The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #44403

Mary Davis, DrPH, MSPH¹, David Pearson, PhD², and Carolyn Stemshorn, MPH². (1) NC Institute for Public Health, UNC School of Public Health, CB 8165, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-8165, 919-843-5558, mary_davis@unc.edu, (2) Group Health/Kaiser Permanente Community Foundation, 1730 Minor Ave, Seattle, WA 98101

Recognizing that a well-prepared public health workforce will ensure the health of the nation, CDC has made a considerable investment to improve the training of the public health workforce. A key component of this investment is the Centers for Public Health Preparedness at seven academic institutions throughout the country. Although each Center has its own focus and priorities, the Centers collectively have a number of common elements, including fostering partnerships between academic institutions and state and local public health agencies and facilitating training via distance learning. To determine the effectiveness of these Centers, the University of Washington and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Centers were tasked with creating a national evaluation strategy for these Centers. To meet this and other workforce development initiatives evaluation needs, a network of evaluators has emerged to examine common elements of evaluation and measurement and to identify issues for the workforce development research agenda. This presentation will provide the overall framework that the evaluators are using to assess the Preparedness Centers, identify practical methods for examining evaluation across programs, and explain how this effort informs the CDC Global Workforce Implementation Plan and the HRSA Public Health Training Centers initiatives. The presentation will also identify the challenges and benefits of program evaluation collaboration between schools of public health.

Learning Objectives: Learning Objectives

by the end of the presentation, participants will be able to
• describe national evaluation strategy for Centers for Public Health Preparedness
  • identify evaluation measures common to all Preparedness centers
    • identify challenges, benefits, and methods for program evaluation collaboration between schools of public health.

    Presenting author's disclosure statement:
    I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

    Evaluating and Managing the Investments in Workforce Development & Training

    The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA