Transcending borders with an online mentored distance learning course in public health genetics

Global health in the 21st century targets both infectious and genetic contributions to disease. In Winter 2005, the Michigan Center for Genomics and Public Health and Michigan Public Health Training Center offered a pilot mentored distance learning course on public health genetics covering issues of national and international import: screening for sickle cell and chronic disease, use of family history, expanded marketing of genetic tests, ownership concerns and genomic biobanks, race-ethnicity and health disparities. CourseTools, videostreaming, and CD-ROM technologies linked students and instructors half a campus and nation apart. Exercises were designed to address universal concerns reflecting the pervasiveness of social and disease conditions and breadth of groups to which population screening is applied. Nineteen individuals (including 4 public health professionals; 7 public health graduates; 3 undergraduates) participated. Threaded discussion encouraged different experiential assets – undergraduates showing great sensitivity to parties affected by genetic policies, graduates employing lessons learned relating to ethical concerns, and professionals sharing worldly knowledge of practical constraints. The course rated in the top quintile of didactic quality, perceived learning, and desire to take. Qualitative review demonstrated the value of diverse student interaction and exposure to ethical-policy frameworks. This session will show how creative solutions - hosting of discussion boards on intersecting themes, assigning staggered roles, conference calling and multimodal computer formats - can be effectively applied to public health genetics and other distance educational settings for an educationally diverse, geographically dispersed audience.