Examining Collaboration between the Public Health Practice Community and Academic Institutions in Kansas

Issues:

Current collaboration between public health practice and academic institutions varies greatly, can be inconsistent over time, and thus, inefficient at fostering mutual goals. In order to strengthen such collaborations, Public Health Practice Project (PHPP) was designed to examine current collaboration between the public health practice community and academic institutions in Kansas and provide recommendations for improvement. 

Description:

For this project, we invited 20 local health department (LHD) directors in 2014 to participate in interviews to understand the nature of current collaboration between LHD and academic institutions. We interviewed 14 of the 20 directors, receiving a 70% response rate. We also examined 414 student capstones from 2010-2014 from the University of Kansas School of Medicine, Wichita State University, and Kansas State University to observe student placement and whether Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) standards were addressed.

Lessons Learned:

Interviews with the LHD administrators revealed several barriers within the current process of collaboration, including funding, geographic location, and lack of a central connector. Densely-settled rural, rural, and frontier health departments are unable to host as many students as larger health departments due to lack of fund. Overall, less than 30% of student capstones were conducted in LHDs, with majority completing their experiences in non-profit agencies such as universities and community agencies.

Recommendations:

Future collaboration should contain a central point of communication for potential projects and standardize a process for student placement across institutions. With strengthened relationships between academic institutions and public health practice, future collaboration will be streamlined and mutually beneficial.