Most people don’t think of schools of public health in terms of traditional business models. But at today’s top universities, the study of population health and prevention is a complex multimillion-dollar enterprise—one that requires the strategic planning and high-stakes decision making of other industries.
Researchers face pressure to think boldly about growing new and traditional research programs in an increasingly competitive grant-funding environment. Educators must keep pace with public health fields that have changed more in the past decade than perhaps at any time to date. And institutions are competing for students on a global scale in ways no one could have imagined just a few years ago.
While academic public health may seem a world apart from the business sector, the challenges are strikingly similar: embrace technology, anticipate new markets, and compete globally— all in a vulnerable economy. The added threat to academic public heath is a turbulent political debate that questions the very act of publicly investing in health, education, and the well-being of populations.
Read more in Advances Magazine.
