School-University partnerships in West Philadelphia: Planning and implementation of an evidence-based health curriculum

Urban public schools, tasked with balancing education standards and limited resources, are often forced to cut or curtail non-mandatory health education. Community-academic partnerships, which use a collaborative approach to address the social determinants of health in a community, have previously been shown to generate innovative solutions in the areas of public health and education. The University of Pennsylvania has recently forged two such partnerships with Philadelphia School District K-8 schools to address identified curricular gaps.  We describe a model for creating a collaborative, evidence-based health curriculum that engages University-affiliated students and trainees as health educators, while also aligning with common core and CDC standards. This model engaged medical students, nursing students, masters of public health students, and family medicine physician residents to provide classroom-based instruction to middle school students. Health professional trainees were mentored by faculty from the schools of medicine, social work, education and public health. Two distinct curricula programs are described and compared on adherence to the model, including identification of academic partners, relationship formation and program implementation. Barriers to program development and implementation, lessons learned and future directions were identified through a process evaluation and qualitative assessment of stakeholders’ engagement with the program.  Program effectiveness for enhancing health education was measured through pre- and post-test health knowledge assessments and student and faculty feedback garnered through individual interviews.