The Tufts University School of Medicine will now offer a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) degree program, to enroll its first class in the fall of 2013.
Associate Program Director of DrPH Janet Forrester explained that demand from students in the Masters in Public Health program was a major factor in the degree's creation.
"Many of [the students] expressed an interest in staying at Tufts after they completed their Masters in Public Health," Forrester, who is also an associate professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, said.
The program was designed to respond to an increased demand for public health professionals, according to Aviva Must, dean of Public Health and Professional Degree Programs and a professor in and chair of the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine.
"There is a projected workforce need for well-trained doctoral level public health professionals," Must told the Daily in an email.
The School of Medicine also felt the medical community would benefit from a doctoral program in public health through Tufts.
"We thought that Tufts had unique strengths that we could bring to address this need," Forrester said.
The School of Medicine had wanted to create a doctorate program in this area for some time, Forrester said. A committee comprised of public health faculty created a strategic plan and decided a doctoral program would be the goal, she said.
"A committee of interested faculty worked for over a year to research existing programs, define our particular emphases, establish the curriculum and develop a comprehensive proposal," Must said.
Public health faculty at the School of Medicine also wanted to train students at the doctoral level.
"Our faculty [was] eager to train a select group of students at the doctoral level to provide leadership in public health," Must said.
Forrester added that for faculty, training doctoral students is a different and rewarding experience.
"It adds richness to your life to train students who are one step away from being your colleagues," she said.
The program's faculty will come from the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, faculty in related fields from around the university and adjunct faculty in and outside of Boston, according to Must.
Forrester believes that Tufts' dedication to faculty collaboration in teaching and research will add a unique interdisciplinary dimension to the program.
"This is an excellent environment for the training of doctoral students with an interdisciplinary focus," she said.
There are only two other DrPH programs in New England, and Tufts is the only one with an interdisciplinary focus, according to Forrester.
The DrPH program will feature advanced coursework in public health disciplines, one or more apprenticeships to fulfill competencies and a dissertation, according to Must.
Forrester hopes to bring both an interdisciplinary focus and academic rigor to the program.
"We need to keep the training at a leadership and doctoral level," she said.
A DrPH, unlike a Ph.D., is a degree accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health.
"Because it's an accredited degree, there are certain skill sets and competencies that are required of everybody," Forrester said.
She added that the program is ideal for students with a Masters in Public Health or another allied health field who want to receive further training after working in a public health field.
Although prospective students will be required to have a background in public health or a Masters in Public Health, the program is intended to serve students from a wide variety of backgrounds, according to Forrester.
"What we hope to be able to offer students is a flexible curriculum that will work with their current skill set," she said.
A committee comprising faculty in the public health field designed the program with the intention of distinguishing it from other similar programs both in New England and across the country, according to Forrester. The committee determined that leaders trained with an interdisciplinary Doctorate in Public Health were needed in the community.
"We are uniquely positioned to answer this need," Forrester said.
The committee then reached out to faculty, colleagues and peers in the public health sector for input, according to Forrester. Following that, the committee created a vision for the program that we presented to the Board of Trustees, Forrester explained.
"This was a vision that many people contributed to," she said.
Must hopes the program will benefit both students and the community at large.
"I anticipate that through their research our doctoral students will contribute to the evidence base need to effect improvement in public health and health care, locally, nationally and globally," she said.
