2015 APHA Annual Meeting & Expo

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Recorded Annual Meeting Presentations (RAMP) are now available for purchase.
Only $90 for presenters, $140 for registered attendees and $200 for non-attendees.

Online Program

319775
Organizational Capacity Building: An Example of Learning through Self-Efficacy and Skills Training


Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Patsy Cano, PhD, MPH, Houston Health Department, City of Houston, Houston, TX
Vishnu Nepal, MSc, MPH, Office of Health Planning, Evaluation and Research for Effectiveness, Houston Health Department, Houston, TX
Deborah Banerjee, PhD, Houston Health Department, Houston Health Department, Houston, TX
Introduction:  Many in the local public health workforce do not have the opportunity to attend conferences or submit poster presentations for such conferences.  Using the Public Health Foundation’s framework for capacity building, the Houston Department of Health and Human Services designed a series of tailored capacity building initiatives as a way of increasing internal public health capacity.  An example of one such capacity building activity involves training and mentorship for dissemination of program results using poster presentations.

Methods:  The HDHHS Spring 2015 Poster Session was designed so that it was appropriate for all Tiers of the Department public health workforce.  A call for a poster session was released and all employees were invited to participate.  Participants were assigned mentors with formal public health training, recruited within the Department, as needed. The mentoring process and self-efficacy was evaluated by the mentees and mentors.

Results:  Eighty three percent of the poster session participants were assigned mentors. After meeting for an average of six 1 hour long sessions, posters were developed so that they could be presented at the HDHHS Spring 2015 Poster Session. .

Conclusion:  The poster session appeared to have been successful in the skills training sessions. Thus, it is possible for local health departments to utilize organizational internal capacity to build core competency skills with limited resources.

Learning Areas:

Public health administration or related administration

Learning Objectives:
Design an internal organizational poster session that uses mentors and promotes professional development among health department employees with little or no experience.

Keyword(s): Professional Development, Training

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have been working in an area of the Health Department responsible for capacity building and professional development. I have 30 years of experience in the public health field.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4087.0: Health Administration Posters: Session 1