Building Strategic Connections without Borders to enhance Population Health Equity

Building community health systems thay promote health equity across borders is of paramount important to Global Health promotion.In accredited Schools and Programs of Public Health students are required to successfully complete a public health practicum. Developing a population –based project is at the epi-center of the students’ education.  The practicum provides an opportunity for students to demonstrate what they have learned in their course work. Students identify specific, measurable, action oriented, realistic and timely (“SMART”) learning objectives and utilize their objectives to meet professional competencies. This empowers students to build on their existing knowledge through direct application in a local, national, or international site. Student practica can be leveraged to promote community development and collaboration across borders. There are 6 tools that coordinators can utilize to facilitate the empowerment of their students.  The tools include a virtual course site, practicum site development spreadsheet, virtual office hours, interim and final site evaluations, and student’s evaluations. In addition, an evaluation dashboard has been developed to monitor quality and improve program consistency.

The practicum is an important connector on the golbal stage  to help students develop and enhance the real life skills of either existing public health practitioners, or future public health practitioners.  At the same time the students are empowered they are also empowering and promoting the health of the community where they are applying their public health skills.