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Who We Are

The Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science was founded in 2019 with a $25 million lead gift from the Dr. Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Family Foundation, seed money to grow in a new era of public health research, education and rapid societal change, with a mission to create and promote healthier populations on a local, national, and global scale.

In Fall 2020, the School commenced its first year with over 80 salaried faculty with primary appointments, 25 faculty with secondary appointments (primary appointed in another UC San Diego Department/School), 200+ personnel, 175 postgraduate students, and 500 undergraduate majors. The School includes activities in the public health disciplines of Behavioral Medicine, Biostatistics & Bioinformatics, Epidemiology, Global Health, Health Policy, Health Equity, Public Mental Health, and Environmental and Climate Health.

The School has a BS in Public Health, MPH, PhD in Public Health (administered jointly with San Diego State University), MS and PhD in Biostatistics, an MAS in Leadership of Healthcare Organizations run in conjunction with UC San Diego Extension, and a Preventive Medicine Residency program (also in conjunction with SDSU).

The School has strong collaborative research programs facilitated by Research Centers of Excellence focused on Health Promotion and Equity, Women's Health, Tobacco Control, and Wireless and Population Health Systems, and has extensive collaborations with the School of Medicine, Jacobs School of Engineering, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Moores Cancer Center, the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, Skaggs School of Pharmacy, and with other partners across the UC San Diego campus. Partnerships with the community and health agencies are fundamental to the School. The School houses five recharge cores providing services to both UC San Diego and the external community, and the School’s faculty and academics hold ~$125M total awarded grants and contracts.

Vision

Creating and promoting public health innovations to advance equity, justice, and wellbeing for all.

Mission


With a commitment to equity and justice and rooted in a culture of respect, the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science will lead in innovations to improve public health locally and globally by:

  • Cultivating new generations of diverse public health professionals 
  • Advancing scientific discovery, dissemination, and implementation
  • Collaborating with diverse partners to develop community-led health solutions

Values

Respect, Humility, Compassion
We support our members and encourage collaboration over competition. We invest time in creating connections within the School and larger community, providing mentorship, and celebrating successes. We develop structural mechanisms that promote respectful and caring behaviors. We remove barriers such as top-down thinking and competition fueled by lack of resources.

Integrity, Justice, Trust
We encourage and ensure integrity throughout the school and weave our values into our daily routines and systems.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
It is first and foremost our mission to ensure good and equitable health outcomes through the idea of prevention and solving upstream issues so that downstream problems do not present themselves in the first place. We strive to remove structural barriers to success and help everyone achieve the goals they set as members of Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health.

School Spotlight

The Master of Public Health (MPH) program saw a rapid increase in applications for admission in Fall 2021. Dean Cheryl Anderson, PhD, MPH, MS discusses the rise of interest in public health in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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School Spotlight

The Safer at School Early Alert (SASEA) pilot program uses wastewater and surface monitoring to test for COVID-19 at schools and childcare centers

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School Spotlight

Faculty member, Suzi Hong, PhD, speaks on KPSB Midday Edition about how COVID-19 patients may experience psychological disorders from the virus.

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School Spotlight

Faculty member, Rebecca Fielding-Miller, PhD, MSPH, discusses the challenges of contact tracing for COVID-19 in San Diego County.

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