SUNY Downstate’s School of Public Health Receives Full Five-Year Accreditation
Dec 23, 2010
The School of Public Health at SUNY Downstate Medical Center has received full accreditation from the Council on Education for Public Health for the maximum period of five years. While the Council had previously accredited the school’s five Master of Public Health degree programs and four Doctor of Public Health degree programs, this is the first accreditation for the school itself.
Pascal James Imperato, MD, MPH&TM, founding dean and dean of the School of Public Health, said, “The accreditation of our school is a major milestone for Downstate, Brooklyn, and New York City. With an emphasis on urban and immigrant health, the school has already had a major impact on improving the health and well being of the people of Brooklyn through its numerous collaborative community-based health promotion and disease prevention programs.”
The SUNY Downstate School of Public Health is the first accredited school of public
health in the history of Brooklyn, and only the second such school in New York City.
It is also the first accredited school of public health at a publicly supported university
in New York City.
The multi-phase accreditation process for the school began in 2008 with the initiation
of a self-study process that involved many internal and external stakeholders. An
accreditation site visit took place in late June 2010, following the submission of
an extensive self-study document.
The School of Public Health began in 2001 as a Master of Public Health Program offering
one degree and admitted its first 12 students in 2002. Over the subsequent years,
the program's degree offerings and enrollment greatly expanded. With this growth,
the Master of Public Health Program became the Graduate Program in Public Health in
2008 and the School of Public Health in 2009. The school currently has an enrollment
of 125 students and over 100 alumni.
As an accredited school, the SUNY Downstate School of Public Health joins the ranks
of only forty-seven such schools nationally accredited and becomes eligible to compete
for millions of Federal dollars restricted to such schools. The school is now also
eligible to use the common application process for students that is sponsored by the
Association of Schools of Public Health, a privilege restricted to nationally accredited
schools.
###
About SUNY Downstate Medical Center
SUNY Downstate Medical Center, founded in 1860, was the first medical school in the United States to bring teaching out of the lecture hall and to the patient’s bedside. A center of innovation and excellence in research and clinical service delivery, SUNY Downstate Medical Center comprises a College of Medicine, College of Nursing, School of Health Professions, a School of Graduate Studies, School of Public Health, University Hospital of Brooklyn, and a multifaceted biotechnology initiative including the Downstate Biotechnology Incubator and BioBAT for early-stage and more mature companies, respectively.
SUNY Downstate ranks twelfth nationally in the number of alumni who are on the faculty of American medical schools. More physicians practicing in New York City have graduated from SUNY Downstate than from any other medical school.