Building Upon What Is and Capturing Opportunities for Undergraduate Public Health Experiential Learning

The stated mission of the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice is to improve public health practice and education by fostering, coordinating, and monitoring links between academia and the public health and health care community, developing and advancing innovative strategies to build and strengthen public health infrastructure, and creating a process for continuing public health education throughout one's career. Local public health departments offer a wide spectrum of experiential learning opportunities that can go beyond the more traditional medical student rotation, nursing clinical experience, or graduate public health student community project. The Akron City Health Department entered into an arrangement with an undergraduate student for an internship in which the student examined the potential for the department to capture available Medicaid funds by logging activities where the health department was engaged in Medicaid outreach. A significant challenge exists in linking the student at whatever academic level to the appropriate public health experience. A matching process could benefit from a dedicated third party entity to facilitate the appropriate placement. State public health associations may fill that niche. The Illinois Public Health Association has been successfully so engaged with the AmeriCorps program, placing volunteers in local health departments where a need exists that can both benefit the department as well as provide real experience to the volunteer. Such a model could be employed with the undergraduate institutions.