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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Diego Castaneda, MPH¹, Sonja Mackenzie, DrPH (c)¹, Marty Martinson, MPH¹, Ellie Schindelman, MPH², Arnab Mukherjea, MPH³, Sarah Roberts, MPH¹, Lily Asrat, MPH¹, Maggie Gaddis, MPH¹, and Kiersten Israel-Ballard, MPH¹. (1) School of Public Health, UC Berkeley, 509 warren hall, UC Berkeley, berkeley, CA 94720-7360, (2) School of Public Health, DrPH program, UC Berkeley, 509 Warren Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-7360, 5106422084, ebs@berkeley.edu, (3) Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) Program, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, 19 Warren Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-7360

The UC Berkeley School of Public Health's DrPH program is an interdisciplinary, community-focused doctoral program designed to train public health leaders. For the past three years, the first year students have participated in a 9 month “DrPH-in-action” project, in which each new cohort identifies a current public health issue, studies the problem within a broad ecological framework, and works with multiple stakeholders to explore and develop strategies to address the problem.

In 2005-2006, the class chose a timely project: “Lessons Learned from Hurricane Katrina: How local health departments can prepare to meet the needs of vulnerable populations in emergencies”. The 11 students collaborated with the UC Berkeley Center for Infectious Disease Preparedness and the Alameda County Public Health Department to identify what public health departments and community organizations are doing to enhance the effectiveness of their emergency preparedness activities for and with vulnerable populations.

In conjunction with the action learning project, the students participated in a leadership seminar, where they focused on developing their skills in teamwork, group decision-making, meeting facilitation, giving feedback, and collaborative problem-solving. Students then applied these skills in their project work.

This innovative approach to doctoral-level action learning provides the DrPH cohort with a practical experience in which they can enhance their leadership skills as they seek solutions to real world problems. After 3 years of experience with this model, we have developed recommendations for creating an effective action learning methodology, and will share lessons learned.

Learning Objectives: Learners will

• Describe the key components of the action learning methodology of the UC Berkeley DrPH program
• Articulate 3 challenges and 3 successes from the 2005-2006 student project on disaster preparedness for vulnerable populations
• Identify one way to apply or integrate this methodology in other DrPH or MPH programs

Keywords: Problem Based Learning, Public Health Curriculum

Related Web page: sph.berkeley.edu/degrees/degreeprog/drph.htm

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered