University launches Canada’s first public health faculty

By Richard Cairney, ExpressNews Staff


The University of Alberta's School of Public Health is the first of its
kind in Canada.



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March 17, 2006 - It was a busy day for the University of Alberta board of
governors, which approved the creation of Canada's first university
faculty dedicated to public health, a $1-billion budget and construction
of a fourth floor on its new downtown building.

U of A President Indira Samarasekera called creation of the new School of
Public Health "historic."

"This is the first School of Public Health in the country - this is
historic," Samarasekera told board members. "It has taken people of vision
to create something that is going to set apart our university and our
province, given our relationships with the universities of Calgary and
Lethbridge."

The School of Public Health will draw students, academics and researchers
from a variety of disciplines, absorbing the Faculty of Medicine's
Department of Public Health Sciences and the university's Centre for
Health Promotion Studies, and will collaborate with public health research
activities at the universities of Calgary and Lethbridge. It will focus on
prevention and wellness, said Roger Palmer, the faculty's interim dean.

"We will look at the prevention of injury and disease rather than the
treatment of it," said Palmer, a former deputy minister with Alberta
Health and Wellness. "Across the country all the public health activity
has been embedded in schools of medicine, which focus on treatment more
than prevention."

Preventive measures, he observes, have made tremendous impacts on
society's well being.

"Simple things like clean water and immunization, pre-natal and post-natal
care have made really big differences to society," he said. "Hospitals
have big transplant centres, which are great - but the results are more
dramatic for the individual than for society."

That is the mandate of public health - to improve the overall health of
the population through prevention. Outbreaks like SARS and the threat of
avian flu have reinforced the need for greater public education, research
and training in public health.

The School of Public Health will offer graduate studies and will begin
teaching and research programs in September. Among the school's
initiatives will be a strengthened professional program leading to a
Master's of Public Health.

The board also approved building a fourth floor atop the Bay building in
the city's downtown core. The university acquired the historic building
last year through a deal with municipal, provincial and federal
governments. The fourth floor addition, Vice-President (Facilities and
Operations) Don Hickey said, will cost about $20 million and will add
needed capacity to the building.

The building's main tenant will be TEC Edmonton, a technology transfer
centre run by the U of A and Edmonton Economic Development Corporation,
which will occupy the fourth floor and most of the third. Non-credit
Faculty of Extension and School of Business courses will be offered at the
building, which will also house private tenants.

The board of governors also approved a $1-billion budget. Highlights of
the document include $231.7 million in construction and renovation
projects. The university's 2006-06 consolidated budget is balanced but
there is a $7-million shortfall in this year's operating budget.

Vice-President (Finance and Administration) Phyllis Clark said utility
costs are to blame for the deficit, adding that a plan is in place to
eliminate the university's debt within 10 years.

"If we want to bring the budget into alignment we'd have to introduce cuts
and cuts across the faculties and administrative units are extremely
devastating and would turn the institution back into a place we don't have
to be," she said. The U of A, she added, "is probably in a better position
than most other (Canadian) institutions are."


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