With the help of a $42.5 million gift, UC Irvine is launching a new school of public health that intends to be a major shaper of research and policy in Orange County.
The Joe C. Wen School of Population and Public Health, which received UC Board of Regents approval Thursday, July 18, becomes the first school of public health in Orange County and the fourth in the UC system.
The move elevates the status of the university’s preexisting public health program, which has experienced momentous growth since the COVID-19 pandemic and is currently home to more than 1,300 undergraduates. In the last five years, the number of master’s students in the public health program has quadrupled to more than 100, and the program’s professors have seen a threefold increase in the number of new research contracts and grants, university officials said.
Currently, the school has a $38 million research operating budget for faculty to focus on environmental justice and sustainability, mitigating chronic diseases, nutrition and wellness, health systems and policy, bioethics and more. A recent $14 million donation from the Irvine Health Foundation will enable the school to create several additional endowed faculty positions over the next few years, school officials said.
Bernadette Boden-Albala, the school’s inaugural dean, said it’s her mission to tie research at UCI to a better understanding of community health issues facing Orange County and better health outcomes for the county’s diverse residents.
“By population, Orange County is the sixth-largest county in the U.S., it’s an incredibly richly diverse county, and in any county with a population as large as this, there’s a lot of health issues,” she said.
Among the school’s priorities, she said, will be a commitment to partner with community services and local government to work toward better health outcomes tied to aging and environmental factors like clean air and water.
A social epidemiologist by trade, Boden-Albala focuses on how social, political, cultural and economic factors influence the health and well-being of individuals and communities. During the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, she worked closely with county officials to monitor and limit the spread of the disease.
“I think the new public health is rolling up our sleeves, finding partners — not just in the community — but in business and industry,” she said. “We all have to work together. Public health is outward facing, not just inward.”
It’s no longer sufficient for researchers to publish in medical journals without conveying to the public why their work matters, she said. “Writing a paper for the New England Journal of Medicine is excellent, but if we’re not out there taking that information and getting it into the community, then we’ve failed in public health.”
Speaking to the Register from a conference in Chicago for public health deans, Boden-Albala acknowledged that against the backdrop of today’s political landscape a great deal of the country, including some outspoken communities in Orange County, distrust the advice of health experts.
She acknowledged that the results of November’s elections could radically affect the nation’s attitude and policy on public health. So, she said, one of the workshops at the conference is about how to lead an effective school public health regardless of what happens at the polls in November.
“We need to have people trust us,” she said. “I think the communications part of that is critically important so that communities understand that science is important, that our evidence comes from science.”
Joe C. Wen, for whom the new school of public health will be named, runs Formosa, Ltd., a global conglomerate and real estate developer with holdings in businesses across a number of industries.
Wen immigrated to the U.S. from Taiwan as a teenager and proceeded to earn his bachelor’s degree from UCLA and an MBA from USC before starting his first business in 2003, a paper trading company in the City of Industry.
In addition to this naming gift, Wen donated another $7.5 million to UCI dedicated to cardiological research, education and clinical operations. In 2022, he donated $20 million to UCI Health to create an outpatient clinical facility in Irvine.
“Our family’s commitment to advancing healthcare and education has always been a core value,” Wen said in a statement. “We are honored to support UC Irvine in its mission to improve healthcare and advance teaching and research, continuing a legacy of care and compassion for future generations.”
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