Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior

The Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior (HPEB) at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health has as its focus understanding how policy, environmental, institutional, and individual actions can improve the public’s health. This work, usually done in partnership with organizations and communities, uses principles and methods from the social and behavioral sciences to promote health in diverse settings across South Carolina, the US, and the globe.

As a public university, we are committed to a three-part mission of:

• Conducting timely interdisciplinary research that attracts extramural funding and generates knowledge leading to improvements in public health practice and outcomes
• Attracting and training talented and motivated students who will work to improve public health
• Providing research-linked service to professionals and communities to advance practice, support the profession, and improve public health

An important motivation for our work is that, in many cases, scientists and practitioners have identified which actions should and can be taken to improve public health, but these actions are often either carried out ineffectively or at too small a scale. For example, at least half of the worldwide annual deaths of 11 million children under 5 years old can be prevented by proven actions, but we lack sufficient understanding of how to effectively mobilize sociopolitical processes, program design and implementation, and community partnerships to enact these actions. Behavioral and social research, training, and outreach aimed at acquiring, sharing, and applying knowledge about effective mobilization and coordination processes can therefore have large public health impacts.