ST. LOUIS — Bursky Public Health received accreditation from the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) on July 2, 2026. The accreditation was awarded for an initial five-year term through Dec. 31, 2031, after the school met all 36 accreditation criteria.

Bursky Public Health launched in January 2025. The accreditation process included a three-day site visit by CEPH, which is the only agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit public health schools and programs. The review examined curriculum, student learning outcomes, governance, finances, technology, physical space, research, faculty resources, and community engagement.

Dean Sandro Galea said, "Achieving full compliance with all 36 accreditation criteria is a fitting way to begin a new school." He added, "I'm enormously grateful to everyone who led this effort and to the entire community that is building this school every day." Galea said, "This accreditation strengthens our ability to prepare future public health leaders and generate the research needed to improve health around the world."

The accreditation effort involved a nearly 200-page self-study and more than 1,000 supporting documents. The preliminary self-study was submitted in June 2025, and the final version in October 2025. During this period, leaders recruited approximately 150 primary and secondary faculty members. Faculty and staff gathered during an August 2025 retreat to refine the school's mission, vision, and values.

Liz Vestal, director of continuous improvement, said, "I think a lot of accreditation teams at established schools spend that period dotting their i's and crossing their t's." She added, "But for us, our fundamental policies changed." Vestal said, "Even our mission, vision, value statements — we didn't have those fully formed yet." She noted that the accreditation team remarked, "They said, 'Your students are amazing.'"

Angela Hobson, associate dean for education, said, "The accreditation document is called a self-study, and that really just means an opportunity to reflect upon and then demonstrate what we know about ourselves." Hobson said, "The challenge — and the opportunity — was to reflect on years of work in an accredited program, understand what was working well and what we could do better as a school, then adapt to the new structures, processes, policies and culture we were simultaneously building." She added, "The overlapping processes of accreditation and building a new school have given us the perfect opportunity to take our foundational start and re-imagine our curriculum and our teaching practices to lean more heavily into leadership, communication, digital innovation and entrepreneurship." Hobson said, "We are strategically designing for a future-ready public health workforce."