“[Harvard’s] theory of ‘each tub on its own bottom’ has made it greatly difficult for people to talk to one another and work together,” he said.

Cohen, now a professor of populations at Rockefeller University, declined an invitation to return to Harvard, saying that “other schools have taken the lead” in public health through a more interdisciplinary approach.

And even some within Harvard express concerns over the feasibility of a Harvard-wide endeavor.

James H. Ware, dean for academic affairs at SPH, said that the University’s bureaucracy needs a “stronger center to act more coherently on far-flung issues.”

Indeed, representatives of a current Harvard-affiliated public-health project called Medicine in Need (MEND), which aims to study and treat tuberculosis in developing countries, said they have not relied on the University for major support.

MEND director and McKay Professor for the Practice of Biomedical Engineering David A. Edwards said he has met with the provost to discuss the project’s needs but that it still relies on traditional grant support, which tends to fund academic research and not MEND’s more on-the-ground efforts.

“[The support] would be great,” he said. “But we are not on that level of dialogue.”

While some of Harvard’s public health programs may currently fall short of their potential, the new initiative will likely strengthen them through concerted activity throughout the University.

“Harvard is not going to solve the problem [of disease],” Bloom said. “[But] the world will be changed when it makes a commitment to this.”

—Staff writer Jessica E. Vascellaro can be reached at vascell@fas.harvard.edu.