School of Public Health Wins Grant, Recognition

AMHERST — Training to improve the nation’s public health system by strengthening the technical, scientific, managerial, and leadership competence of current and future public health workers will soon be under way in Springfield, Holyoke, Pittsfield and the Berkshires, supported by a four-year, $2.5 million grant to the School of Public Health and Health Sciences (SPHHS) at UMass Amherst.

Dean Marjorie Aelion, with lead faculty investigators Dan Gerber and Stuart Chipkin, recently announced the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services award to the SPHHS at UMass Amherst, which creates a Public Health Training Center on the campus. Similar awards were also given to Yale, Columbia, and Johns Hopkins universities.

Through the center, training will be available to 30 current community health workers in Springfield, Holyoke, Pittsfield, and the Berkshires each year over the next four years. Concurrently, 30 UMass Amherst SPHHS undergraduate student interns will be placed in some of the communities to help administer new programs each year.