ECU to offer master of public health degree next fall

(4/10/03) — East Carolina University is gearing up to begin offering the master of public health degree next fall, in hopes of providing another important tool in the effort to improve rural health in eastern North Carolina.

It is anticipated that about 20 students will be enrolled in the 2003-2004 academic year. Within a few years, the program is expected to admit 25 full-time students and 15 part-time students annually.

The program will be distinctive in the state in several respects. It will be administered within ECU's Brody School of Medicine by the Division of Community Health and Preventive Medicine, a unit in ECU's nationally prominent Department of Family Medicine. And it will have as one of its stated purposes the closer integration of public health and medicine.

"Medicine's role in preventive health care can be greatly extended and improved with tools and concepts of public health," said Chris Mansfield, Ph.D., who is serving as interim director of the program. "Medicine usually deals with a problem after it has developed. Yet there are no pills to prevent poor nutrition, obesity, exposure to environmental toxins, occupational injury, child abuse, or behaviors that lead to heart disease and stroke. Public health looks upstream to address the conditions that give rise to disease."

Full-time students will be able to complete the 42-semester hour curriculum in a year and a half, according to Mansfield. To make the program more convenient for those wishing to attend part-time, students may begin in fall, spring or summer terms and all courses will be offered in the evening or late afternoon. Many courses will have components accessible through distance learning technologies.

Preference will be given to in-state students likely to remain in the region.

Mansfield expects that many of the students for the program will already be involved in public health-related careers but desire formal training. Among them would be physicians, nurses, and allied health professionals. Other likely candidates might be students considering graduate education in medicine, social work, health administration, or the social sciences for whom the public health training would be complementary.

Currently, master's-prepared public health professionals are in short supply in eastern North Carolina. A study in 1999 revealed over 200 annual job openings in the east for people with the MPH degree. Planners decided that existing MPH programs in the state couldn't supply all that are needed. Only the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC-Greensboro offer the MPH degree.

The ECU program has been tailored to produce graduates who can help address the health problems of rural and minority communities, of which there is no shortage.

Although physician supply and the quality and scope of hospital care in eastern North Carolina have dramatically improved in the last 20 years, the region is still plagued by chronic disease and an overall mortality rate that is 12 percent higher than the rest of the state. Indeed, if the region were itself a state, it would rank 50th in the country in premature death, according to Mansfield.

To address this disparity will require "a transformation in the practice of public health and medicine," said Mansfield, one that emphasizes prevention, health promotion, strategic partnerships and greater efficiency. Additional appropriately trained public health professionals are needed to provide leadership in planning and implementing this change.

An interdisciplinary faculty will teach the MPH courses, drawing on the talents of professors from ECU's schools of medicine, health and human performance, nursing, allied health sciences, social work and its social sciences department. The program is being offered in collaboration with UNC's School of Public Health and the North Carolina Area Health Education Centers program.

Persons interested in the ECU MPH can see a description of the program at www.ecu.edu/mph or contact Mansfield at mansfieldc@mail.ecu.edu or 252-744-2785.