Claremont Graduate University announced the formation of the School of Community and Global Health (www.cgu.edu/scgh), the ninth school in the university. The program will address twenty-first century threats such as accelerated shifts in global populations, as well as spikes in preventable health-related problems. Faculty has arrived in Claremont, and classes will begin in spring, 2009.

Researchers will focus primarily on the decreases in health and well-being that result from lifestyle choices, including obesity, diabetes, and diseases related to tobacco, alcohol, and drug abuse. This well-published team of experts will develop recommendable health policies to target specific communities, while promoting policy changes and shifts in behavior.

“This is a remarkable opportunity for CGU to provide leadership in graduate education and take on some of the most important problems facing our region and our world,” said CGU President Robert Klitgaard.

The new school is strategically aligned with the university’s renowned transdisciplinary curriculum and research focus. It will create important synergies with many research activities at CGU, and create new partnerships within the university, especially with its Schools of Information Systems and Technology, Politics and Economics, Behavioral and Organizational Sciences, and its Drucker School of Management.

While traditionally stubborn health-related issues remain, emerging trends are also looming: Climate change, shifts in wealth, and an increase in mental diseases.

CGU will offer a Masters in Public Health and a PhD in Areas of Prevention Science and Health Promotion. Additionally, classes and research opportunities will be available to students from all eight schools in the university and to those at the five undergraduate Claremont Colleges and the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. Many CGU graduates are expected to enter fields in academic, government, and NGOs such as the Center of Disease Control and various health ministries.

According to the new Dean, Professor C. Anderson Johnson, the United States spends more than any other nation on health care ($2.2 trillion), but is 45th in return on investment.

“Our ultimate goal is to create a fertile environment to convene the top minds and diverse leaders from the sciences, public health, government, business, civil society, and the community to engage in creative problem-solving dialogues leading to new innovations in health, wellbeing, and quality of life,” Johnson said. “We have a new vision of how to study and impact the health of the average citizen around the world. It crosses boundaries and challenges the way things have been looked at in the past to come up with new solutions to old problems and to tackle head on emerging issues at a time of unprecedented global growth.”

The new full-time faculty members are among the most cited in the area of community, global and public health issues. They are Susan Ames, Darleen Schuster, Alan Stacy, Dennis Trinidad, Jennifer Unger and Kim Reynolds.

SCGH board members include Jonathan Fielding, Director of the Los Angeles Department of Public Health; Alexandra Levine, Chief Medical Officer for City of Hope; Liming Lee, founding Director of the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and J. Mario Molina, President and CEO of Molina Healthcare, Inc.

About Claremont Graduate University

Founded in 1925, Claremont Graduate University is one of the top graduate schools in the country. Our nine academic schools conduct leading-edge research and award masters and doctoral degrees in 22 disciplines. Because the world’s problems are not simple nor easily defined, diverse faculty and students research and study across the traditional discipline boundaries to create new and practical solutions for the major problems plaguing our world. An independent institution devoted entirely to graduate research and study, CGU sits on a 19-acre campus.
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