Meet Our Institutional Member of the Month: University of Iowa College of Public Health

Tell us about your institution. What is your mission?

The mission of the University of Iowa College of Public Health (UI CPH) is to promote health and to prevent injury and illness through commitment to education and training, excellence in research, innovation in policy development, and devotion to public health practice. Our vision is to serve Iowa and the Midwest as one of the nation’s premier state-assisted schools of public health and lead the global community in rural public health education and training, research, and practice.

Why did you decide to make the connection between your program and IAPHS?

Our college decided to become an institutional member of IAPHS because we recognized that the mission of IAPHS — namely the focus on connecting population health scientists across disciplines and sectors to advance the development of population health science and promote its application — aligns with our interdisciplinary and population-based focus as a college. It also provides great opportunities for our faculty and students to contribute to interdisciplinary approaches that integrate social, behavioral, and biological knowledge that lead to innovation and new discoveries.

We’d love to hear more about the research your members engage in. What are some themes that run through the research in your program?

Two of our college’s collective areas of excellence that align with IAPHS are rural health and community engagement. The UI CPH is one of the pre-eminent academic institutions conducting research, education, and outreach on rural health. By advancing the study of exposures, diseases and injuries, healthcare finance and delivery, and health outcomes affecting rural people, we can develop prevention, intervention, and policy approaches to increase the quality of health for rural populations in Iowa, the U.S., and globally. Another of the college’s central values is working in partnership with communities. This entails lifting up their voices; starting from their strengths, assets, and needs; and engaging with them to preserve their dignity and culture. Such participatory approaches ensure that our work is responsive, relevant, adapted, accepted, and sustainable. Community participatory approaches are both a process and an outcome of our research and practice.

Are there any recent research projects/grants/publications that you’d like to highlight?

The UI CPH has a number of research centers that address population health from multiple perspectives, including health policy, environmental exposures, climate resilience, occupational health, agricultural safety, infectious diseases, injury and violence prevention, community health practice, and statewide cancer surveillance. Together, these centers conduct interdisciplinary research, support community and workforce partnerships, and generate data and interventions that help improve health outcomes across communities in Iowa and beyond.

What makes your institution interested in interdisciplinary work?

The UI CPH values interdisciplinary research because solving major public health challenges — infectious disease threats, chronic diseases, climate‑related pressures, widening gaps in access to essential care, and other concerns — requires multiple fields working together. By integrating expertise in health services, prevention, policy, data science, and community partnerships, the college can develop stronger, more practical solutions that improve population health in Iowa, the U.S., and around the world.

If you do interdisciplinary work, what are the challenges? How would you like to see IAPHS support your institution’s interdisciplinary work?

Collaborative population health initiatives sometimes struggle with differing norms, research methods, incentives, and definitions of success across discipline, which leads to misunderstandings or mismatched expectations. In addition, successful interdisciplinary work requires strong relationships, yet many collaborations lack the space or time needed to develop trust, especially across academic–community boundaries. IAPHS can help address these barriers by fostering cross‑disciplinary understanding through networking and dialogue, and by creating collaborative spaces where researchers and community partners can build the trust needed for equitable, successful population health impact.

Would you like to say something about who is answering the questions? How would the interested IAPHS members be able to contact you?

William Story is an Associate Professor of Community and Behavioral Health at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. He has been a member of IAPHS for nearly 10 years and has served on the IAPHS Board of Directors (2024-2027). You can contact him at william-story@uiowa.edu.

Will you be at the conference this year? If the readers want to reach you, what’s the best way to contact you?

Yes! Send me an email and we can touch base in Portland!