MPHI enjoys an enviable position in the health research community and has experienced exponential growth since the beginning of its operations. A sizable portion of the institute's growth in the last two years has been due to a re-focusing of its mission, vision, values, and strategic objectives, necessitated in part by a 1996 executive reorganization of state government in which the Michigan Department of Public Health became the Community Public Health Agency within the Michigan Department of Community Health. In response to this change, MPHI and its partners are focusing on building community capacity through leadership development, technical assistance, program evaluation, and training. As the decade comes to a close, MPHI is placing a greater priority on science that has the potential to bend community health trends into positive directions, as well as projects that advance community capacity to improve health status and to reduce disparities in health status among population subgroups. Its primary goal is to enhance the leadership capacity in the community health arena within Michigan.
Modules are interactive and consist of team projects, presentations, discussions, and case studies.
Faculty is drawn from Michigan's colleges and universities, as well as from the national public and private sectors. Scholars are divided into geographically based teams of roughly four scholars each, with one professional mentor per team. Each team is encouraged to choose a real-life, contemporary health problem in their area and then design a model for addressing it. Frequently, team members continue to work together on a collaborative basis after graduation to advance their model. MPHI and other organizations provide vehicles for the graduates to grow support for their ideas and implement their models.