Our History

Investments from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Turning Point Initiative allowed Nebraska to develop Turning Point, Nebraska’s Plan to Strengthen and Transform Public Health in Our State.

The Nebraska Educational Alliance for Public Health Impact was established in the summer of 2000. Representatives of numerous academic and practice organizations concerned with Nebraska’s public health workforce training and education came together to explore joint interests. The alliance was co-chaired by Dr. Magda Peck of the UNMC Department of Pediatrics, and Dr. Dave Palm of the Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services Office of Community and Rural Health.

LB 692 created an annual $50 million endowment for health care programs from the principal and investment income from the tobacco settlement fund and the Medicaid intergovernmental transfer fund. The bill provided $5.6 million yearly to fund 16 new multicounty health departments. In 2001, only 22 of the state’s 93 counties were covered by a local health department. By 2004, every county in Nebraska was covered.

Based on recommendations from the first statewide Blueprint for Action by the Nebraska Educational Alliance for Public Health Impact, the Great Plains Public Health Leadership Institute was developed and launched in 2005 as a regional institute covering Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. Dr. Magda Peck was the institute’s founding director through 2011. Through 2023, the institute has graduated more than 375 scholars and has expanded the states served to include Kansas, Missouri and Minnesota.

In October 2010, UNMC College of Public Health Dean Ayman El-Mohandes appointed Dr. Magda Peck as the first associate dean for community engagement and public health practice and Dr. Brandon Grimm as manager of public health practice. These appointments resulted in the Great Plains Leadership Institute becoming a program in the college. Additionally, the Nebraska Educational Alliance for Public Health Impact requested to restructure as an advisory body within the college, and the alliance became the Public Health Practice Council, serving until 2016 as as an advisory body.

A grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration established the Great Plains Public Health Training Center, which proposed to strengthen the technical, scientific, managerial and leadership competence of Nebraska’s growing workforce. In 2014, due to funding changes at the federal level, the training center was ended, and a new collaboration was formed within Region VII (Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas), called the Midwestern Public Health Training Center, which continues today.

The Office of Public Health Practice was created, with Dr. Brandon Grimm named as the director. In its early years, the office focused on providing workforce development and leadership programming to the public health workforce in Nebraska and the region. Early services included: the Great Plains Leadership Institute, the Health Policy Academy, and connecting practice partners with faculty members for research purposes.

The Office of Public Health Practice continued to support Nebraska by serving as a facilitator between academia and public health practice. Additionally, workforce development initiatives expanded to include organization and team development, facilitation assistance, and technical assistance to local health agencies in the state and the region. In 2017, the office became the home of the applied student practice experience MPH course. The Applied Practice Experience course provides all students with a scholarly and mutually beneficial experience in a public health practice setting. 

In 2019, the office was able to expand the training and technical assistance offered to include accreditation support for state, local and tribal health departments through a contract with the Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services Division of Public Health.

With the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the influx of public health funding and the push for public health modernization at the governmental and systems levels has created opportunity for expansion in scope, services, and staff for the Office of Public Health Practice and for public health practice across Nebraska. Today, the office continues its mission to advance academia and practice toward a more effective, interconnected, just and modernized public health system. Learn more about the scope and services of the office. Meet our staff.