Organized in 1936, the School of Public Health began as a division within the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina.  Four years later, in 1940, it attained separate status, making our school the first school of public health established within a state university.  The school awarded its first graduate degrees that same year. 

In 1949, UNC added the schools of Dentistry and Nursing with the schools of Public Health, Medicine and Pharmacy to formally organize the University’s Division of Health Affairs.  Thus, the School of Public Health became one of the few schools of public health in the nation to be co-located with four other health-profession schools on one campus.

Over the years, the School of Public Health has grown into a collection of eight degree-granting divisions.  The departments of Epidemiology, Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Health Policy and Administration, and Public Health Nursing (now the Public Health Leadership Program) existed when the school was founded.  The Department of Health Behavior and Health Education was added in 1942, Nutrition in 1946, Biostatistics in 1949, and Maternal and Child Health in 1950.

Today the School of Public Health continues to award doctoral, master’s and undergraduate degrees and certificates to students who take courses on campus in Chapel Hill or via the Internet as distance learners.  As the oldest, most experienced school of public health at a public university, the University of North Carolina’s School of Public Health continues to receive national recognition as the top school of public health at a public university (U.S. News & World Report, ranked in 2007).