The Commonwealth Public Health Training Center is a partnership of the state's graduate programs in public health, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), the Virginia Public Health Association (VPHA) and all family medicine residency programs in the commonwealth. The center will be directed by David O. Matson, MD, PhD, who heads the EVMS/ODU Graduate Program in Public Health, and Christine C. Matson, MD, chair of the EVMS Department of Family and Community Medicine.

Creation of a unified training and education structure is an important step toward addressing health inequities and strengthening the public-health infrastructure, which is expected to shoulder greater responsibilities following this year's approval of federal health-care legislation. The new commonwealth center also will focus on global health concerns that merit greater research attention.

"Community partnerships are an important key to keeping Virginia healthy," said VDH Commissioner Karen Remley, MD, MBA. "This grant will allow us to collaborate with Eastern Virginia Medical School and Old Dominion University as we collectively work to ensure our public health professionals are highly skilled, so that they can meet a wide range of health needs around the state."

All of the center's training activities will include education on health equity, which Dr. Remley said will help the commonwealth focus on populations that experience poorer health outcomes compared to others. "We want to advance health equity for all Virginians, including racially and ethnically diverse communities and those living in communities with few economic resources, either in rural or urban settings," she said.

C. Donald Combs, PhD, vice provost of planning and health professions at EVMS said, "The center is an important example of EVMS' long-term strategy of developing partnerships to address pressing community needs - in this instance strengthening the commonwealth's public-health work force."

The center will have five core initiatives:

• Providing training for VDH employees throughout Virginia
• Enhancing the public-health knowledge of family-medicine residents
• Strengthening the education pipeline for the future and current public-health workforce
• Integrating the needs of the medically underserved into all training initiatives
• Hosting statewide training conferences to promote education and collaboration among public-health professionals

"We need to have a cadre of highly trained professionals working in the public health system. Historically, a substantial number of those employees have no specific training in the discipline. Our goal is actively to bring training to them," Dr. David Matson said.

Through partnerships between academic centers and public-health leaders in the state, trainees will conduct studies of health issues that typically are not the focus of high-quality research. Because collaboration is essential for effective public-health programs, center trainees will work in teams - including groups conducting global-health research. "We believe this cross-disciplinary approach and global and community health exposure enhances the leadership potential for persons completing our training programs," Dr. Matson said.

"I am extremely excited by the opportunity because the public-health workforce is aging and carrying a greater burden each year. Grants like these are needed to support and build public-health infrastructure in Virginia," said A. James English, associate professor in ODU's School of Community and Environmental Health and associate director of the EVMS/ODU Graduate Program in Public Health.

Ruth Bernheim, JD, MPH, president of the VAPHA and director of the University of Virginia Master's of Public Health Program called the initiative "a remarkable step for public health in Virginia.

"For the first time, it brings together the Virginia Public Health Association and its associated masters of public health programs with the VDH and schools of medicine to launch public-health education for the workforce. It's an extraordinary bringing together of people to take a major leap forward," she said. "We are grateful to EVMS and ODU for providing leadership on this effort."