History of Public Health and UTSPH
The origins of public health can be traced to two roots, the requirement that a community protect itself from the ravages of mass disease, and an altruistic urge to assure at least a minimum opportunity for a healthy life for underprivileged children. Early practical applications of these roots were the adoption of formal quarantine regulations in the 1300s by the cities of Ragusa and Venice, and the child health movements of the late 1800s. Crowd diseases were an inevitable result of the growth of cities, and the urban populations were forced to submit helplessly to the catastrophic epidemics of smallpox, cholera, plague, and diphtheria until an explosion of knowledge during the last half of the nineteenth century promised relief. The bacteriological era in biomedical research was responsible for the identification of specific microbiological agents of disease and the development of the science of immunology. Precisely designed preventive procedures became available and, simultaneously, advances in engineering made possible the provision of pure water, the removal of noxious wastes, and the construction of more hygienic dwellings and safer working places.
Mass problems and mass solutions cannot be managed by individual initiatives, so boards of health and health departments were created to protect the health of their constituents. By 1910 or thereabouts, the number of health departments in the United States, and the increasing complexity of their responsibilities, generated a need for specially trained staff - initially physicians, nurses, and engineers. Educational programs were developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins University, and from these programs evolved the concept of a specialized school providing both professional and academic curricula in community health and related fields.
After World War II, the emphasis in community health changed greatly. Chronic diseases displaced infections as primary causes of death and public concern was directed toward personal medical care services and health hazards of the environment As the need for a skilled work force continued to grow, new schools of public health were established; enrollments were expanded, and curricula were altered to address the changing circumstances.
In 1947 the Texas State Legislature authorized a School of Public Health within The University of Texas System, but the authorization was not implemented until 1967. In that year, The University of Texas System, supported by many public-spirited citizens in Houston and elsewhere in the State, requested and received an appropriation for the School. The first class was admitted in the fall of 1969, occupying rented and borrowed space. Enrollment doubled in the second year and doubled again in the third year, testimony to the previously unfilled need. In response to the need for graduate public health education in other geographic areas of the state, the School of Public Health initiated Regional M.P.H. Programs in San Antonio in 1979, in El Paso in 1992, in Dallas in 1998, and in Brownsville in 2001. Strong research programs exist at each campus, addressing especially the health problems of Texas. By the end of Spring 2003, graduates of the School of Public Health numbered nearly 4000, serving the public in every phase of community health.
The School of Public Health is housed in the Reuel A. Stallones Building. Dr. Stallones was the founding Dean of the School and served from 1967 until 1986. His educational philosophy and his eminence in both epidemiology and graduate public health education were recognized by The University of Texas Board of Regents when they named the building in his honor.
