Session
Recruit and Retain a Diverse and Culturally Responsive Workforce: Part 3
APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo
Abstract
Public health law in schools and programs of public health: Preparing future public health practitioners to enter the workforce
APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo
Understanding the relationship between the law and public health is a core competency needed by public health practitioners to tackle today’s complex public health challenges and eliminate health inequities. The COVID-19 pandemic and socio-political environment has further emphasized the need for a basic understanding of public health law concepts among public health practitioners working to develop equitable policy solutions. State and local health departments have noted a need for further knowledge and skill development in this area. Yet, there is a lack of curriculum dedicated to the fundamentals of public health law and its impact on social determinants of health in schools and programs of public health. Less than 20 percent of graduate schools and programs of public health offer a course in public health law.
Schools and programs of public health are ideally positioned to introduce public health law concepts necessary to improve health programs, interventions, policies, and outcomes. Providing diverse training options, as well as skill building opportunities in advocacy and community engagement, will equip current and future public health practitioners with the tools needed to further combat historical structural inequities and improve overall health outcomes.
This presentation will provide an overview of research findings exploring the current academic landscape involving public health law concepts in Master of Public Health (MPH) courses and program curriculums. The research included an in-depth scan of 190 accredited graduate schools and programs of public health for curricular offerings, and key informant interviews with MPH administrators and faculty. The presentation will also include recommendations for increasing student access to training in public health law concepts to better prepare future public health practitioners to enter the workforce.
Abstract
New Resources and Creative Strategies for Recruiting Candidates for Health Departments
APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo
The public health workforce has been depleted for decades, and COVID-19 has caused additional attrition due to stress, burnout, and harassment. There is now funding available to replenish the workforce, but leveraging it strategically requires understanding the specific talent needed to fill workforce gaps. At the same time, health departments are competing with other employers, including the private and nonprofit sectors, to hire candidates with specialized skills. Many job-seekers who would otherwise seek to work in health departments can experience barriers to hiring, including slow and complex civil service hiring mechanisms.
In order to compete to hire top-quality candidates, government agencies must try innovative techniques. Understanding candidate motivation, creating or leveraging appealing recruitment marketing materials, leveraging the public service motivation of candidates, and highlighting the mission-driven work of public health agencies can help agencies attract the best candidates.
We will present new, creative, practical, and evidence-based strategies for recruiting candidates including a new public health recruitment website, toolkits and trainings for health department staff engaged in recruitment, new template job postings using best practices in candidate attraction and recruitment marketing, strategies for establishing, maintaining, and evaluating university recruitment partnerships, and new resources for educating the general public about public health careers. There will be a focus, throughout, on diversity, equity and inclusion in recruitment.
By learning about these tools, as well as benchmarking with the best recruitment strategies of organizations competing to hire candidates, participants will leave with a concrete plan of action for recruiting top talent to their agency.
The research basis for this workshop comes from several recent studies—an analysis of 39,000 job postings for public health graduates, an analysis of employment outcomes of public health graduates, and additional research on hiring needs of government health departments.
Abstract
Depending on each other: The UPCARE approach to an academic-practice partnership to invest in a nursing workforce from and for rural and underserved communities
APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo
The Undergraduate Primary Care and Rural Education (UPCARE) Project was developed in response to a primary care focused HRSA funding initiative with the goal of increasing clinical expertise in culturally competent care, increase diversity in the nursing workforce, improve access to care, and decrease health disparities for underserved, rural residents of Page County, VA. An academic-practice partnership was formed to establish a community-based clinical practice experience for undergraduate nursing students, based at Federally designated Rural Health Clinics (RHCs). These clinical experiences were paired with simulation and didactic learning to develop skills for integrated primary care nursing focused on mental health/substance abuse and chronic disease prevention/control. In addition, the UPCARE Program provided additional opportunities to nursing students program-wide, including a “Primary Care Camp which involves a rural-urban exchange between two Virginia schools of nursing during which students from these two settings compare and contrast rural and urban health care using the lens of the Social Determinants of Health.
Preliminary data on nursing students enrolled in the program as UPCARE Scholars during their four semester BSN program indicate that the majority identified as being from a rural area, and/or coming from one or more disadvantaged backgrounds (environmentally, economically, or educationally). Scholars’ self-assessed competencies in the areas of rural health care, trans-cultural self-efficacy, and clinician attitudes toward mental illness increased across all cohorts for each associated scale, with varying effect size and statistical significance. The impact of the UPCARE academic-practice partnership model for experiential learning in the rural and underserved community setting on nursing students appears positive, including an increase in positive perception of the need for and value of interdisciplinary collaboration in nursing care. UPCARE Scholars rated their clinical learning experience with the program as positive overall, including their relationships with their preceptors and the ability of the community setting to provide a good learning environment.
The academic-practice partnership model of UPCARE to community-based experiential learning for nursing students shows promise in its ability to provide meaningful opportunities for diverse professionals to engage in skill development to better engage the nursing workforce in culturally competent models of care in rural and underserved communities. Analysis of additional program data will further inform our understanding of the benefits of this model at the level of the patient, clinical practice, and community.
Abstract
Public Health and Social Sciences-Individual Development Plan: A New Career Development Tool for Public Health Scholars
APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo
Over 40% of current public health professionals will leave the public health workforce within five years. During this period, diverse racial and ethnic populations will continue to grow in the United States. The Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC) and the Health Resources and Services Administration support programs to promote experience and knowledge of public health and maternal and child health careers among diverse populations of undergraduate and graduate scholars, especially African American/Black, Hispanic/Latinos, Indigenous peoples, Asian/Pacific Islander populations, students with disabilities, students who are LGBTQI, students who live in under-resourced households, and other marginalized populations of students. While interest in public health degree programs has increased, many current students are not aware of the broad opportunities available in the public health field. Many students may experience limited career guidance or have difficulty navigating the varied academic and career pathways available in public health. As part of a CDC-funded initiative, the Kennedy Krieger Institute engaged a group of public health career development professionals to collaborate on designing a new career guidance website, the Public Health and Social Sciences – Individual Development Plan (PHaSS-IDP). The PHaSS-IDP, based on extensive research into the career pathways available to public health scholars, used analyses of large-scale databases of job postings and will provide a self-reflective assessment tool for skills, tasks, mission, and values, career exploration information, and concrete, practical tools for goal setting and job searches. It is the first site of its kind specifically designed for public health and social sciences undergraduate and graduate scholars. The PHaSS-IDP will also be useful for early-career public health professionals and be available, free-of-charge for scholars.
The PHaSS-IDP collaborative development strategy used:
•convenings of public health professionals,
•analyses of essential skills and competencies needed for public health occupations,
•focus groups of scholars and professionals from diverse public health academic levels and careers to determine and summarize values, and
•surveys of public health professionals to elicit skills and tasks necessary for successful public health careers.
Additionally, research on career pathways was compiled into a user-friendly accessible format to be launched in spring 2022.