Professor Emeritus
Biography
Charles Hamilton, DrPH, MPH is professor emeritus with the University of Tennessee's Department of Public Health. Initially appointed as an associate professor with the university in 1975, he retired mid-2014 as a tenured professor. During 1982-2014, he served as director of the Master of Public Health Program, which is nationally accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). He also served as acting director of the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation during 1985-1986 and as head of the Department of Health, Leisure and Safety Sciences from 1985-2000.
He is a native of Bristol, Tennessee and earned his BS degree in environmental health with a double major in Biology at East Tennessee State University. Majoring in health administration, he earned the MPH degree at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health and the DrPH degree at the University of Oklahoma School of Public Health.
In addition to providing graduate instruction in health administration, financial management, and public health policy, he coordinated a campus-wide interdisciplinary graduate seminar series addressing public health related issues and research. With three colleagues external to the Knoxville campus, he helped initiate the East Tennessee Public Health and Preventive Medicine Forum in 1995 to foster a closer working relationship between those in academia and those in public health or preventive medicine practice, which continues to meet quarterly. These leadership efforts reflected Dr. Hamilton's professional commitment to interdisciplinary collaboration and extended to his research. His research focused on community health practice in the areas of workforce development and academic health department sustainability plus community health planning, specifically the application of the Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnership (MAPP) model.
His collaboration with the Knox County Health Department (KCHD) included participating as a community member in the Together! Healthy Knox: A Community Approach to Better Health (T!HK) planning initiative, which is based on the MAPP planning model. During 2011-2013, he served as a member of the T!HK Policy Action Team, seeking to position health as a consideration in all community policy and planning decisions. Dr. Hamilton helped establish the first Academic Health Department (AHD) in the state of Tennessee, through a formal partnership between KCHD and UT DPH.
Selected professional honors include Life Membership with the Southern Health Association, awarded in 2012. The American Public Health Association in 2010 inducted him into the Conference of Emeritus Members based on his 40 years of service to APHA. The Tennessee Public Health Association awarded Life Membership in 2003 and honored him with their highest award in 2004, the R. H. Hutcheson, Sr., MD Award recognizing his career achievements in public health. During his final two years with UT, he was appointed as a member of the national Master of Public Health Expert Panel of the Framing the Future Task Force, convened by the Association of Schools & Program of Public Health. The Expert Panel recommended key considerations, design features and critical content for MPH programs in the 21st century.
At the invitation of the Council on Education for Public Health, Dr. Hamilton will continue to provide professional service nationally through his participating on accreditation site visit teams which review MPH and doctoral public health programs at other universities to determine program compliance with established CEPH criteria. Since 2006, he has served in the role of team chair on site visits with team members being appointed by CEPH for each program review.
