The Harvard School of Public Health

The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) is a direct descendant of the first professional training program In public health in America, the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers, a joint venture that began in 1913.

In 1922 Harvard split off from MIT, and the Harvard School of Public Health was formally established. In 1946 the school celebrated its new status as a freestanding faculty of Harvard University, no longer an administrative part of the Medical School. Since its founding, the school, through its faculty and graduates, has been at the forefront of efforts to stem disease and promote health worldwide. During the early years the focus was on infectious diseases, deadly workplace exposures, and sanitation— from Alice Hamilton’s pioneering studies of lead and mercury poisoning, to Thomas Weller’s pathbreaking research on the polio virus and Philip Drinker’s invention of the iron lung. More recently the school has expanded its reach to new areas, including the effects of race, gender, class, and social isolation on health; the reform of national health systems; and cutting-edge research on the biomarkers of disease. Three Nobel Prizes, a Lasker Prize, four Mac Arthur Awards, presidential citations, and countless other honors attest to the excellence and impact of this work. Five successive HSPH alumni led the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for an unprecedented twenty-seven years (1962–89). More difficult to quantify—but a far better gauge—are the perceptible gains in length and quality of life that have been realized through all these efforts.

The overarching mission of HSPH is to advance the public’s health through learning, discovery, and communication. To achieve this mission, the Harvard School of Public Health has a faculty of almost four hundred members from the diverse fields and disciplines that constitute public health. The student body comprises over a thousand individuals from throughout the United States and sixty-two other countries. Students, like faculty members, come from an array of fields and include physicians, health services administrators, epidemiologists, nurses, dentists, lawyers, statisticians, environmental scientists, engineers, research assistants, psychologists, and social workers. About 35 percent of current HSPH students are enrolled in the interdisciplinary master of public health (MPH) program, 23 percent in master of science programs, and 42 percent in doctoral (doctor of science, doctor of public health, or doctor of philosophy) programs.

The school is organized into nine academic departments, the base of most teaching and research activity; two interdisciplinary divisions (Biological Sciences and Public Health Practice); the interdisciplinary master of public health program; and a number of specialized research centers. The school’s academic programs are described in detail here in the catalog.