The focus of public health is grounded in:

• promotion of healthy environments and lifestyles
• improved design and management of our health system
• focused attention on vulnerable populations, and
• a need to discover better, more effective and efficient ways to prevent disease.

The USF College of Public Health is committed to providing state-of-the-art training to students and post-doctoral fellows in the methods and topics that will achieve health for all. Our research programs seek to learn how to better prevent and control disease in community and healthcare settings. College outreach is focused on partnerships with community-based organizations, local and state health departments, and national and global entities that seek to address the myriad causes and determinants of disease.

An exciting element of our discipline is just how interdisciplinary it is.  We find ourselves working with urban planners for design of parks and sidewalks to enhance exercise. We engage policymakers and healthcare professionals to examine costs, patient care quality, and innovations in systems.  We study the biological and societal underpinnings of important local and global diseases that may be infectious, nutritional, or lifestyle related. Discovery science, implementation science, and applied science are weaved into our school’s fabric to find better ways to protect health across the lifespan, from pregnancy through childhood into aging. Assaults to the public’s health can come from the obvious, as from a hurricane or a vaccine-preventable disease, or the hidden, as with salt-laden foods and persons lacking adequate health insurance. In public health, we seek solutions by preventing the cause, adapting to the threat, or mitigating the consequences. 

We welcome you to this journey of study and application. Prevention of illness and disease is a universal goal, shared by persons of every background or political persuasion. And few careers are as satisfying as one focused on prevention by promoting health and healthcare in our state, our nation, and our planet.

Sten Vermund, MD, PhD