Staff at the N.C. Institute for Public Health have completed an evaluation of the National Public Health Leadership Institute. Karl Umble, PhD, MPH, program planner and evaluator at the N.C. Institute since 1998, led the evaluation study.

Through Web-based surveys and interviews of participants in the leadership program, Umble’s team determined that the Leadership Institute had “very considerable” success in developing leaders, building networks and informing public health infrastructure and systems. The evaluation report is available online. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention founded the Leadership Institute in 1990 in response to the 1988 report, “The Future of Public Health,” prepared by the Institute of Medicine.  The report concluded that major improvements in the practice of public health in the U.S. were necessary.

The mission of the Leadership Institute is to strengthen leadership competencies of senior public health leaders and build a network of senior leaders who can collaborate about ways to address public health challenges.

Participants in the leadership program have included agency and department directors; local, state and federal officials; public health academics; and heads of state and national health care organizations.  In its 15 years of operation, based in California and then in North Carolina, the Leadership Institute has graduated 15 cohorts of more than 800 scholars who came from communities across the United States.