Establish A.B. in Public Health for the College of Letters & Science
Description of and Reasons for Anticipated Action
There is great interest and demand for Public Health courses among undergraduates at Berkeley as evidenced by the fact that health topics are the number one subscribed content area for the De-Cal courses and 37% of the School of Public Health's current student contact hours involve undergraduate students. It will offer Berkeley undergraduates an opportunity to explore public health as a base for learning more about careers in the life and health sciences, which they may wish to pursue in graduate school as well as equipping them for entry-level jobs in the health sector. It also offers an opportunity for increased recruitment of talented students to the health professions; including those from minority and under-represented groups. The upper division undergraduate major in Public Health will compliment the School's current graduate level program offerings. For example, the undergraduate courses will provide additional graduate student instructor (GSI) opportunities for the graduate students.
Relationship to Existing Campus Programs, Units, and Mission
There are no existing undergraduate majors similar to the proposed major in Public Health outside of biological science majors. There are, of course, a number of individual undergraduate courses related to Public Health content (including those offered by School of Public Health faculty) but no related major of which we are aware.
Resources
Initially the undergraduate upper division major will be launched without any immediate increase in faculty. Over time, the new major will require approximately three new faculty most probably in the areas of immunology/vaccinology, social epidemiology, and environmental health science. The new major will also require the provision of a fulltime student administrative officer (SAO) to oversee the management of the program and sufficient graduate student instructor (GSI) support for the five required core courses. The usual recruitment packages for new faculty will be needed and possibly lab space if the new recruits are lab-b
Funding
Funding for the fulltime SAO and the GSIs for the required core courses will be requested from the campus. Requests for additional faculty slots will also be requested from the campus.
Students
We plan initially to cap the number of students at 100 such that by the end of the second year of the program 200 students will be taking Public Health as an upper division major.
Employment Implications
Given the shortage of Public Health workers in California and the nation, we believe that there will be a demand for undergraduates with a major in Public Health on the part of various public and private not-for-profit public health agencies. At the same time, it is likely that a number of students will choose to pursue graduate work in the life sciences or the health professions.
UC Campuses and Other California Institutions with Similar Offerings
To our knowledge, no other UC campus has an upper division undergraduate major in Public Health. It is our understanding that UCLA is exploring developing an undergraduate minor in Public Health. We do not have any information regarding what the state college system or junior college system is doing in this area.
Anticipated Campus Review and Implementation Date
We plan to have the proposal ready for review by March 1, 2003. If possible, we would like to have the implementation date to begin Fall 2003, and, in any event, no later than Fall, 2004.
Campus Contact Person
Professor Steve Selvin, Professor of Biostatistics, Department of Biostatistics
School of Public Health, 110 Haviland Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720
phone: 510/642-4618
fax: 510/643-5163