摘要：In this article, we compared the characteristics of public and private accredited public health training programs. We analyzed the distinct opportunities and challenges that publicly funded schools of public health face in preparing the nation’s public health workforce. Using our experience in creating a new, collaborative public school of public health in the nation’s largest urban public university system, we described efforts to use our public status and mission to develop new approaches to educating a workforce that meets the health needs of our region and contributes to the goal of reducing health inequalities. Finally, we considered policies that could protect and strengthen the distinct contributions that public schools of public health make to improving population health and reducing health inequalities. The United States has long pursued a pluralist approach to higher education, with public, private, and for-profit sectors competing for students, faculty, and funding. Professional education in public health has followed this same pattern. National debates on the affordability of higher education, 1,2 its role in growing inequalities in income and wealth, 3 and the implications for the composition of the future workforce entrusted to assure population health 4,5 make it timely to examine the distinct roles that publicly funded universities can play. By delineating such roles, it may be possible to illuminate needed policy changes in the professional training of the nation’s public health workforce.
