The Health & Society Scholars Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has two overall goals:

• Integrate population health knowledge development: Provide a high-quality postdoctoral training experience for future academic and policy leaders who will be able to understand and add knowledge regarding the multiple determinants of broad health outcomes and their distribution in populations. 
• Practice relevant population health research: Ensure that scholars have state-of-the-art understanding of the translation of research and new knowledge into practice and are able to provide leadership for the emerging field of population health.

The University’s departments and centers are nationally and internationally recognized and ranked at the top of their fields. The University has a strong history of interdisciplinary academic activity, partly due to our midwestern cooperative culture and the presence of significant state core funding of research. Major centers, such as the Institute for Research on Poverty and the Institute for Environmental Studies, contribute to recognition as a world leader in the social and biologic sciences and in their translation into social policy.
The Health & Society Scholars Program is housed within the Department of Population Health Sciences, within the School of Medicine and Public Health. The Department administers interdisciplinary M.S. and Ph.D. programs in Population Health, focusing on core courses in epidemiology, health services research, health economics, and biostatistics. The department also administers an M.P.H. program. These programs bring together faculty from across campus, providing rich opportunities for students, faculty, and postdoctoral fellows to interact through courses and research, and through formal and informal mentoring and collaborative activities.

Our concept of population health is broad and integrative. We explicitly define and conduct research in population health in terms of the distribution of health outcomes, such as life years and health-related quality of life. We acknowledge the importance of all categories of determinants (e.g., biological, medical, behavioral, social, economic and environmental) and their important interactions over the life course, as well as the relative cost-effectiveness of the multiple determinants.

We are committed to delivering a program that is tailored to the goals of each scholar using the wealth of resources available in Wisconsin. More than 30 faculty members across the campus have made a commitment to serve as academic advisors and mentors to the scholars, and many external partners are enthusiastic about hosting scholars in their practice settings. We have designed a flexible scholar research program enriched by seminars, national and international visiting professors, mentoring, and individual assistance with career development. Scholars have dedicated office space, staff and secretarial assistance, a dedicated library, and funds for individual research.

The program co-directors are David Kindig, M.D., Ph.D., professor emeritus of Population Health Sciences and an expert in health policy, John Mullahy, Ph.D., professor of Population Health Sciences and a health economist, and Stephanie Robert, Ph.D., associate professor of Social Work and a medical sociologist. These individuals have close working relationships and strong links to other individuals and organizations across the campus and the state. They are committed to producing the highest quality academic and personal experience for the scholars at Wisconsin.

For more information, contact:

The Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program
Department of Population Health Sciences
610 Walnut Street, 707 WARF Building
Madison, WI 53726
Phone: (608) 265-4592
E-mail: rwjscholars@lists.services.wisc.edu
Web site: http://www.pophealth.wisc.edu/rwjscholars/
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