More schools of public health: a worldwide need

This article asserts an urgent need for more schools of public health to produce an adequate supply of personnel capable of dealing with the health problems of the world population. Although there is a need for 450 schools of public health worldwide (1 for every 10 million population), there are currently fewer than 100 independent schools, with 23 concentrated in the United States alone. The benefits of independence from medical schools are stressed. The academic environment of patient-oriented clinical medicine is posited not to be conducive to the growth of the community-oriented public health discipline. The need for expansion exists in both developing and industrialized countries, although shortages are greater in less developed areas. Effective schools of public health should welcome students from a variety of backgrounds and serve as centers for the research and evaluation of national health systems.