As of Friday, Indiana University no longer has a school of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. The school is getting a face lift.
IU officials gathered on Thursday to rechristen the program the Indiana University School of Public Health. Assistant Dean David Skirvin says the change will help students’ job prospects.
“Now, they will become more marketable to employers,” he says. “Certainly, our students at the graduate school level will likewise become more marketable in terms of their aspirations.”
IU Public Health Professor David Lohrmann says the school focuses on health promotion and disease prevention. He says the state could cut health care costs by 25 percent, while improving the quality of lives for citizens.
“Public health is really trying to include population base health, so when you look at the major health issues for the state of Indiana, including cigarette smoking, obesity, heart disease, cancer, we’re in the lower half to the lower one-third of all the states for most of the important indicators of health,” he says.
Lohrman says the school will receive final accreditation in about two years.
