Formula grants to schools of public health.

As the dean of one school of public health and as the Past President and current Chairman of the Legislative Committee o f the Association of Schools of Public Health, I feel that I can speak from some experience about the federal assistance which regional schools of public health in this country require to continue the education of health personnel for the public. My Association includes all 1 6 university schools in the United States-California a t Berkeley, California a t Los Angeles, Columbia, Harvard, Hawaii, Johns Hopkins, Loma Linda, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pittsburg, Puerto Rico, Texas, Tdane , and Yale. I am appearing in support of the legislation t o extend and increase the authorization for formula grants to schools of public health under Section 309(e) of the Public Health Service Act. Although not changed in basic purpose and orientation, public health has changed significantly in scope and content in just the past few years. The Congress has created a series of programs aimed at improving the health of the American people, programs which, if well administered and staffed, hold great promise for the prevention of disease and for a better status of health. Medicare and Medicaid are well known and obvious examples, but emphasis on health factors also has been a prominent aspect in the OEO programs and Model City programs. The 1967 and 1968 legislation for comprehensive health planning is a major landmark in support of the principle for considering all possible factors before allocations for health are made. Here are major implications for an eventual cutting of costs and for obtaining more value from public dollars spent for health. All the old and new health programs not only require large increases in prepared personnel but the tasks t o be carried out require the type of education best provided in a multidisciplinary setting. For example, senior planning officials need t o know the biological back-ground of disease in order to understand how both personal factors and the influence of the physical environment affect health goals. They have t o be familiar with the same background to appreciate the possibilities which reasonably may be expected of organized preventive health measures. At the same time, planners must understand organizational principles, the technics of gathering data for economic decisions, and the possibilities and limitations of applying a cost-benefit analysis t o a health situation. Proper education in these various factors should produce health personnel capable of planning more effective and economical distribution of public resources in the future. Other examples are the physician and nurse able to direct health programs in areas of poverty where they need to know the social, behavioral, and environmental aspects that are associated. The variety of persons just mentioned constitute a small sample only of the kinds of personnel preparcd a t schools of public health. Schools of public health received their