Hoping to boost California’s capacity to meet the health needs of the state’s fast-growing and increasingly diverse population, the University of California, Davis, is exploring whether to establish a school of public health.

The new school would parlay the campus’s location in California’s agricultural heartland, its proximity to the state capital and its existing academic strengths to focus on rural and environmental health issues, as well as disparities in health care for various groups and communities.

In contrast to medicine, the field of public health focuses on disease prevention and the well-being of a population as a whole, rather than on the health needs of an individual.

“The expertise in our public health sciences program, and our long-recognized strengths in agriculture and the environmental sciences, offer the potential for developing a powerhouse public health program here at UC Davis,” said Virginia Hinshaw, provost and executive vice chancellor