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School Effort Flourishes: Group Establishes Panel for School of Public Health

Posted on: Sunday, 12 March 2006, 03:00 CST

By Guy Boulton, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Mar. 12--Mayor Tom Barrett's push to establish a school of public health in Milwaukee is beginning to take shape.

The city, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the University of Wisconsin System have set up a steering committee to oversee the first steps needed to make the school a reality. That, however, could be 10 years away.

"We acknowledge we have a long way to go," Barrett said last week.

While making clear that he is not naïve about the challenges ahead, Barrett also said he was surprised the support within the community.

"There is a natural energy here," he said.

Last year, Barrett made an impassioned plea before the UW Board of Regents, arguing that the state's first school of public health should be in Milwaukee, given the city's widespread poverty and accompanying health problems.

An estimated 41% of the city's children now live in poverty and the city now ranks among the poorest in the nation.

The plea was part of his opposition to a plan to change the name of the University of Wisconsin medical school to "School of Medicine and Public Health."

A compromise eventually was reached in which the medical school agreed to spend an additional $920,000 a year on public health initiatives in Milwaukee, including $50,000 to pay for the initial planning for a possible public health school in Milwaukee.

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has agreed to match that money and will hire someone to oversee the initial work.

"We are fully and solidly behind the mayor's effort to move this forward," said UWM chancellor Carlos Santiago.

For Barrett, a school of public health would be part of the broader effort to reduce poverty in the city. But Patricia McManus, executive director of the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin, said there also must be support for public health initiatives such as the proposed smoking ban.

"We don't need more people researching how bad the situation is if we don't have people pushing for what comes out of that research," said McManus, who has a doctorate in nursing.

For now, though, the proposed school is only in its earliest stages. Santiago has noted that UWM has some of the building blocks for a future public health school in place, including its nursing school and program in environmental health.

The Center for Urban Population Health -- supported the UW medical school, UWM and Aurora Health Care -- also could become the core building block for the future school.

Santiago has estimated that a school of public health would cost about $8 million a year.

Finding that money in a system perpetually strapped for money won't be easy. But both Barrett and Santiago were heartened the fact that Kevin Reilly, the president of the UW System, has been involved in the process so far.

At best, establishing a school of public health would take five to eight years, he said. But the university could start with a master's program. In addition, it already is working toward establishing a doctorate program in public health with the Medical College of Wisconsin.

The effort also could draw on Marquette University's nursing and dentistry schools, as well as the area's health care systems and the city's health department.

"I view this as a communitywide effort," Santiago said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

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