Evaluating the impact of academic-public health partnerships on health professions schools and programs

As the burden of disease in the U.S. has shifted, the health care system (including public health) has responded with varying degrees of structural change; however, the manner in which health professions students are trained for practice has shifted only slightly. Recognizing this disjoint, the IOM and others have called for training all health professions (HP) students in the principles and practices of health care from a population perspective. The Healthy People 2010 Curriculum Task Force has outlined specific content that all students should be taught, including “community aspects of practice.”

Public health departments (PHDs) are an ideal population/community health training site for HP students. Previous research by Boex et al. suggests that a large majority of HP schools are already engaged in either formal or informal relationships with PHDs to provide training to students.

This presentation will review what research methods have been used to describe the academic activities occurring in PHDs, and what has been discovered about the relationships between HP schools and PHDs. It will also identify remaining major gaps in knowledge, and how those questions might be answered methodologically. Finally, the implications for HP education will be addressed. How can HP schools evaluate the benefits, costs, and outcomes of these educational activities? A template for evaluation will be presented, to provide HP schools with a framework for evaluating the potential positive and negative impact of engaging in training activities in PHDs or other community health agencies on the school's curriculum and students' learning.