The School of Public Health (SPH) recently received a $477,000 grant to improve its education programs in health care management and policy.

Money from the grant will fund junior faculty members in applied research, Marc J. Roberts, director of Executive Programs at SPH, said yesterday.

"We can't allow the academic process to be so detached from what public health people encounter out in the real world," Roberts said.

He added that "this grant will help us to bridge the growing gap between theory and practice and to relate better to the practical problems of public health."

Aluminating

The Henry J. Kaiser Foundation donated the grant, which SPH will receive over three years.

Libby L. Shaw, a spokesman for the Office of Development at SPH, said yesterday the school will allocate part of the money to strengthen a series of executive programs in health policy and management.

The executive programs are designed to educate health personnel on the latest developments in health care research, Shaw said.

"We definitely intend to offer better catch-up training for those who are actually applying it out in the real world," she added.

Come Together

Roberts said the four-year-old programs aim to bring together health personnel from the public and private sectors.

"We've served a very broad spectrum of people so far, from Health, Education and Welfare people to the Veteran's Administration to legislators," he said.

Robert J. Glazer, president of the Kaiser Foundation, said last week the foundation "is dedicated to the introduction of new and better methods in the area of health care throughout the United States.

Glaser added that SPH is a "leader" in this regard.