More Academic Medical Centers Adding Population Health Focus
In 2008, Thomas Jefferson University became the first academic medical center to host a College of Population Health. Recognizing the growing importance of population health, many universities are creating similar colleges or departments, including the recently launched college at the University of Houston.
Founded in 2016, the University of New Mexico’s College of Population Health was the second college of its kind in the U.S., and the first to offer a Bachelor of Science in Population Health degree. The College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University also offers degrees in population health.
At the University of Texas at Austin, the Department of Population Health focuses on improving the overall health and well-being of residents of Austin, Travis County and Central Texas, as well as creating a national model for population health engagement, research and policy. The department hosts a Primary Care, Family and Community Medicine Clerkship in which each Dell Medical School student spends two years in a continuity community clinic. Students also engage with community organizations helping people overcome social barriers to health and have the option to conduct a population health research project during their third year.
Now several other universities are creating similar programs. The University of Houston has just launched UH Population Health, an initiative working to advance health equity in Houston, the state of Texas and beyond through a holistic approach to health and well-being.
A story on the UH website says that the university “is taking a multifaceted, University-wide approach to reduce health disparities and health care costs by addressing the full range of factors that affect health, such as access to healthy food, healthy behaviors, the environment, the health care system and other key factors.”
UH is currently working on 27 population health research grants totaling nearly $37 million. These projects range from a National Institutes of Health-funded projects that aim to ensure the technology of machine learning benefits everyone and bolster the pipeline of diverse health faculty researchers in the field of obesity health disparities to a pending CDC-funded national initiative to address COVID-19 health disparities among high-risk populations,
Bettina Beech, Dr.PH., M.P.H., is the chief population health officer at the University of Houston and founder of UH Population Health. Beech is also an appointed professor and clinical professor in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health Sciences at UH College of Medicine. “We are creating a space for internal and external thought leaders to gather, co-create, test and launch evidence-based solutions for chronic disease self-management,” she said. “Improving our nation’s health will take a concerted effort, but UH Population Health stands at the precipice of leaving an indelible mark on our community and the world,” she said in a statement.
Prior to coming to UH, she served as the associate vice chancellor for population health and founding dean of the John D. Bower School of Population Health at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, the third such school in the country, founded in 2016.
Other health colleges are creating population health departments. For instance, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center’s College of Nursing has created a new Department of Community and Population Health, led by Prof. Sarah Jane Rhoads, Ph.D., D.N.P. She is the principal investigator on a nearly $3 million HRSA grant to the college that has the goal of improving health care for women and children in underserved and rural areas of the Delta. She also was integral to the college’s recent designation by the South Central Telehealth Resource Center as a telehealth training site for Tennessee.
And, of course, Jefferson continues to expand its offerings, with two on-site programs and six online programs for working professionals. It hosts two centers for population health research and a Center for Population Health Innovation, which serves as the bridge between its academic programs and the external professional community.
