RIDOH Launches Academic Center in Partnership with Brown’s Newly Accredited School of Public Health
Rhode Island now has two accredited public health entities—the Rhode Island
Department of Health (RIDOH) and the Brown University School of Public Health—which
have launched a new academic partnership aimed at building healthy communities and
creating a hub of public health research and innovation in Rhode Island.
This alliance makes RIDOH an “academic health department”, or a teaching health
department—the public health equivalent of a “teaching hospital” affiliation that
formalizes the relationship between medical schools and hospitals.
The partnership is one outgrowth of the newly formed RIDOH Academic Center, which
aims to ensure a highly skilled public health workforce focused on innovation,
research, evaluation, quality improvement, and academic collaboration. The Academic
Center, under development since Nicole Alexander-Scott, MD, MPH was appointed
Director of Health, has four components: the Continuous Quality Improvement Program,
which applies the continuous quality improvement training that staff engage in; the
Workforce and Career Development Program, which aims to instill a culture of
learning within the Department; the Public Health Education Academy, which
formalizes partnerships with Rhode Island academic institutions and develops a cadre
of Public Health Scholars; and the Public Health Research Laboratory, which will
drive public health research to advance innovative public health outcomes.
“This new collaboration will allow us to develop, implement, and evaluate
cutting-edge public health interventions that will help improve health outcomes and
build healthier communities in every zip code in Rhode Island,” said Dr.
Alexander-Scott. “Good public health does not happen without research and
collaboration. I’m proud to be entering into this partnership with the Brown
University School of Public Health, and to establish a national model for
partnerships between academic institutions and public health departments.”
“The Brown University School of Public Health and RIDOH have worked side by side for
the well-being of Rhode Islanders for many years as we strive together to improve
population health. This new agreement strengthens our ties to better translate
public health science into policy and delivery of services across the state,” said
Terrie Fox Wetle, MS, PhD, Dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
The partnership builds upon years of close cooperation and will include: research
and evaluation collaboration, data exchanges, staff and faculty exchanges, public
health job placement initiatives, teaching agreements, and technical assistance and
consultation. In particular, the two agencies will:
* Co-lead the Public Health Academic Working Group that was established to place
students in the RIDOH Academic Center’s Public Health Scholars Program to work on
pressing public health projects for academic credit;
* Promote opportunities for collaborative research with School of Public Health
faculty and RIDOH staff;
* Refine the mechanisms for RIDOH staff to be reviewed for faculty appointments at
the School of Public Health, and for School of Public Health faculty to participate
on RIDOH committees and project teams; and
* Establish a centralized mechanism for sharing public health data and information,
such as preventoverdoseri.org, which supports the work of Governor Gina M.
Raimondo’s Overdose Prevention and Intervention Task Force to reduce overdose deaths
by one-third in three years.
The School of Public Health was accredited recently in June by the Council on
Education for Public Health, to join with RIDOH that was accredited by the Public
Health Accreditation Board in November 2015 to become the state’s public health-
accredited entities.