The Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC has been a leader in its field since its founding in 1977 and has made many noteworthy contributions to the understanding of public health and disease etiology, treatment, and prevention. These include pioneering research on the relationship between hormones and cancer, the ability of exercise to reduce breast cancer risk, demonstration of the impact of air pollution on childhood lung function development, advances in the etiology, treatment and prevention of pediatric obesity, as well as novel methodological research focusing on the interaction between genes and the environment. The foundation for many of these advances stems from a highly collaborative faculty implementing a transdisciplinary approach to research – an approach hallmarked by the integration of biologically and behaviorally motivated hypotheses, advanced technology, and extensive study populations. Such examples include one of the first research groups to exploit the Cancer Surveillance Program to enhance population-based studies of disease, the use of multiple ethnic groups within the Multiethnic Cohort Study to localize genetic findings, and the integration of Geographic Information Systems in the Children's Health Study to create a detailed history of the pollution within the Los Angeles basin to investigate its potential influence on patterns of childhood diseases.
The Department of Preventive Medicine has a blend of expertise, research, and teaching that makes it unique among departments in the University. Between its five diverse divisions, Preventive Medicine is home to worldwide authorities on prevention research in biostatistics, environmental health, health behavior, epidemiology, and bioinformatics. The department's faculty members are widely sought for peer review and advisory activities and participate in diverse committees of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Our research is at the very core of our goals to promote the public health of diverse populations in the California and Pacific Rim region. This is also reflected in our training programs with undergraduate degrees in Health Promotion and Global Health and advanced degrees in Public Health, Global Medicine, Biostatistics, Applied Biostatistics & Epidemiology, Epidemiology, Molecular Epidemiology, and Statistical Genetics & Genetic Epidemiology. Our strong history, coupled with our talented faculty and the ability to utilize new technologies, places USC in a position to be a leader in many future discoveries and in the training of the next generation of prevention/public health researchers.
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Featured News
Jon Samet, the Flora L. Thornton Chair of the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Keck School, recently attended the American Epidemiologic Society annual meeting at Michigan State University and delivered a lecture as the society's 2013 Langmuir Awardee, an honor that recognized his work in epidemiology.
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A new model of delivering primary care studied by Keck Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) researchers has the potential to improve the health of patients with type 2 diabetes.
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An international study co-led by Keck School of Medicine of USC scientists and researchers in the United Kingdom has revealed 23 new genetic susceptibility locations indicating risk for prostate cancer.
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Soda consumers may be getting a much higher dose of the harmful sugar fructose than they have been led to believe, according to a new study led by Michael Goran, director of the Childhood Obesity Research Center (CORC) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
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For the first time, research conducted by scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC shows that airliner activity at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) worsens air quality over a far larger area than previously assumed.
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Jonathan Samet, professor and chair of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine and one of the nation’s most widely respected experts on the health risks of active smoking and second-hand smoke, tobacco control, and air pollution, comments on his role as senior scientific editor of the 2014 Surgeon General's Report on smoking and recent developments in tobacco prevention.
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A public education program that trained and fielded a cadre of health mentors in California significantly boosted Latino residents’ knowledge of everything from cholesterol and diabetes to the importance of nutrition and exercise, a USC study showed.
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USC President C. L. Max Nikias has named Jonathan Samet, MD, MS, the Flora L. Thornton Distinguished Chair of Preventive Medicine and chair and professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and director of the USC Institute for Global Health, as Distinguished Professor.
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