THE major health problem in our world today is the disease of sin with its result ant effects on the physical, mental, and spiritual natures. The classic World Health Organization's definition of health is that "Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." This definition needs to be taken one step further in order to be fully meaningful and complete. The spiritual nature and its well-being need to be included. Seventh-day Adventists have been attempting to do this in our worldwide ministry to the physical, mental, social, and spiritual needs of all with whom we come in contact. There is always a danger of concentrating on any one aspect of this program to the exclusion of the others. But every effort to heal the imbalance brought about by sin is in reality part of genuine medical missionary work. The servant of the Lord has stated: "We should ever remember that the efficiency of the medical missionary work is in pointing sin-sick men and women to the Man of Calvary, who taketh away the sin of the world." Counsels on Health, p. 528.
The Loma Linda University School of Public Health in striving to accomplish this God-appointed task has become one of the fifteen fully accredited Schools of Public Health in the United States. The first graduate degrees in public health were offered at Loma Linda in 1961. By 1963 these included: health education, tropical public health, and public health nutrition. In 1967 the School of Public Health was formed and the program was granted accreditation by the American Public Health Association.
Since July of 1968, eight departments have made up the school. These are: public health practice, environmental health, epidemiology, biostatics, nutrition, health education, health media, and tropical health. Three degrees are offered: the Master of Public Health, the Master of Science in Public Health, and the Master of Science. The latter is given through the Graduate School.
Whereas every phase of the school's pro gram is designed to train students for denominational as well as community service, the Department of Health Education offers the minister or health professional who wishes to develop skills in health evangelism a curriculum in church health education. This program is not only designed to prepare the worker in the basic skills expected of the health educator, but prepares him to lead his church in community health services, to apply techniques of group dynamics, and to utilize effective communication methods in cooperation with various public and private health agencies.
Scope of the Program
To provide these skills, the School of Public Health makes available its own resources and also utilizes the extensive resources of the university in religion, behavioral sciences, and the health sciences. The scope of the Church Health Education program includes group leader ship, community organization, program planning, evaluation for health behavior change, nutrition, alcohol and narcotics education, and home health care.
Electives may be chosen from a variety of areas: Christian medical missions, tropical health, maternal and child health, family planning, mental health, physical fitness, human ecology, and statistics. To meet domestic and international demand for expertise in communications, the Department of Health Media offers opportunity for church health educators to prepare video tapes, slides, motion pictures, and other audio-visual materials useful in health education.
Summer participation in an appropriate church-related health program is required of every student. The School of Public Health cooperates with the Theological Seminary of Andrews University in offering field courses in health ministry at various centers. There are also opportunities for observation and experience in the effective health education activities of public health agencies, voluntary health agencies, and medical institutions.
Students who anticipate foreign mission service have opportunity during the period of residence at Loma Linda to participate in the annual Mission Orientation Program. Offered during this intensive spring session are courses in cultural anthropology, linguistics, tropical hygiene, population programs, and Christian medical missions.
The place of public health in the church is one which is far more than the standard usage of the term "public health professional" envisions. Christ Himself set the pattern for the distinctive health ministry to which the School of Public Health at Loma Linda University is committed. Community and church health leaders are being developed at Loma Linda for service throughout the world and now we are only able to see in faint outline what may result from our modest beginnings:
"The breadth of gospel medical missionary work is not understood. . . . Our field is the world; our work the proclamation of the truths which Christ came to our world to proclaim." Ibid., p. 509.
The world field has a right to expect of the School of Public Health a professional excellence sanctified by a dedication to unselfish and unprejudiced service, and a determination, through creative concepts of curriculum and teaching with a sense of world mission in mind, to help train and inspire Seventh-day Adventist workers and laymen in last-day ministry to the physical, mental, social, and spiritual needs of a world desperately searching for a better way. This expectation is the challenge which we anticipate meeting through the grace and help and wisdom of the One who established this school for this purpose.
