History of the School

Harvard School of Public Health, 1937

Since 1922, the Harvard School of Public Health has led the world in public health research and education. It has guided an ever-expanding field and embodied the highest standards of scientific rigor and social commitment. Its landmark discoveries and world-class graduates have saved lives and lifted the burden of disease around the globe.

The School traces its roots to public health activism at the turn of the last century, a time of energetic social reform. HSPH is the direct descendant of the first professional training program of public health in America, a joint venture forged in 1913 between Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and known as the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers. The partnership offered courses in preventive medicine at Harvard Medical School, sanitary engineering at Harvard University and allied subjects at MIT.

In 1922, the School split off from MIT, helped by a sizeable grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. From the start, faculty were expected to commit themselves to research as well as teaching. In 1946, no longer affiliated with the medical school, HSPH became an independent, degree-granting body.

Many of the changes that unfolded in public health over the 20th century trace their origins to HSPH. Initially, researchers were preoccupied by deadly epidemic infections and by the scourges of unfettered industrialization. During the School’s first 50 years, the public health enterprise matured, drawing on a full range of analytic, scientific and policy disciplines. Today, the School’s purview extends from the gene to the globe. It work encompasses not only the basic public health disciplines of biostatistics and epidemiology, environmental and occupational health, but also molecular biology, , quantitative social sciences, policy and management, human rights, and health communications. Its leadership and outreach have informed public health practice around the world ? from decades of research in the People’s Republic of China to studies of health system reform in Taiwan and Poland, from collaborations on environmental health in Cyprus to intensive field training in Latin America.