Braun School of Public Health and Community Medicine

School Mission & Goals
The Braun School?s mission is to strive toward improving the physical, mental and social welfare of the global community, with a commitment towards excellence in multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary public health research, training and practice.
Since 1961, the Braun School has been dedicated to advancing public health knowledge in Israel and worldwide, and inspire personal, professional and political commitment toward ''''''''Tikun Olam'''''''' (literally, ''''''''world repair'''''''' ? a Jewish adage that has come to connote social action and the pursuit of social justice, equity and health), or in the words of Krieger & Birn (AJPH, 1998) making the world "a better place, free of misery, inequity, and preventable suffering, a world in which we all can live, work, play, ail, and die with dignity intact and our humanity cherished".

We achieve this through:
- Cultivating and sustaining an integrated multidisciplinary environment that facilitates excellence in research, teaching and creative academic activity from the molecular to the population level
- Offering curricula that promote integrated multidisciplinary approaches to public health and prepare the next generation of researchers, teachers, and practitioners to effectively meet the public health challenges of today and the future
- Promoting and fostering novel multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research projects among Braun School researchers and in collaboration with scientists, clinicians, and public health specialists from Hebrew University, the Hadassah Medical Organization, and other leading research institutions in Israel and abroad

We prepare our students to assume leadership positions in academia, government agencies, healthcare facilities, community-based organizations and industry, in the areas of public health service provision, policy setting, research and training.
To this end, the Learning Goals of our Master-level programs are:
- Gain knowledge and expertise in public health, community medicine and related disciplines
- Acquire basic measurement tools (epidemiologic, statistical, behavioral and financial) necessary for identifying and appraising public health challenges and formulating relevant responses
- Attain administrative skills and a deeper understanding of management of healthcare facilities and systems
- Develop skills for planning, administering and assessing community-level and national health services, quality control of medical services, and analyzing community health data toward development of community-based programs.

Research
Public health researchers investigate and analyze how the distribution of disease varies by age, gender, race, behavior and lifestyle choices, occupational and environmental exposures, genetic determinants, pre- or co-existing conditions, medical interventions, health laws and other factors that influence health at the individual and community level. This makes the Braun School''''''''s research agenda inherently multi- and cross-disciplinary, as is evidenced in the broad range of research topics addressed by our faculty members in the areas of infectious and chronic disease, environmental and occupational health, health promotion, health policy, systems and services, etc.

To understand disease processes and outcomes, and to determine causal factors, we ask questions such as: "What sequences of states and processes influence who becomes, and remains sick, and who does not?" and "What can be done to prevent or delay onset of illness, shorten its duration, and reduce the burden of disease from affected cases, their families, and society in general?" By identifying populations and individuals at risk, we can motivate people to adopt risk-reducing behaviors and policy-makers to adopt health-promoting policies at the institutional, community, and national levels.

Our researchers are also engaged in the field of public health services and systems research that aims to produce the evidence needed to address critical issues about how best to organize, finance, and deliver effective health and public health services and develop strategies for allocating health resources.

By doing so, we can reduce social and economic disparities in health outcomes and access to preventive, curative and rehabilitative services.

In keeping with Nikola Tesla''s statement that ?Science is but a perversion of itself unless it has as its ultimate goal the betterment of humanity?, public health researchers (even those engaged in understanding biological mechanisms of disease), often engage with policy makers and health planners and provide the evidence-base for policy planning and evaluation.

One of the major strengths of public health research is its multidisciplinary approach and integration of traditional and innovative scientific methods and tools. The research foci at the Braun School span a broad spectrum of disciplines from the molecular/genetic level to the macro-social level, and from chronic (but preventable) conditions including obesity, diabetes, cancer, heart disease to communicable diseases and mental health and addictions, and employ a wide range of research tools including epidemiology and biostatistics, genomics, behavioral science methods, all linked with laboratory and clinical medicine, and with wider fields including environment, nutrition, sociology and economic sciences.

Our research is supported by grants from Israeli and international funding agencies including the NIH, EU, MERC, BSF, ISF, and others. Braun researchers have collaborations with numerous research and clinical institutions in Israel including in the Palestinian Authority, and across the globe such as with the National University of Singapore; University of Washington, Seattle; London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; NYU and Columbia University in New York; Karolinska Institute, Sweden; University of New South Wales, Australia; University of Basel, Switzerland; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.