Bloomberg charity donates $300m to create new public health initiative at Johns Hopkins

Bloomberg Philanthropies, the charity organization founded by former three-term New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, will provide a $300 million grant to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, to establish a health initiative aimed at improving public health by providing funding for new students, researchers and practitioners.

According to a statement released by the school, the newly created Bloomberg American Health Initiative will focus on five issues currently affecting public health — drug addition, obesity, gun violence, adolescent health and environmental threats.

“People are living longer lives than ever before in history, thanks in no small part to the pioneering public health work done at Johns Hopkins over the last century,” Bloomberg said in a press release. “But we can and must do better, starting here in the U.S., where life expectancy is lagging behind much of the developed world. By spreading smart public health strategies that save lives and bringing people together to try new approaches, we can make the same strides in the 21st century against health threats like air pollution, gun violence and obesity that we did in the 20th century against polio and other infectious diseases.”

Specifically, the $300 million grant will fund:

An endowment totaling $100 million for 50 public health fellows each year, nominated from organizations throughout the country, to receive master’s degrees in public health. The fellows must commit to returning to their home communities to work in public health for at least 1 year. The endowment funds their education, training and living expenses while they are part of the program;
A $125 million endowment funding faculty and their research within the five focus areas. It will provide for a network of 25 faculty members, including 10 receiving joint appointments in other schools at Johns Hopkins, and 12 receiving joint appointments spanning more than one department at the Bloomberg School of Public Health;
Scholarships totaling $75 million for Johns Hopkins University’s new school-wide public health doctorate program. It would also support a new biennial public health summit including Bloomberg fellows, faculty and partnering organizations to share research findings.

“Michael Bloomberg’s commitment to this transformational initiative is testament to his vision that, as our nation’s public health challenges have evolved, so too must our model of public health,” Ronald J. Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins University, said in a press release. “The Bloomberg American Health Initiative builds on Michael’s visionary legacy at Johns Hopkins and sets the bar ever higher in the next 100 years to transform our national response to modern public health challenges and bend the trajectory of the lives of individuals and communities across the United States.”

The announcement coincides with the school’s centennial anniversary. Founded in 1916 as the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, it was later renamed for Bloomberg in 2001 in recognition of “his financial support and commitment to the field of public health,” according to a school statement.

Including this latest grant, Bloomberg has now donated an estimated $1.5 billion to Johns Hopkins in the 52 years since receiving his bachelor’s degree in engineering from the university.

“We are deeply grateful to Michael Bloomberg for this incredibly generous gift that launches our next century,” Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH, dean of the Bloomberg School, said in a press release. “It will have an impact on the school that bears his name and on public health in the United States for generations to come. The Bloomberg American Health Initiative will build a broad network of innovative experts in all parts of the country committed to protecting health and saving lives, millions at a time.”

Additional reading:

http://www.jhsph.edu/about/bloomberg-american-health-initiative/index.html