Gillings School of Global Public Health
Public health programs at UNC began in the 1920s as part of the university's efforts to address the needs of the state. It set up training programs for county health officers and public health nurses in collaboration with the State Board of Health. These programs were part of the School of Medicine, eventually becoming a separate school and awarding its first degrees in 1940. Graduate and research programs helped the school grow exponentially in the decades after World War II. It developed international research endeavors such as the Carolina Population Center, and multi-institutional efforts to address cancer, HIV/AIDS, aging, and environmental pollutants.
In 2008 the school became the Gillings School of Global Public Health in recognition of a transformational gift from local business owners and philanthropists Dennis Gillings and Joan Gillings. Adding the word "global" to the school's name illustrated its reach. Its faculty and students work in all 100 counties of the state and in more than 60 countries worldwide. Consistently ranked as one of the top public health programs in the country, the Gillings School has departments in biostatistics, environmental sciences and engineering, epidemiology, health behavior, health policy and management, maternal and child health, and nutrition and a program in public health leadership.