April 26, 2000
BIRMINGHAM, AL — A health education and health promotion doctoral program offered jointly by UAB (the University of Alabama at Birmingham) and the University of Alabama ranks seventh in the nation in productivity and scholarly activity of students, according to a study published in the April issue of the Journal of Health Education.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Alabama, ranked 28 doctoral programs across the nation. The UAB-UA doctoral program ranked behind Indiana University, University of Texas-Houston, North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Michigan. The UAB-UA program topped other universities, including UCLA, University of Maryland, Temple University, and the University of Massachusetts.
“The national ranking is significant particularly since the program is a very young program,” says David Macrina, Ph.D., chairman of the UAB Department of Human Studies. “The program has only been in existence since 1992. To be considered in the top 10 programs in the country is a credit to the hard work and national reputations of the faculty and students in the program.”
The UAB-UA Health Education and Health Promotion program is offered jointly by the UAB Department of Health Behavior, the UAB School of Education Health Education Program, and the University of Alabama Health Studies Program.
The ranking is unique in that it is the first ranking of doctoral programs of health education. Scholars and leaders in the field of health education ranked the schools according to external funding, number of articles in leading journals, mentoring and placement, student activity such as teaching and research, student-faculty ratio, citations in leading journals, editorship in leading journals and student support, including assistantships and research support.
The UAB-UA doctoral program faculty members have received a variety of health education-related grants. Program faculty has generated nearly $4 million dollars in external funding to support research and service activities, Macrina said. This includes a five-year, $2.49 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate cigarette smoking cessation during pregnancy. Other grants include a three-year, $573,000 grant from the NIH Office of Adolescent Pregnancy for the Pickens County Family Life Project, and $44,500 from the Cancer Research Foundation of America for a pilot project to increase health instruction in Alabama schools.