Center for Public Health and Disasters
The Center for Public Health and Disasters was established in 1997 to address the critical issues faced when a disaster impacts a community. The center promotes interdisciplinary efforts to reduce the health impacts of domestic and international, natural and human-induced disasters. It facilitates dialogue between public health and medicine, engineering, physical and social sciences, and emergency management.
This unique philosophy is applied to the education and training of practitioners and researchers, collaborative interdisciplinary research and service to the community. The multidisciplinary center staff and participating faculty have backgrounds that include emergency medicine, environmental health sciences, epidemiology, gerontology, health services, social work, sociology, urban planning and public health.
The center has recently been named as one of 15 Academic Centers for Public Health Preparedness by the Centers for Disease Control. The goal of these national centers is to improve competencies of front-line workers in public health to respond to public health threats.
Mission
The Center for Public Health and Disasters promotes interdisciplinary efforts to reduce the health impacts of domestic and international, natural and human-generated disasters.