Imperial launches School of Public Health

A new School of Public Health that aims to address the major global health challenges of the 21st century is being launched at Imperial College London today.

Monday 14 February 2011

A new School of Public Health that aims to address the major global health challenges of the 21st century is being launched at Imperial College London today, in an event featuring the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley.

The School will combine world class research and teaching in areas including infectious and parasitic diseases, obesity, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory and neurological diseases.

Professor Elio Riboli, Director of the School of Public Health, said: "Chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure are taking a huge toll on public health around the world, but in most cases, these conditions can be addressed by diet and physical activity, avoiding smoking and drinking moderately. At the same time, combating infectious diseases in a new globalised and digitalised word creates major new challenges.

"At the School of Public Health, we’re looking to do the research to provide the evidence that will help societies around the world understand the causes of diseases and how to prevent them. We’re also dedicated to training the next generation of public health and primary care professionals – this is another way that we plan to have an international impact."

Sir Keith O’Nions, Rector of Imperial College London, said: "Solutions to the major public health challenges of the 21st century require strong research and world-class training for the next generation of epidemiology and public health leaders. Imperial’s new School of Public Health is working to provide the evidence and education we need to prevent more diseases and help reduce the number of people requiring medical treatment in the UK and all over the world."

A number of recent high-impact publications by researchers in the School of Public Health this month demonstrate the broad scope and high standard of the school’s research:

• Professor Majid Ezzati led a major analysis compiling data from every country on trends in blood pressure, cholesterol and body mass index, published in three papers in the Lancet. Among the findings were that the global prevalence of obesity doubled between 1980 and 2007.
• A paper by Dr Simon Cauchemez in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reported a detailed study of flu transmission rates in a school during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, finding that transmission rates were three times higher between children of the same gender than the opposite gender.
• Professor Simon Gregson and colleagues’ analysis of why HIV prevalence has fallen dramatically in Zimbabwe was published in PLoS Medicine. They found that mass social changes driven fear of infection were a major factor in the decline.
• A mathematical modelling study by Dr Deirdre Hollingsworth, published in PLoS Computational Biology, found that flu reduction policies shouldn’t necessarily be employed at the start of an epidemic.

Professor Elio Riboli

The School has strong structural links with the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, via the Academic Health Science Centre (AHSC), a partnership set up in 2007 to improve the quality of life of patients and populations by taking new discoveries and translating them into new therapies as quickly as possible. The School of Public Health will work with the Interventional Public Health Clinical Programme Group at the Trust to translate evidence based research to population and health services.

Professor Riboli explained: "The AHSC gives us a powerful link to community medicine and the opportunity to develop major population- based initiatives."

The School is responsible for teaching a substantial part of the undergraduate and clinical curriculum to medical students. It also has an extensive programme of postgraduate teaching, comprising taught courses, short courses and supervised higher degree students. The School also hosts the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative, a group that has delivered tens of millions of treatments for neglected tropical diseases in Africa.

To read more about the vision of the School of Public Health, read an interview with Professor Elio Riboli in the College’s Reporter magazine.