DMS to Offer New Master of Public Health Degree

Hanover -- Dartmouth Medical School will launch a degree program for a master of public health (MPH) to help meet today's challenges in health planning and practice. The first class will enroll in September.

Approved by the Dartmouth Trustees last fall, the new graduate program will draw on the strengths of the Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences (CECS) in analyzing and applying strategies to reshape health care for the future. The MPH will be offered through Dartmouth's pioneering evaluative clinical sciences graduate program, the first of its kind when it was established in 1993.

The new degree program is designed for those who wish to research and improve the delivery of health care and have the potential to become leaders in the public health system. It will focus on health quality measurement and organization to improve health in human populations and particularly in Northern New England.

The CECS has a long tradition in the development of regional programs for northern New England and a highly regarded academic program that has awarded more than 250 master of science degrees and six PhDs in evaluative clinical sciences to students, according to program director Gerald O'Connor, PhD, professor of medicine and of community and family medicine. The MPH is a logical extension to meet broad regional needs, and also to augment existing graduate opportunities, he notes.

The 60 openings for CECS graduate students this year will include MPH candidates. O'Connor anticipates that the public health degree portion will be relatively small at first and grow as the program matures. A number of slots each year will be allocated to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center's new preventive medicine residency program, which will offer the MPH as part of the physician training. The mix of candidates will likely be similar to those now in the MS program, two-thirds of whom have a graduate or professional degree and often, experience in health care. Those who attend full time can complete the degree in one year, culminating in public health research experience or fieldwork in community or state agencies throughout the region, coordinated by the New Hampshire Area Health Education Center, headquartered at Dartmouth.

The curriculum will meet the requirements of the Council on Education for Public Health that calls for academics in five core areas: biostatistics, epidemiology, environmental health, health services administration, social and behavioral sciences. MPH candidates will also be able take electives from the existing CECS graduate programs to concentrate on areas of personal interest. The program will involve faculty from departments throughout the medical school and college, as well as state and university officials from Vermont and New Hampshire.

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