New doctoral program proposed

The Board of Regents will discuss the implementation of a new doctoral program in public health Thursday, that many agree is crucial in times of nurse shortages and a questionable health system in Nevada.

Shawn Gerstenberger, executive associate dean at the school of public health, said the program has been in the works for a while and is a joint program between UNLV and the UNR.

“Clearly, it is to address one of the long term problems that we have in Nevada, which is dealing with and appropriately addressing the public health issues,” Gerstenberger said.

The program will incorporate the core competency areas in public health including environmental health, biostatistics, epidemiology, social behavioral health and health care administration, he said.

“The Ph.D will focus on emphasis areas,” Gerstenberger said.  “Let’s say you wanted to do a Ph.D in public health with an emphasis area in environmental occupational health, then there’s an emphasis there where you’d take classes like the transmission of infectious diseases or toxicology.”

The five-year program requires each student to complete a minimum of 72 credits before graduation.

Currently there are only eight institutions west of Texas offering public health programs for professionals and researchers, most of which are in California.  Most of the graduates from the California institutions do not move to western states, leaving a deficit of public health professionals, according to public affairs specialist Tony Allen.

“There is a critical shortage of highly educated public health professionals in the state of Nevada due to the limited number of doctoral programs available in the region,” Allen said.  “This shortage presents an opportunity for the Nevada Schools of Public Health to recruit qualified students and fill this critical training gap.”

In 2007, Nevada ranked 38th  in overall health indicators by the United Health Foundation, a national ranking based on 18 health indicators, that Allen said further supports the need for a doctoral program in public health.

“Recent data also suggests that Nevada leads the nation in teenage pregnancy and the statewide suicide rate is nearly double the national average,” said Allen, adding that in 2004 the standardized death rate for all causes was 8 percent higher than the nation as a whole, at 878 deaths per 100,000 people.

The Board of Regents will also look at the proposed budget for the new program, an obstacle officials say won’t be effected by the budget cuts.

According to the office of the vice provost, there will be no additional costs incurred to launch the Ph.D in Public Health as existing faculty, staff and graduate assistants will be used and no request for state funds will be made. Grants awarded to public health faculty this year will be used to drive the program.

The grants awarded to faculty exceed $10.25 million as of the beginning of 2008, with another $3.5 million in grants and contracts under review.

The budget proposal predicts first year expenses exceeding $217,000, with more than $182,000 coming from existing funds.  In addition, an $800,000 award was received recently to fund the construction of an Emerging Diseases Laborartory.

Gerstenberger said that given the current budget crisis, he is not sure if any new graduate assistants will be hired on as additional staff.

“We would like to have them, and we are going to reallocate some [graduate assistants] from our masters program into our doctoral program,” he said.

Gerstenberger said that once the board accepts the proposal for the new program, it will be ready to start by spring 2009; however, because of the close deadline for enrollment it may be pushed back to fall 2009.

“Obviously with some stroke of luck if we get people in right away, it will be a small number,” he said.  “We’re looking at admitting just a handful of students at each institute, maybe three or four.”