who led the launch of several interdisciplinary programs.[16]
- Howard H. Hiatt, a Harvard-trained physician who also served as physician-in-chief at Beth Israel Hospital.[17]
In 2016, following Frenk's departure, was appointed the School's new dean.[18]
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The Master of Public Health program offers ten fields of study:
- Clinical Effectiveness (CLE)
- Epidemiology (EPI)
- Generalist (GEN)
- Global Health and Population (GHP)
- Health and Social Behavior (HSB)
- Health Management (HM)
- Health Policy (HP)
- Occupational and Environmental Health (OEH)
- Quantitative Methods (QM)
- Nutrition (NUT)[19]
Degree programs offered by specific departments:
- Biostatistics: SM, PhD
- Environmental Health (EH): SM, MPH, PhD, DrPH
- Epidemiology (EPI): SM, DrPH
- Molecular Metabolism: PhD
- Health Policy: SM, MPH, PhD
- Health Care Management: SM, MPH
- Immunology and Infectious Diseases: PhD
- Nutrition (NUT): MPH, DrPH, PhD
- Global Health and Population (GHP): SM, MPH, PhD
- Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS): SM, MPH, PhD, DrPH
- Population Health Sciences (Interdisciplinary PhD within departments of EH, EPI, GHP, NUT, and SBS)
The school offers a variety of degrees with criteria designed to target unique curriculum needs and a wide range of student populations, including online and hybrid degrees. The Harvard Chan School's master's of public health (MPH) and master's in health care management (MHCM) are designed for those aiming to spend their career in professional practice, while master's of science (SM) degrees are geared for aspiring researchers.[20] Students pursuing MPHs or SMs can elect to target their degrees for a number of different credit hours to better match their educational goals.[21]
In addition, the school offers two doctoral degrees: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) and Doctor of Public Health (DrPH). PhD programs are offered under the aegis of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
The DrPH was launched in 2014 as a multidisciplinary degree providing advanced education in public health along with mastery of skills in management, leadership, communications, and innovation thinking. The program is a cohort-based program emphasizing small-group learning and collaboration. The program is designed for three years – two years at Harvard, plus one year in a field-based doctoral project – although some students may take up to four years to complete the program.[22]
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- The Nurses' Health Study and Nurses' Health Study II, which have followed the health of over 100,000 nurses from 1976 to the present; its results have been used in hundreds of published papers.[23]
- The Health Professionals Follow-up Study, a similar study of over fifty thousand male health professionals seeking to connect diet, exercise, smoking, and medications taken to frequency of cancer and cardiovascular disease.[24]
- The International Health Systems Program, which has provided training or technical assistance to projects in 21 countries and conducts health policy research.[25]
- The Program on the Global Demography of Aging, which studies policy issues related to economics of aging with a focus on the developing world.[26]
- The Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness, to "help identify how positive aspects of living can lead to better health and a longer life"[27] and "coordinate research across many disciplines at Harvard University" and "understanding the complex interplay between positive psychological well-being and human health."[28][29][30][31][32][33]
- The Health Systems Innovation Lab, which specializes in comparative health systems research and transition to the high value health systems model through targeted innovation, policy and practice. Led by Prof. Rifat Atun, the Lab uses its research, education, innovation and translation activities to work with governments, private sector, multilateral entities, and civil society to promote policy and practice, and accelerate the diffusion of health system innovations for large-scale population level impact.[34]
- The Harvard Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment (C-CHANGE) leads research projects that explore the impacts of climate change on human health and the design of climate actions to maximize health benefits, particularly for the most vulnerable populations.[35]
- The Thich Nhat Hanh Center for Mindfulness in Public Health pursues evidence-based approaches to utilize the principles of mindfulness to improve health and well-being.[36]
- The Center for Health Communication leads the Harvard Chan School's work to effectively communicate public health information through the clutter of modern media landscapes. The center's collaboration with Hollywood studios to promote designated drivers was essential in changing the national conversation around drunk driving.[37] The center has recently launched a program partnering with content creators on mental health research.[38]
- Harvard's Maternal and Child Health Center of Excellence, which is one of just 13 such centers funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration. The center produces and disseminates information to improve the well-being of mothers and children, and trains future leaders in the field as part of the school's concentration in maternal and child health.[39]
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- Joseph G. Allen, public health expert, director of the Healthy Buildings program
- Andrea Baccarelli, epigeneticist, clinical endocrinologist, and dean of school of public health
- Katherine Baicker, economist, a former member of the Council of Economic Advisers
- Robert Blendon, political strategy of health and public opinion expert
- Barry Bloom, immunologist and former dean
- David Bloom, economist
- Joseph Brain, physiologist and environmental health researcher
- David Canning, economist
- Richard A. Cash, American global health researcher, developed oral rehydration therapy (ORT)
- Marcia Caldas de Castro, demographer
- Lauren M. Childs, mathematician, Ruth I. Michler Memorial Prize recipient
- Douglas Dockery, epidemiologist
- Francesca Dominici, senior associate dean for research, professor of biostatistics, data scientist, and air pollution expert
