Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #101703

Brian Katcher, PharmD, Buffy Bunting, MPH, CHES, and Isabel Auerbach, MPH, CHES. Community Health Education Section, San Francisco Department of Public Health, 30 Van Ness Avenue, Suite 2300, San Francisco, CA 94102, 415-581-2405, Brian.S.Katcher@sfdph.org

Public health workers, from administrators to clinicians, often lack formal training in public health. Therefore, the San Francisco Department of Public Health created a modular training called “What is Public Health?” to provide a common language and perspective. The training cites the historical successes in public health and uses examples from the current obesity and diabetes epidemics to illustrate the key public health concepts of population-based focus, prevention, social justice, and a systematic approach. It includes the core public health functions of assessment, policy development, and assurance. Our aim is to engage practitioners throughout the Department to link their work to more upstream approaches, which are emphasized in the Department's recently developed Prevention Strategic Plan < http://www.healthysf.org/bdi >. We compare and contrast a variety of social and behavioral determinants within San Francisco and show how local population data, through highlighting racial and neighborhood disparities, can be crucial to design and improve a program. We believe that the training, personalized to individual agencies, can assist in promoting program and policy development to include the root causes of disease and injury and to highlight the role of prevention.

Learning Objectives: