Dean's Message

Choosing a career is an important and exciting prospect and I am delighted that you are considering a public health education at the University of North Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health. As you may know, public health differs from many of the other health professions in several ways.

First, public health is not directed at individuals but at entire populations. Whereas many health workers are trained to treat disease or health problems that have already occurred, public health workers focus their efforts and training on preventing these problems from occurring and/or intervening as soon as possible so as to reduce their consequences on the population at large.

Second, public health is not a discipline but a field of practice that utilizes the skills and training of numerous health professions. For example, the membership of the American Public Health Association, the oldest and largest society of public health workers in the world, consists of individuals who represent seventy-seven different disciplines. What unites public health workers is their interest, education, and commitment to promote health and prevent disease.

Public health endeavors have been very successful. For example, historically, research has clearly demonstrated that the tremendous advances in longevity of life have had more to do with improvements in public health than in advances in medicine and other disciplines. In 1900, the average life expectancy of Americans was fewer than fifty years; in 1990 that life expectancy had climbed to more than seventy-five years. This increase is attributed primarily to improvements in sanitation and working conditions as well as the control of infectious diseases through immunizations and other public health interventions. Population-based preventive programs launched since the 1970s are also largely responsible for the more recent changes in tobacco use, blood pressure control, certain dietary practices, and injury control measures, which have variously fostered declines of more than 50 percent in deaths due to strokes, 40 percent in deaths due to coronary heart disease, and 25 percent in overall death rates for children.

Numerous health disciplines offer the satisfaction derived from the provision of direct patient care. Public health is unique among the health fields in that it offers the opportunity to have a major impact on the health of whole populations. Public health is a profession where you can indeed make the world a better place to live for the present population as well as for generations of individuals yet to come.

Our faculty, students and staff are committed to providing the highest quality of practice-based public health education and research, meeting the needs of the working professional, and assuring that our state and nation address the public health needs of our diverse populations.