The institutionalization of public health training and the health sciences

The health of the population is determined by a number of ecological determinants in addition to medical care. Therefore a close relationship exists with the social and political context in a society. With regard to the health care system, schools of public health as institutions for training, research, and services have to focus on four main deficits in the area of information, prevention, social gradients, and the regulation of health care delivery. A task profile derives which comprises (a) training for research and services, (b) monitoring population health and setting of priorities, (c) applied research on public health, (d) consulting the decision makers, and (e) intervention and public accountability. How to perform in these areas has to be related to basic ethical principles, notably, equity, participation, subsidiarity, sustainability, and efficiency. Furthermore, international trends in modern education have to be considered as for the European Union in the Bologna Declaration of 1999, with reference to academization and internationalization of advanced studies. The resulting institutional profile of modern schools of public health is characterized by their academic basis, interdisciplinarity, and multi-professionality. The paradigm of the New Public Health is an equal merger of medical and social sciences, a predominantly postgraduate study program, an international scope, close links to the government, local networks with service institutions, and a focus on contemporary health issues. In the former socialist economies of Central and Eastern Europe a regional collaboration beyond borders (the concept of regionality) is apt to support the achievement of international standards of excellence for newly developing schools of public health.