We are pleased to announce that, as of July 1, 2011, our department's name is:

Global Community Health and Behavioral Sciences 

While community-based participatory approaches have grown in significance and behavioral sciences remain the cornerstone of our work, we recognize that public health has been reframed into a global context.  In the coming years, Community Health Sciences will continue to evolve, just as we have over the past ten years, always to reflect public health as it is practiced today. The new department name launching in July 2011 reflects both the current assets of the department as well as our vision as a leader in global health research, teaching, and practice. 

Our diverse faculty are already actively involved in research here in New Orleans, across the country, and around the globe.  Their efforts acknowledge that the transfer of knowledge is multidirectional, and not limited by education, wealth or geography. Our faculty recognize that local resources, practices and tradition might hold the key to change, despite differences in education, economic means or systems. Each community needs capacity to understand and handle issues that represent health hazards to its population. These values are reflected in what has been the key message in our department during the last decade:

"Community solutions to global health issues"

Without building capacity at the local level, aid initiatives are worthless when the financial support is gone. The need to build local capacity to ensure sustained progress persists no matter the geographic location of the program. Strategies on how to work with communities and how to ensure cultural effectiveness of programs are global, but will always have to be adapted to the local needs, tradition and culture. The department has for the last decade graduated students who have found work locally, nationally and across the globe, a benefit of the comprehensive and multidisciplinary training they have received. For the department the term global refers to scope rather than location.

A social ecological framework underpins teaching, research and service in the department. This framework emphasizes the need to examine the multiple levels that influence health and behavior -- individual, interpersonal, community, organizational and public policy. The department currently offers three degrees, Master of Public Health (MPH), Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).