University of Michigan School of Public Health

Since 1941, the University of Michigan School of Public Health has been pursuing a healthier, more equitable world through education, research and action. We work with compassion, innovation and inclusion to create meaningful, lasting impact.

Ranked among the top schools of public health in the country, we train more than 1,300 graduate and undergraduate students each year. With more than 190 faculty and researchers across six academic departments and numerous collaborative centers and institutes, we produce impactful research aimed at finding lasting solutions to pressing public health problems.

Compassion, innovation, and inclusion drive our faculty, staff, students, and more than 18,000 alumni to pursue positive change and improve the health of the world.

The University of Michigan’s Role in the Collaboration for Equitable Health

Led by Dr. Minal Patel, a team of researchers and staff from the University of Michigan School of Public Health has worked closely with the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and American Diabetes Association to develop key performance indicators (KPIs) for the Collaboration for Equitable Health initiative to measure outcomes related to access, education and policy advocacy.

The University of Michigan team also developed community profiles for each city the initiative is working in, detailing the demographic makeup; health data related to diabetes, heart disease and cancer; health policies and programs; and other relevant information such as employment, housing and environment data. Together with community input, these profiles helped to determine priority areas in each city.

Dr. Minal Patel, associate professor of health behavior and health education sums up the work well, “The University of Michigan School of Public Health has a long history of doing cross-site evaluation of community coalition-led initiatives aimed at improving health outcomes. Because we are not the ones implementing interventions and programming in this partnership, we have the unique ability to offer an independent evaluation of how the work is going. This ensures the interventions will have a positive impact, be sustainable, and can be translated to other communities.”

The University of Michigan team will report on progress at least annually over the course of the initiative.