title: Engaging local public health system partnerships to educate the future public health workforce.
abstract: The Institute of Medicine concluded that keeping the public healthy required a well-educated public health workforce, thus leading to its recommendation that "all undergraduates should have access to education in public health" [2]. In response to this call, the authors examined the current practice, feasibility, and value in strengthening (or building) a functional collaborative model between academic institutions and practitioners from local health departments to educate tomorrow's public health workforce. Local and regional health departments in New England were surveyed to: (1) establish a baseline of existing working relationships between them and nearby academic institutions; (2) examine the barriers that inhibit the development of collaborations with academic partners; (3) assess how they jointly promote public health workforce development; and (4) analyze which essential public health services their partnership addresses. Despite the lack of financial resources often cited for the absence of academic-local health department collaborations, some New England states reported that their academic institution and local public health department partnerships were valued and productive. The authors discuss how effective academic-community collaborations have the potential to facilitate a broad-based appreciation of public health among students via a wide array of public health curricula and applied experiential learning opportunities in public health settings. The authors propose a model for how to combine basic public health lessons with practical experience and leadership offered by local health departments, in order to foster a real understanding of public health, its importance, practice, and relevance in today's society from a public health workforce perspective.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Management and Policy, College of Health and Human Services, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824, USA. Rosemary.Caron@unh.edu
authors.forename: Rosemary M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Caron
authors.forename: Marc D
authors.initials: MD
authors.lastname: Hiller
authors.forename: William J
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Wyman
mesh_terms: D003159:Community-Institutional Relations; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D040381:Education, Public Health Professional; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D017146:Models, Organizational; D009511:New England; D011634:Public Health / Q000193:education; D011635:Public Health Administration; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities