Director’s Message

December 1, 2017

Welcome to the Center for Public Health Practice at the OSU College of Public Health. For more than a decade, CPHP has been an active member of Ohio’s public health system, and we look forward to continuing to support public health professionals in their efforts to protect and improve the health of Ohioans in uncertain times.

As the debate around national healthcare reform continues, communities remain challenged with addressing both the rising burden of illness and injury and the social determinants driving that burden. A focus on community-based prevention and population health growing out of the changes to the healthcare system have stimulated public health, health care and other sectors to develop new levels of collaboration to achieve common health improvement goals. And Public Health Accreditation, another driver of change, has important consequences for state and local public health service delivery.

Together, these forces are pushing public health systems into a new era, one described as the broadening of public health services and functions across sectors to elevate impact and eliminate disparities. The framework envisions both individuals and communities as partners, “co-designing” their path to health improvement. It also requires a level of collaboration across sectors familiar to some but new to many—and calls on public health leaders, as the chief health strategists in their community, to coordinate and facilitate multi-sector community health improvement efforts.

Both CPHP and OSU’s College of Public Health understand the challenges this transformation poses for local public health, and we remain committed to developing the people and organizations to advance community health in this new era. We are grateful to be a part of the public health community as we strive to reach our vision of people working together to achieve a culture of health.

Sincerely,

Andrew Wapner, DO, MPH, FACOP, FAAP
Director, Center for Public Health Practice
Clinical Associate Professor, Public Health
OSU College of Public Health

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