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DEAR FRIENDS OF THE FIELDING SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH,

This is an exciting time to study at the UCLA School of Public Health. More than ever before, those in government and the general public are showing an interest in the work we do. The increased investment in fortifying the public health infrastructure will continue to create many exciting opportunities for the field and for our students and graduates.

A degree from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, one of the top schools in the county, is particularly valuable as the field examines gaps in the training of the current public health workforce. I recently served as co-chair of the Institute of Medicine committee that produced the report Who Will Keep the Public Healthy? Educating Public Health Professionals for the 21st Century, which includes recommendations to broadly expand and strengthen public health training throughout the U.S.

At the School, there are many opportunities for increasing our visibility and our partnerships to assure that we are best fulfilling our primary missions of education, research, and service. We are fortunate to be based at a premier university and in a vibrant, thriving city that provides abundant opportunities for training and collaboration within the School, with the medical school and the virtually all parts of the UCLA campus.

Los Angeles is often the bellwether for social and policy issues in this country. Access to health care is just one example of an issue where California, and particularly the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, is at the forefront. Working together with our community partners, I am confident that our school can take the lead in identifying and helping solve the enormous problem LA residents (and the entire country) face in getting access to high quality health care.

Just as what happens in California eventually happens in the rest of the country, our school is positioned to have the same impact on the nation. Our talented faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community partners are our best assets as we work to take this excellent school to even greater heights.

Linda Rosenstock, MD, MPH
Dean


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Making the Affordable Care Act a Reality
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What is Public Health

Over the last 50 years UCLA School of Public Health Research...

Pioneers the study of violence as a public health issue in the United States - not solely as a criminal-justice issue.

Identifies the biological markers that may predict diabetes in healthy people.

Shows that people living or working near major freeways are exposed to 30 times the concentration of dangerous particles from motor vehicles.

Playing leadership roles in California's successful campaign against tobacco use, faculty is instrumental in determining the allocation of Proposition 99 funds from the tax on cigarettes for tobacco control to researchers, local health departments, schools, community health agencies, and the media.

Faculty shows that chronic exposure to air pollutants is associated with compromised growth of respiratory capacity in children, and with irreversible changes in lung function in adults.

Conducts research regarding use of fruit and vegetable vouchers among low-income pregnant women that leads the U.S. Department of Agriculture to revise W.I.C. to include monthly subsidies for fruits and vegetables.

Establishes the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study of men-who-have-sex-with men in collaboration with Hopkins, Northwestern and Pittsburg Universities that have published over 1200 papers over the last 27 years on the epidemiologic, immunologic,behavioral, clinical and treatment aspects of HIV/AIDS.

Challenges the presumption that an only child grows up feeling isolated. Rather, only children are found to have a clear social advantage - deflating notions that they are more isolated, less involved in extracurricular activities, and less liked.

Leads efforts to promote the benefits of breastfeeding on a global scale and instrumental in developing the International Code of Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes and the subsequent World Health Organization resolution, Wellstart - an international breastfeeding training program for health professionals - along with the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative and the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action.

Conducts the first study to establish that chronic exposure to oxidant and primary pollutants found in Los Angeles leads to reduced pulmonary function in children and adults providing evidence-based data supporting stricter anti-pollution regulations.

"Health Status of the American Male," establishes, among other findings, the safety of vasectomy as an effective birth-control procedure.

Three members of the School's faculty have served terms as president of the American Public Health Association: Lester Breslow, Ruth Roemer, and E. Richard Brown.

In one of the first studies examining the impact of surgical treatment for breast cancer on quality of life, finds that women who have had a mastectomy vs. breast conservation surgery (lumpectomy) recover at the same rate but express more difficulties with body image.

Demonstrates that discrimination is associated with health status

UCLA faculty is instrumental in achieving international tobacco control agreements.

Establishes that association between television viewing and childhood obesity is directly related to children's exposure to junk food commercials.

Establishes a link between traffic related air pollution and preterm births, low birth weight, pre-eclampsia and cardiac birth defects.

Celebrates School's 50 years as an independent entity. A dozen centers sponsored by or associated with the School promote interdisciplinary research among faculty and students: Center for Adolescent Health Promotion, Center for Environmental Genomics, Center for Global and Immigrant Health, Center for Health Policy Research, Center for Healthier Children, Families, and Communities, Center for Human Nutrition, Center for Metabolic Diseases Prevention, Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, Center for Public Health and Disasters, Division of Cancer Prevention & Control Center Research (DCPCR), Fred H. Bixby Center for Population and Reproductive Health, UCLA Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Equity.

Establishes The California Health Interview Survey, the largest state health survey in the United States and the first in California to interview people from every county, as a collaboration involving the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research (based in the School), the California Department of Health Services, and the Public Health Institute.

The Oxford Textbook of Public Health (editions 1-5), the definitive book on global public health, is edited by Roger Detels.

Shows a genetic susceptibility to multiple sclerosis, and determine that individuals who develop MS are more likely to have childhood virus infections after the age of 10, at which time the immune system has undergone changes associated with puberty and adolescence.

Following the Watts riots in 1965, documents the need for construction of a hospital to serve the people of South-Central Los Angeles. The hospital becomes King-Drew Medical Center.

Demonstrates that the level of cholesterol in normal diets, including diets containing eggs, does not raise serum cholesterol.

Documents the health benefits and cost savings of helmet use among motorcycle riders.

Demonstrates early in the AIDS epidemic, how HIV-related immune deficiency is transmitted among homosexual men, a discovery that has prevented millions of infections. UCLA School of Public Health faculty go on to lead international efforts to control the spread of the disease, particularly in China, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, and other areas of Southeast Asia.

Trains over 100 health professionals from China, Southeast Asia, and India under the UCLA/Fogarty Program at the M.S. and Ph.D. levels who have become Ministers of health and other leaders in HIV/AIDS and public health  in Asia and forms a network of UCLA alumni who continue to collaborate with investigators from the Schools of Public Health, medicine and Behavioral Sciences.

Documents the nature and extent of the problem of people lacking health insurance in California and becomes active in helping formulate policy options at the national, state, and local levels for dealing with the issue.

Conducts critical research on the exposures to and adverse health effects of major environmental toxic chemicals including diesel exhaust, MTBE, lead, arsenic, chromium, cadmium and pesticides. Faculty also play important roles in translating scientific research findings into policy for protecting workers and the public from these and other toxic chemicals.

Finds that pesticide exposure increases the risk of Parkinson's disease.

Presents evidence that green tea helps to prevent chronic gastritis.

Fifteen among the School's faculty have been elected members of the Institute of Medicine: Ron Andersen, Lester Breslow, Robert Brook, Ron Brookmeyer, Thomas Coates, Jared Diamond, Jonathan Fielding, Patti Ganz, Lillian Gelberg, Gail Harrison, Bob Kaplan, Emmett Keeler, Jeanne Miranda, Tom Rice, Linda Rosenstock, Ken Wells.

Finds SARS death rates double in cities with poor air quality.