A year ago in this space, I talked about the role of academia in public health workforce development. My comments focused on an Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee's recommendation that schools expand our approach to health and fill gaps in our curricula for educating public health professionals in today's world. We are actively responding to that IOM mandate. However, more must be done to address the looming crisis in our practice community posed by a rapidly aging workforce (average age 46.6 years) and retirement rates predicted to be as high as 45 percent over the next five years.

To interest young people in the field of public health and to increase awareness generally of public health issues, our School is engaged in a number of education and outreach programs. For instance, the Center for Ecogenetics and Environmental Health in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences sponsors several creative programs to educate K-12 teachers and their students about environmental health concerns.

• The Integrated Environmental Health Middle School Project trains middle school teachers in Washington and New Mexico to help students identify and research environmental health issues in their own communities.
• Health and Safety for Working Teens educates students about preventing workplace injury and illness.
• Youth Network for Healthy Communities, through a statewide videoconference network, allows middle- and high-school students to work on community environmental health projects and to present their findings to experts.
• Tox-in-a-Box is a kit for public health professionals to use in outreach efforts to K-12 students and teachers.
• Essentials of Cell Biology: Toxicology in Action offers an interactive CD-ROM curriculum for use in high school and undergraduate college courses.
• Project Greenskate is a Web-based curriculum that introduces basic toxicology concepts through the hypothetical development of a city park on a contaminated site.

On another front, we are reaching out to community colleges through campus visits, fairs for transfer students, and brochure distribution. And our Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, in partnership with Bellevue Community College (BCC), has created a transferable course equivalent to our undergraduate-level Introduction to Environmental Health. It will be available at BCC starting this fall.

In undergraduate offerings at the UW, our School has long had a bachelor of science program in environmental health. It provides a solid grounding in the environmental health sciences, and graduates are in strong demand out in the field. We also have several newer degree options, which are increasingly popular with undergraduate students. For example, the bachelor of science in health information administration, offered through the UW Evening Degree Program, provides students with the skills necessary to administer information technology systems in the dynamic health care arena and does so through a combination of coursework and community-based internships.

Highly motivated students can major in public health through the General Studies program. This option allows specialization in an interdisciplinary area of study for which a UW major isn't available but can be created from existing courses. And then there's our own public health minor, where the range of required and elective courses gives undergraduates an opportunity to learn about regional, national, and international public health issues of major concern to society.

The state of public health will be deeply affected by these and other efforts to bring new professionals into the field and to provide lifelong learning opportunities throughout their careers. I welcome your input on how we can help our region's current and future workforce meet the complex public health challenges of the 21st century.

Patricia Wahl, Dean
School of Public Health and Community Medicine