- Arnold Epstein, department chair for health policy and management
- Max Essex, HIV researcher
- Sarah Fortune, immunologist
- Julio Frenk, former dean of school of public health and former Secretary of Health of Mexico
- Atul Gawande, general and endocrine surgeon
- Sue Goldie, physician and decision scientist, MacArthur fellowship recipient
- John Graham, policy and decision scientist, former director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
- Laurie Glimcher, immunologist
- Alice Hamilton, occupational health and toxicology; first woman appointed to the faculty of Harvard University[40]
- David Hemenway, economist and injury prevention expert
- Albert Hofman, epidemiologist
- William Hsiao, economist
- Frank Hu, epidemiologist and nutrition researcher
- David Hunter, epidemiologist, Acting Dean of the Faculty and former Dean for Academic Affairs at School of Public Health
- Curtis Huttenhower, computational biologist
- Ashish Jha (MPH'04 and former faculty) served as Dean for Global Strategy 2018–2020[41]
- Ichiro Kawachi, social epidemiologist
- Howard Koh, public health researcher, the 14th Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
- Margaret Elizabeth Kruk, public health expert, physician, and health systems researcher
- Nan Laird, biostatistician, former head of department
- Alexander H. Leighton, psychiatric epidemiologist
- Richard Levins, ecologist and mathematical biologist
- Xihong Lin, biostatistician and mathematician, 2006 COPSS Presidents' Award recipient
- Jun S. Liu, biostatistician and mathematician, 2002 COPSS Presidents' Award recipient
- Bernard Lown, co-founded the Nobel Peace Prize-winning group Physicians for Social Responsibility; founder of the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation
- Adetokunbo Lucas, former director of Tropical Diseases Research at the World Health Organization (WHO)
- Brian MacMahon, cancer epidemiologist
- Sezan Mahmud, Writer and university professor
- Christopher Murray, physician and health economist
- Kari Nadeau, immunologist
- Joseph Newhouse, economist and director of the RAND Health Insurance Experiment
- Shuji Ogino, pioneer in molecular pathological epidemiology
- John Quackenbush, computational biologist and genome scientist
- Eric Rubin, editor-in-chief of New England Journal of Medicine
- James Robins, epidemiologist and biostatistician
- Pardis Sabeti, computational biologist, medical geneticist and evolutionary geneticist
- Benjamin P. Sachs, Harold H. Rosenfield Professor at Harvard Medical School
- Amartya Sen, economist, Nobel laureate in Economics
- Gita Sen, feminist scholar and specialist in international population policy
- Frank E. Speizer, physician and epidemiologist
- Andrew Spielman, public health entomologist
- Frederick J. Stare, controversial chair of Nutrition Institute
- James H. Ware, biostatistician
- Thomas Huckle Weller, Nobel laureate in Physiology and Medicine
- George C. Whipple, cofounder of School in 1922[42]
- Dan Wikler, public health and medical ethicist, philosopher
- Walter Willett, physician and nutrition researcher
- David Williams, sociologist and epidemiologist
- Michelle Ann Williams, epidemiologist and former dean of school of public health
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There are over 13,484 alumni.[43]
- Anthony Irvine Adams, 2001 Alumni Award of Merit for a distinguished service in public health practice
- James B. Aguayo-Martel, pioneer in ophthalmology
- Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway, former Director-General of the World Health Organization
- Eli Capilouto, 12th president of the University of Kentucky
- Mandy Cohen, MPH 2004, physician, current Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Raquel Eidelman Cohen, MPH 1945, child psychiatrist and international authority on psychological and social consequences of disasters
- Humayun Chaudhry, President and CEO of the Federation of State Medical Boards
- Mary Cushman, Professor of Medicine and Pathology in the Robert Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont.[44]
- Winston Dang, head of Taiwan's Environmental Protection Administration (2004–08)[45]
- Jonathan Fielding, Director Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, editor in chief of the Annual Review of Public Health
- William Foege, MPH 1965, physician, former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Janina R. Galler, PI and Director of 45+-year Barbados Nutrition Study in the Lesser Antilles, in the Americas, showing the intergenerational legacy of poverty and disadvantage from childhood malnutrition.
- Steven K. Galson, former Acting Surgeon General of the United States
- Atul Gawande, surgical safety pioneer, MacArthur Fellow, Rhodes Scholar
- Sue Goldie, MacArthur Fellow and decision scientist
- Nadine Burke Harris, pediatrician and first Surgeon General of California
- Tara O. Henderson, Arthur and Marian Edelstein Professor of Pediatrics, Pritzker School of Medicine
- Stephen W. Hwang, physician, medical academic, and population health epidemiologist
- Timothy Johnson, chief medical correspondent for ABC News
- Karl Lauterbach, German politician (SPD), served as Federal Minister of Health since 8 December 2021
- Alberto P. León, MD, MPH, former Secretary of Health, Mexico
- John S. Marr, MD, MPH, epidemiologist and author.
- Jonathan Mann, former head of the World Health Organization global HIV/AIDS program
- James O. Mason, former Acting Surgeon General of the United States, former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
- Shuji Ogino, pioneer in molecular pathological epidemiology
- Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih, former Minister of Health of Indonesia
- David J. Sencer, longest-serving Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention[46]
- Carl G. Streed, physician, researcher, and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community
- Lai Ching-te, physician, current Vice president of the Republic of China since 2020, current DPP presidential candidate for the 2024 Taiwanese presidential election.
- Rochelle Walensky, MPH 2001, former Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention[47]
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