Leading through solutions
A Message from Professor Arthur Reingold
Associate Dean for Research
At the UC Berkeley School of Public Health, we take pride in our rigorous transdisciplinary research into the determinants of health. Our School has a 65-year legacy of groundbreaking achievement that has shaped policy, education, and services around the world. Our findings drive action that results in improved health outcomes for communities, locally and globally.
A focus on transdisciplinary and translational research
Being part of the University of California, Berkeley—world-renowned as a premiere research university—greatly enhances the School's research abilities. Our location on a strong general academic campus facilitates and encourages collaboration with numerous other departments and schools, allowing our faculty members and graduate students to harness an extraordinarily wide spectrum of knowledge and expertise. The School is continually working to expand and deepen its already extensive relationships with other campus research centers and institutes.
We are increasingly focused on translational research; that is, ensuring that the health research knowledge we generate has a direct impact on the public. As Dean Shortell says, we strive for "publication to public action." Translating research into action to benefit society is a critical issue in the United States and globally. One of the School's strategic goals is to inventory and examine our projects and find ways to advance our translational research. For a very enlightening discussion of translational research, please read this recent Berkeley Health article (PDF) featuring Professor Linda Neuhauser.
A place for outstanding faculty and students
Our faculty members are leaders in their respective fields, which range from health and social behavior, maternal and child health, nutrition, biostatistics, and epidemiology to toxicology, infectious disease and vaccinology, and human genetics, among many others. I encourage you to peruse our research highlights to get a feel for the depth and breadth of their findings, which I suspect will astound you.
Our faculty is the lifeblood of the School's diverse array of centers and programs—transdisciplinary organizations that not only produce groundbreaking research on a range of topics, but often translate their research findings into action. A few of the health and societal problems being addressed by our centers include: alcohol abuse, population and family planning, health technology, STD/HIV prevention, infectious disease, emergency preparedness, health care markets, aging, and traffic safety.
Our students have many opportunities to dive into the world of research. All doctoral and most academic master's degree students are engaged actively in public health research as their final degree requirement. Opportunities to gain research experience are available to all students through courses and graduate student researcher appointments in the School, on campus, at UCSF, and at numerous partner research organizations, such as Kaiser Permanente, the Northern California Cancer Center, the Birth Defects Monitoring Program, and the California Emerging Infectious Program. In addition, public health practice placements are available in community-based research projects.