Office: 3939 Woodward Avenue, 313-577-1421
Chairperson: Jinping Xu, MD, MS

The Department of Family Medicine and Public Health Sciences (DFMPHS) has a strong public health focus with an emphasis on applications of socio-behavioral and medical sciences to community health problems. Public health is a population-based approach to communities that addresses health promotion, disease prevention, restoration and maintenance of health. The skills and scientific approach required in public health include epidemiology, biostatistics, research methodology, health services research, and behavioral sciences. Central to the approach of public health is a focus on community-level influences on health including social, economic, cultural, ethnic, and environmental factors. Public health research methods involve defining selected community problems, proposing studies and solutions, surveillance, evaluating progress, and monitoring the use of resources.

The MPH Program at WSU is accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). The CEPH is an independent agency recognized by the US Department of Education to accredit public health educational programs. The interdisciplinary nature of public health is reinforced in required and elective courses.

M.D. Medical Education

The DFMPHS faculty is well integrated into the didactic and clinical education of students throughout all levels of medical school. Our faculty participate in the early training of medical students through active teaching and leadership in the Clinical Experiential Clerkship course held during Year 2. In the final clinical years of training, we lead the required Family Medicine Clerkship and sub-intern clerkships, and offer several elective courses including a public health elective.  

Graduate Medical Education

Graduate medical education within the DFMPHS consists of 3 residency programs, each distinctly different in scope and educational mission.

Our 3-year WSU Categorical Family Medicine Residency Program is located in Rochester Hills on the campus of Ascension Providence Rochester Hospital. Our 1-year WSU Transitional Year Residency Program is also located at our Rochester Hills campus at Ascension Providence Rochester Hospital. The program is designed to provide the educational structure and foundation for first year residents to gain experience in a variety of inpatient and outpatient clinical settings in preparation for their terminal categorical programs.

Our 3-year WSU Preventive Medicine Residency Program provides resident training which focuses on clinical preventive medicine and public health sciences for urban populations, underserved populations, and in local correctional facilities.

The DFMPHS maintains a strong research emphasis on improving clinical primary care practice and reducing the burden of health disparities and houses MetroNet, a practice-based research network in Metropolitan Detroit. The Department has achieved national recognition for its high level of external NIH funding, and last year, the Blue Ridge Report ranked us fifteenth of 150 Family Medicine Departments in the U.S. and second in Michigan.