Abstract
The Council of Academic Public Health Institutions Australasia (CAPHIA) is the umbrella organization representing public health in universities throughout Australia, New Zealand, and surrounding island nations (referred to as Australasia [see Endnote 1]). It aims to promote and sustain high-quality academic standards in the education of public health professionals and researchers, to lead and represent public health education in higher education, and to be a respected voice and advocate for the development of public health professionals and researchers. CAPHIA runs biannual Teaching and Learning Forums that provide an environment for the exchange of ideas and experiences about innovative approaches to teaching public health. The Forums also increase cross-institutional links and foster collaboration on shared interests. This special issue aims to expand Australasian content in the journal, diversify and grow the international readership of the journal, and strengthen pedagogy scholarship among Australasian academics with articles generated from the CAPHIA Teaching and Learning Forums.
In preparing the special issue, we reflected on the question, “Why might public health education in Australasia be different to the rest of the world?” There are several potential supply- and demand-side drivers that are relevant to consider. These include population density and distribution of higher education institutions; causes of population patterns of mortality, morbidity, and health inequity; the mix of interventions used to achieve success; institutional and interprofession characteristics; how public health workforce training has been undertaken historically and why and how communications technologies are now being used; and the size of this workforce. Drivers such as these have combined to shape approaches to public health education in Australasia that are strongly reflective of context. Innovation has arisen from within the region and also been stimulated by new ways of thinking in other regions in the northern and southern hemispheres.
A comparison of public health “success stories” from the United States (“Ten Great Public Health Achievements—United States, 2001-2010”; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011) and Australia (“Top 10 Public Health Successes Over the Last 20 Years”; Public Health Association Australia, 2018) provides insights into the lessons we can gain from each other about public health education and practice, despite differences in our contexts. Perhaps not surprisingly, there are key similarities in the public health achievements of both countries. These similarities pertain to the control of vaccine-preventable diseases, prevention and control of infectious diseases (including HIV), prevention of some types of cancers, tobacco control, and motor vehicle safety. However, there are notable public health successes in Australia that contrast those in the United States. These include reducing the incidence of skin cancer in young adults and gun control. Given recent gun-related deaths in New Zealand, the public health community in Australasia is watching the political response with interest.
Despite being similar in land size, the population of the United States is almost 300 million more than that of Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea combined. Hence, there are substantially fewer higher education institutions in Australasia (about 60, compared with >4,000 in the United States). Fewer higher education institutions might suggest that it is easier for educators to network and collaborate on scholarship of teaching and learning projects; however, the vast geographical distances between some of them is a substantial barrier to face-to-face networking. Cultural distance is a compounding factor in some instances.
This special issue of Pedagogy in Health Promotion is dedicated to the work of faculty situated in Australasia and who participate in CAPHIA Teaching and Learning Forums. Collectively these seven articles (two reflective pieces, two descriptive best practices, and three original research pieces) describe the context of public health education in Australasia (Luu, Dundas, & James, 2019), highlight important cultural issues relevant to the region (Ahuriri-Driscoll, 2019) and to international scholarship more broadly (Bowles, 2019), and describe innovative approaches to the development of new teaching techniques (Hickling, Bhatti, & Bowles, 2019), obtaining student feedback (Davies, 2019), addressing challenges in online teaching (Mathieu, Killedar, & Driscoll, 2019), and in assessing student learning (Dundas et al., 2019).
Luu et al. (2019) present a content analysis of the different approaches through which Australian and New Zealand universities deliver public health education at the undergraduate level. Encouragingly, 45 of 47 institutions offered some public health content; however, there were only 11 stand-alone degrees and 6 double-degree options. In addition to orienting a global audience to public health higher education in Australasia, Luu et al. (2019) highlight the need for renewed efforts in evaluating undergraduate public health education across the region and raise the important issue of accreditation standards.
Bowles (2019) sets out the importance and challenges of creating a truly international scholarship on the pedagogy of public health. The piece outlines key areas authors should consider in communicating pedagogical dynamics when communicating across cultures.
Hickling et al. (2019) discuss the benefits of video-based assessment in teaching public health and health promotion. This piece also supports the importance of a community of practice for those engaged in teaching public health, and how forums like those run by CAPHIA can help bring such communities together.
The need to reach a geographically dispersed public health workforce across Australasia plus increasing access to communications technology has led to an increase in online delivery of public health teaching. Mathieu et al. (2019) explore differences in outcomes for students studying introductory epidemiology in face-to-face and online modes. They concluded that the face-to-face mode was more effective than the online mode, particularly for students at the lower end of prior academic performance, and make recommendations for educators’ delivery of epidemiology content in online mode.
Davies (2019) highlights the importance of incorporating the student voice in teaching and learning by use of “time-critical-feedback” that involves a teacher undertaking the collection, analysis, and use of information about the learning experiences of students after each in-class or online session.
Dundas et al. (2019) provide an example of how initiatives originally developed in the United States have been adapted and adopted across Australasia. They have taken the “This Is Public Health” sticker campaign (originally developed by the American Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health to brand public health and raise awareness of how public health affects individuals, families, communities, and populations) and adapted it as an experiential photo essay task for undergraduate students. Using a nonrandomized trial, Dundas et al. (2019) evaluated the addition of geocaching (mobile scavenger hunt) as part of the photo essay and demonstrated an increase in knowledge of public health among participating students undertaking both the photo essay task and the geocaching task.
Academia is always at its best when it is open to a plurality of voices, and that means being international. For the discipline of pedagogy, the importance of an international community of scholars is perhaps especially important given the rise of the international student. This special issue is therefore a positive and meaningful step in the evolution of the pedagogy of health promotion and public health more broadly. The distinctive political, social, and cultural contexts, which seemingly divide teachers and mentors, can in fact be useful prisms through which we can reflect on the specific contexts in which scholars teach. For example, Ahuriri-Driscoll’s (2019) contribution is a stellar examination of the subtleties of thought required for teaching Maˉori public health in Aotearoa/New Zealand. While, on one level, this is very particular for an international audience, no thoughtful pedagogical scholar will fail to consider its implications regarding the interplay of history and power for their own teaching, regardless of where or who they teach.
We are pleased to present this work in Pedagogy in Health Promotion and thank those individuals who were part of the manuscript review process and the special issue’s guest editorial board. This special issue would not have been possible without our CAPHIA colleagues who wrote these articles and their many collaborators and partners, and students. We are thankful to the leaders of the Society for Public Health Education who were open to this collaboration, and we look forward to future opportunities for bringing Australasian perspectives and experiences to this journal’s audience.