Education

• 2,544 students
• 166 faculty members
• 20 degree programs

The college was awarded two new federally funded training grants, bringing the total to eight. These training programs provide specialized curricula, experiences and mentoring for graduate students and postdoctoral associates in areas ranging from breathing research and therapeutics to movement disorders and treating young children with disabilities.

The Doctor of Occupational Therapy program was ranked No. 10 among graduate programs in occupational therapy (4 among public universities) in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings.

Rankings

U.S. News & World Report graduate programs, ranked in 2018, 2019 and 2020 (among public universities)

Occupational therapy 4

Physical therapy 6

Biostatistics 10

Health care management 17

Clinical psychology 19

Speech-language pathology 20

Public health 24

Audiology 24

Research

• $36 million in research awards
• 9 in NIH funding among schools of public health at public universities

Last year, a dozen college investigators received grants in the amount of $1 million or more. Faculty members are also publishing their findings in high-impact journals, including The Lancet, JAMA Network Open, Journal of the American Heart Association, The Lancet/Oncology, Nature Reviews/Disease Primers, Journal of Clinical Oncology and JAMA Oncology.

The Ebola vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV, was approved for licensing by the European Medicines Agency in November. Ira Longini, Ph.D., and Natalie Dean, Ph.D., faculty members in the department of biostatistics, played an integral role in the design and analysis of trials testing the effectiveness of the vaccine, which is anticipated to save many lives. National Geographic included the development of rVSV-ZEBOV among their 20 most important scientific advances of the last decade.

College researchers are conducting a number of ongoing studies related to COVID-19. These include disease modeling, understanding disease transmission in households and communities, and developing more effective personal protective equipment for health care workers.

Service

• 3 student-run equal access clinics

The college provides clinical, professional and community service at the local, national and international levels. The department of clinical and health psychology provides psychological services for the entire academic health center and UF Health Physicians practices. UF HealthStreet, a community engagement program that seeks to reduce health disparities and improve access to research studies, now has more than 11,000 members from the community. Students in physical therapy, occupational therapy and clinical and health psychology offer pro bono services through Equal Access Clinics, providing care for local residents who are uninsured or underinsured.

PHHP students, along with students from the other health colleges, founded the UF chapter of the COVID-19 Student Service Corps. The corps aims to support health systems, patients, the workforce and communities through facilitating interprofessional student service-learning projects.

Last year, the college introduced Promoting Happy, Healthy People, a comprehensive collegewide, incentive-based wellness program for students, faculty and staff led by Tara Sabo-Attwood, Ph.D., chair of the department of environmental and global health.