Training the next generation of community health practitioners through a new interdisciplinary undergraduate course

The future of public health requires a new generation of practitioners who embrace an interdisciplinary approach to the design, policy, and planning of healthy communities. The MPH Program and Department of Architecture at the University of Virginia have collaborated on a new undergraduate course to consider health in the design of our built envi­ronment through active engagement with each other, faculty, and community practitioners.   The Built Environment & Public Health (BEPH) course attracted 78 diverse students from varied majors and year in school.   Its content focused on the role of the community in the design of our built envi­ronment to prevent a range of negative impacts including expo­sures to toxic hazards, traffic injury, urban sprawl, concentrated poverty, food environments, loss of public space, and global climate change.  The course used social networking to facilitate engagement outside of class with learning teams and question “prompts” for online discussion.  In partnership with community practitioners the students undertook a project with the Bicycle Pedestrian Safety Committee (BPSC) to survey the bike-ability of our city by applying the Pedestrian and Bicycle Environmental Quality Index instruments.  Each learning team was assigned a neighborhood to explore, map and complete the instruments. The BPSC was able to debrief with students and make changes to the process based on their experiences.   The course was a successful initial endeavor to prepare a cadre of students from multiple disciplines to participate in a community-based health activity and to understand, effectively communicate about the design of our built environment.