SAN ANTONIO – This Monday marked the official launch of San Antonio’s first School of Public Health, a collaborative effort between the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) and UT Health San Antonio.
The school’s official name is the “UT School of Public Health San Antonio”.
The inaugural class, comprising approximately 40 students, aims to address public health challenges unique to South Texas.
Dr. Tracey Barnett, the founding chair and associate professor of the Department of Quantitative and Qualitative Health Sciences at the UT School of Public Health San Antonio, expressed her enthusiasm about the new initiative.
“There’s just this general level of excitement,” Barnett said.
San Antonio was previously the largest city in the United States without a school solely dedicated to public health.
Barnett, who played a pivotal role in the school’s development, noted that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for such a facility.
“That’s half the reason I’m here There was a need with public health well before the pandemic, but it really, truly shined a light for everybody on kind of what we were lacking in thinking moving forward,” Barnett explained.
Public health, according to Barnett, extends beyond medical practices.
“I also like to describe public health as infrastructure,” she said. “It’s not just about medical or health. It’s also sometimes our seat belt laws and our helmet laws and our traffic lights. I mean, it’s safety, it’s violence prevention, it’s just so much more and then all-encompassing.”
The new school and its students are set to make a significant impact on public health in the community.
Barnett emphasized the school’s commitment to both academic and applied perspectives.
“We’re going to have so many partners, and not just be doing it from an academic perspective, but a very applied perspective, and ways to get our students out there, our faculty out there, and us working in the community as well,” she said.
Currently, classes are small, but Barnett sees significant potential for growth.
“By summer, we will add the MD/MPH students, so we can look at dual degrees… There’s truly a way to just expand this to as many people who need access to public health and keep growing to try to meet the needs,” she noted.
The universities plan to expand the program with additional collaborations and online courses.
For now, all classes will be held on the UT Health San Antonio campus.
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Publish date : 2024-08-28 12:31:00
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