Education for Population Health across All Professions

As part of its mission to create a broad vision for education in public health for the 21^st century, the Framing the Future Task Force, established by ASPPH, recognizes the significant value of interprofessional engagement and the essential need for cross-disciplinary collaboration to improve population health outcomes and health equity.  An expert panel was charged with describing the elements of population health that all professionals would benefit from learning during their education. An evident commitment is to bidirectional learning, recognizing that effective interprofessional collaboration also depends on public health students acquiring the insights, tools, and vocabulary of other professions. The expert panel held vigorous discussions with consultants representing many sectors about curricular opportunities to stimulate creative thinking and problem solving across professions.

As the recommendations are disseminated, implemented, and evaluated at different institutions, ASPPH will continue to engage faculty and other professionals in clinical/health and other non-health focused professional sectors, including those in the workforce, in sharing educational strategies that foster innovative professional practice around population health. The expert panel’s recommendations will continue to evolve to reflect new understanding of how various professional activities impact population health, leading to transformative, interdisciplinary work across organizations and sectors to improve population health in the 21^st century.