THE SENATE

S.C.R. NO.

80

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2004

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 
   


SENATE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

requesting the university of hawaii to reestablish the school of public health.

 

 

WHEREAS, in the February 2004 issue of Governing magazine, the Government Performance Project, funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, published a six-year study of health care in all fifty states that concluded that Hawaii is lagging in the field of public health because of the closure of the University of Hawaii School of Public Health in 1999 and the University's failure to revive it; and

WHEREAS, the report said that the University of Hawaii allowed the School of Public Health to flounder while other states were developing similar such schools to meet public-health labor shortages; and

WHEREAS, the report also said that some programs from the defunct school were placed in a department in the John A. Burns School of Medicine while efforts were made to reestablish a separate public health school; and

WHEREAS, the Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology, established in June 2000 within the Office of Public Health Studies at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, now offers public health graduate degrees; and

WHEREAS, University of Hawaii-Manoa Chancellor Peter Englert has responded to charges that the University of Hawaii has not reestablished a School of Public Health by stating plans to create a University of Hawaii Center of Global and Public Health for which the University's supplemental budget request to the Legislature proposed $1,000,000 to build up staff to cover all aspects envisioned for the Center, including training, meeting public and community needs, research, homeland security, and bioterrorism; and

WHEREAS, it is uncertain whether the new course offerings by the Department of Public Health Sciences and Epidemiology in the John A. Burns School of Medicine are adequate and whether the new Center of Global and Public Health will be able to replace the loss of the School of Public Health; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-second Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2004, the House of Representatives concurring, that the University of Hawaii is requested to reestablish the School of Public Health; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Chairperson of the Board of Regents and the President of the University of Hawaii, and the Chancellor of the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

 

 

 

OFFERED BY:

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Report Title:

UH; Reestablish School of Public Health