Mission
The mission of UC Merced’s Public Health Department is to understand, promote, and protect health in the San Joaquín Valley, California, and the world through our research and training of the next generation of public health leaders.
Guiding Principles
We are guided by our commitment to these essential principles:
- Health Equity, Social Justice, and Environmental Justice. Because health is a fundamental right, our work aims to identify and address the multilevel determinants of health and health disparities.
- Research Excellence. We uphold and support the principles of scientific inquiry, ethics, and academic conduct in our quest to achieve research excellence.
- Interdisciplinarity. Our faculty represent multiple disciplines, and our work requires an interdisciplinary lens—a hallmark of public health—and is in part demonstrated by collaboration across traditional disciplines.
- Diversity and Inclusion. We embrace diversity as a source of strength. Our differences—of race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, socioeconomic status, abilities, lived experience, and more—enhance our ability to achieve the university’s core missions of public service, teaching, and research. We welcome faculty, postdoctoral scholars, staff, and students from all backgrounds, and we promote an environment where everyone feels safe, respected, and valued.
- Learning and Innovation. We develop local, state, and national leaders, scholars, and public health practitioners through rigorous training and mentorship.
- Centering Our Region. We respect and acknowledge the diverse history, culture, language, and natural resources of our region, and aim to combine resources to achieve health equity and social and environmental justice in this region.
- Community Engagement. We believe in collaborative approaches to research that engage community members to develop and implement innovative, culturally affirming, evidence-based solutions. Our relationships—and our commitment to community capacity building—are integral to our efforts.
Department Culture
We are a vibrant and collegial intellectual community, marked by outstanding scholarship and participation in interdisciplinary communities of inquiry.
We strive to promote an emotionally and socially healthy environment for work and learning.
We value all members of our community, and we understand that maintaining a collegial environment is an important way of advancing our scholarly leadership. We treat each other well by practicing and promoting the following attitudes and behaviors:
- Effective Communication. We interact with respect and consideration.
- Intellectual Humility. We believe that everyone shares the ultimate goals, even if they have different ways of getting there than we do. We practice empathy by putting ourselves in others’ shoes and listening to understand.
- Inclusiveness. We encourage each other by acknowledging and celebrating contributions and offering encouragement and assistance when needed.
Revised February 2025
