Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine
Strategic Initiatives
Join Us to Drive the Future of Public Health Forward
When you chart any adverse health outcome on a map of the United States — whether it be life expectancy, chronic diseases or infectious diseases — the American South emerges as a region of serious concern. Public health in our region and across the globe is constantly evolving, and so is the mission of the Tulane University Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Recent philanthropic support has highlighted the critical work we are doing, but there is still much more to accomplish. To meet the public health challenges of today and tomorrow, we continue to rely on the support of our dedicated Tulane community.
Dr. Thomas LaVeist, dean of the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine, has identified eight key strategic growth areas. These areas reflect both our long-standing expertise and the emerging demands of the public health field. Dean LaVeist has brought together leading faculty, university partners and industry experts from the nonprofit, governmental and corporate worlds to shape the future of public health.
As the public health school for the South, we have embraced these eight key initiatives to tackle the region’s most pressing health challenges, which we know to be not only the challenges of the nation but also the health challenges of the world. These eight areas build on the school’s extensive experience and deep knowledge, and also represent growth areas within public health and the school in particular. This ambitious trajectory is sparking excitement across the school and positions us as a leader in public health innovation, ready to attract the next generation of pioneering researchers and students. However, achieving these goals requires continued support from our loyal Tulanians.
Located in New Orleans, Louisiana, the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine has played an integral role in the city and regional response to weather-related health crises throughout history. The school is uniquely positioned to address and respond to extreme weather impacts in the Gulf South, providing critical analysis in the context of local factors for education, policy, and action. The school is establishing a major initiative to tackle the complex interactions between climate and health including extreme heat and humidity on cardiopulmonary and mental health, precipitation and vector-borne disease, food and water security and disaster management. Because effective actions to protect health are related to the built and the natural environments, the school has collaborated with the School of Architecture and Built Environment and the School of Science and Engineering, to start cross-disciplinary educational programs designed to train the next generation of researchers and practitioners addressing climate and health.
Louisiana is ranked fifth in the nation for all cancer mortality, with an 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans representing some of the highest incidence rates in the world. Despite those devastating statistics, the state does not currently have a National Cancer Institute-designated center. Tulane is partnering on an initiative to attain that prestigious federal designation through its Tulane Cancer Center. Led by nationally recognized researcher, Dr. Shalini Kulasingham, the time is right, as Tulane has a partnership with LCMC Health to expand comprehensive and specialty care across southeast Louisiana. Louisiana deserves innovative, world-class research and training to address the cancer crisis, and the school is uniquely positioned to train the next generation of interdisciplinary cancer researchers to affect the health of our Gulf Coast communities.
Support Cancer Prevention and Control
This initiative to establish a Health Policy Institute is led by alumnus Chip Kahn, a leading national voice in the area of health policy. Health care is and will continue to be one of the key issues in American discourse. Numerous policy issues confront lawmakers, practitioners and the public at large, issues that need to be examined, explored and assessed. A world-class institute focused on issues of health policy centrally located in the Gulf South would provide much-needed research and advocacy on a wide range of issues impacting the healthcare field today and into the future.
Support the Health Policy Institute
The school is already a leader in advancing health disparities research, and now it has launched a dedicated Health Equity Institute to prepare more public health practitioners to enhance human health through engagement of communities in the Gulf South and globally through a dedicated institute that is already leading the way in advancing research. As one of the leading national voices in health disparities, Dean LaVeist is no stranger to this topic, and indeed, the school has extensive initiatives already underway.
Advancing health disparities outcomes, particularly in the South, is a key component of this initiative. The school will continue to strengthen long-standing ties to the community, with an interest in developing a report on the status of health disparities in the South. Health disparities considerations have already been baked into academics at the school, but plans are underway to also add a specialization area in health disparities to train more public health practitioners with in-depth knowledge on this topic.
Support Health Equity Institute
Tulane has long been a public health leader. The university was founded in 1834 in response to deadly epidemics like yellow fever and cholera. In 1912, it established the nation’s first school of public health—one that continues to address health issues both locally and globally. Building on our recognized leadership in infectious disease epidemiology, we are positioned for further growth in this area. With very strong Departments of Epidemiology and also Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, the school is uniquely positioned to plan and prepare for the next infectious threat and better understand the ones still vexing us, such as malaria, dengue, HIV, syphilis, measles and influenza. This initiative will expand research at the school while also providing students with a hands-on training ground, expanding the cadre of disease detectives to stem the spread of disease.
Support Infectious Disease Epidemiology
AI is a tool — and one the public health community can and should be using to more effectively and efficiently address barriers to good health. The professional and academic public health communities will need to be well-versed in this technology, and researchers with skills in this area are planning ways to not only house AI and machine-learning expertise at the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine, but also provide a symposium, capacity-building trainings, seed grants, and other methods to train current and future practitioners
Support Artificial Intelligence and Data Science
In Louisiana, we have some of the highest rates of maternal mortality. With the breadth and depth of expertise we have in maternal and child health at the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine, there is no better time than now to declare a strategic focus on changing these and related outcomes. We are gathering the vast experts within the Celia Scott Weatherhead School, along with their strong partnerships among groups in New Orleans, the state of Louisiana and across the region, to directly impact the health outcomes of women, children and birthing people in the South for the better.
Support Maternal and Child Health
A significant number of individuals working in state and local health departments lack formal training in public health, despite being on the front lines of community health efforts. Creating a Public Health Workforce Initiative addresses this gap by offering a one-year certificate in public health, providing practitioners with essential training and a valuable credential. The workforce initiative pairs the scholars’ deep compassion and innate drive to serve the public good with an exceptional public health credential from Tulane, planting more skilled professionals in the field with a strong foundation in biostatistics, epidemiology, health systems policy and management, and strategies for implementing successful public health programs.
By equipping the workforce with the latest evidence-based expertise in public health, the program is a driving force for improving community health outcomes throughout the region and the nation. At the same time, cultivating a wide network of practitioners with ties to Tulane could open doors to countless new opportunities, including student internships, research projects, fieldwork and community-engaged projects.
Support the Public Health Workforce Initiative
To fully realize this vision, we need your partnership.
Your support would enable us to invest in the talent, technology and infrastructure necessary to drive these bold initiatives forward. Together, we can position Tulane at the forefront of public health, creating lasting impacts in the fields that will define the future -- climate, health disparity, disease prevention and control, and AI.
Contact Us
Please contact Shawna Foose at sfoose@tulane.edu if you would like to discuss how your giving can support the Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine.