Keeping Track, Promoting Health Classroom Modules: Developing Plain Language Materials for Environmental Health Classroom Instruction

Education lays the foundation for practice throughout a career.  What we first learn becomes our default; the tools we discover become our “go-to” resources. CDC developed the Keeping Track, Promoting Health Classroom Modules.  These modules are designed for college-level instruction on environmental public health using CDC’s National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network (Tracking Network).  The modules are intended to educate future public health and environmental health professionals on the basics of environmental public health, and application of those principles within the Tracking Network, through real-life, case-based scenarios.

If new curriculum lessons are going to be used, they must be simple for instructors to implement and explain to students with minimal preparation. The relationship between health and the environment, such as the health impacts of air pollution, is a very difficult concept to explain.  Add to that the complex structure of the Tracking Network and the complicated terminology involved in surveillance, and you have a web of terms and concepts that even an advanced degree professional might find difficult to grasp. 

The Keeping Track, Promoting Health Classroom Modules will expand use of Tracking Network data and increase understanding of the need to collect information about the impact of the environment on health.  By engaging academic communities, the Tracking Branch has the opportunity to involve the next generation of leaders as well as their professors in becoming active users of environmental public health data, thereby furthering awareness of environmental exposures and the impact on individual and community health.