Center to provide 'focal point for preventative medicine research'

Originally designed to consolidate key prevention and health programs within the College of Medicine, the Arizona Prevention Center now acts as an umbrella organization for research between colleges.

"The idea of the APC is to encourage people to work collaboratively," said Scott Leischow, a prevention center faculty member.

Leischow said he believes cross-college collaboration will enable the center to accomplish more and offer better programs to Arizona citizens.

"The APC gives us the opportunity to put front and center the issues and methods that will enhance health through prevention," he said.

The program is a forerunner to where health care is going. HMOs are just beginning to focus on prevention as a way to reduce health care cost, Leischow said.

The UA's prevention center will provide a statewide focal point for preventative medicine research, he said.

Craig McClure, co-head of the Department of Family and Community Medicine, said: "One of the primary rationales for this was to establish a school of public health, which focuses on population-based medicine, as opposed to clinical medicine, which focuses on the individual."

"This is a very logical act for a land-grant medical school to do. It really reaches out to the population," he said.

The APC will also include a masters program in public health, which before had only been offered informally.

In April, the Arizona Board of Regents designated the APC a "Center of Excellence." Since then the center has been expanding.

The changes to the center, which has been operational for more than a year and a half year, will enable it to offer more services to the community, Director Kent Campbell said.

Already classified as a department, the prevention center is allowed to have faculty with their primary appointments in the center. This allows the faculty to spend more time involved with the program, Leischow said.

Drawing faculty from the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the College of Medicine, the center also offers teaching commitments to several graduate programs, in areas such as public health, epidemiology and nutritional sciences.

The administration for the center is housed in the Arizona Health Sciences Center, but various APC programs are spread out at more than a dozen different locations, Campbell said.

No new buildings will be built for the center, and no new funds will be needed.

A $10-million donation given anonymously will support its growth. Resources from Family and Community Medicine will be redirected, and research funding will sustain a majority of the personnel employed.

Campbell said the center was created to bring experience to the communities and citizens of Arizona.

"My major expectation for the future is to do a much better job with our new designation for the whole state," he said.