Bloomberg Gives $300 Million for New Johns Hopkins Health Program

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is donating $300 million to the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, the Baltimore institution announced today.

The billionaire businessman’s latest gift to his alma mater establishes the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, a program aimed at helping reshape the nation’s public-health agenda. The effort will focus on five areas: drug addiction, obesity, gun violence, adolescent health, and environmental threats.

Of the total, $125 million will endow faculty research in those five areas; $100 million will endow 50 public health fellowships a year; $75 million will create scholarships for the university’s new Doctor of Public Health program and support a biennial public-health summit.

Mr. Bloomberg, who graduated from Johns Hopkins in 1964 and chaired its Board of Trustees from 1996 to 2002, has given the university a total of $1.5 billion, including a $350 million donation in 2013 to fund interdisciplinary research and scholarships.

He is believed to be the largest individual donor to a single U.S. institution of higher education, according to the university.

The new gift marks the 100th anniversary of the Bloomberg School, which was established in 1916 as the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.