Pedagogy in Health Promotion

University academic preparation plays a critical role in guiding undergraduate public health students shape their professional identity (PI) and demonstrate professionalism in their transition to work environments. PI is an understanding of profession-related connections, characteristics, roles, values, standards, and culture continuing over time. Despite evidence supporting PI learning across medicine, nursing, or pharmacy, little is known about public health pedagogic and curricular approaches as important concepts to support PI learning. There is a need for an innovative curriculum redesign to include planning PI experiences, teaching professionalism across courses, and supporting students as they become early career professionals. By acquiring new knowledge and applying those skills during the undergraduate public health courses, students develop a commitment to and pride in their chosen profession. This article gives an overview of PI, provides a PI conceptual framework, and offers 10 suggestions on how to advance PI effectively in the redesigned public health curriculum.

Student perceptions and opinions regarding the relevance of course content can influence their desire and motivation to learn. Instructors can benefit from including content relevant to students’ lives, possibly leading them to take a greater interest in gaining knowledge and applying the material. This study aimed to investigate the health topics included in an introductory health course offered at a medium-sized, public liberal arts university in Tennessee and to explore perceptions of current undergraduate students regarding the relevance of those topics. Over the 2018–2019 academic year, four focus groups were conducted with 14 students who discussed their perceptions, opinions, and experiences of the course and offered suggestions regarding topics they thought should be incorporated in future iterations of the course. Participants wished that topics currently covered in the course, such as nutrition and fitness, would incorporate more experiential learning to provide greater applicability to their lives as college students. Students also expressed a desire for greater coverage of topics that they considered particularly relevant to their lifestyle and health, such as mental health, sleep, time management, and decision making. Information from this study can be used to help develop course content for undergraduate personal health courses so students can feel more connected to the material.

In the past decade, the number of undergraduate public health programs has increased exponentially. This growth provides a unique opportunity to explore concepts and issues relevant to understanding the determinants of health at a population level using new pedagogical approaches. One of these issues is stigma toward mental disorders. Stigma is a concept that refers to a feature or characteristic that reduces, devalues, and disempowers a person. Given the prevalence of mental and substance use disorders among college students, undergraduate education is an important setting for attempting to address stigmatizing attitudes both for society at large and for faculty, staff, and students, including those experiencing mental health problems. This article describes an effort to develop an undergraduate course in public mental health that explicitly addresses the ways stigma shapes student understanding of this topic and discusses lessons learned from this experience.

The role of community colleges in training public health professionals is of growing importance to the continuum of public health education. Some 5 years have passed since the Framing the Future initiative outlined curricular models at community colleges, and colleges deploying these models are serving as learning sites for public health education at community colleges. While past research has focused on capturing insights from community college executives and program administrators, this study captures perspectives from teaching faculty. Drawing on a national sample of teaching faculty at community colleges and universities accepting transfer students throughout the United States, an online survey of teaching faculty affiliated with public health programs was coupled with follow-up interviews. This study characterizes the nature and scope of public health programming in community colleges and transfer settings, and highlights associated challenges and opportunities as public health becomes further integrated into health professions pathways in 2-year settings and beyond.

This article describes an approach to addressing health literacy and the infodemic surrounding coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a way to develop communication skills among students in an undergraduate public health program. The project was designed for an upper-level health communications course, but it could be adapted for any health education or public health course where health communication to address misinformation is an objective. It is well suited for face-to-face, online, and hybrid settings. This project utilizes several evidence-based pedagogical approaches, including backward design, use of open educational resources, and experiential learning. While the project described here focuses on COVID-19 and associated social media infographic development, the instructional strategies have been applied to other health issues in previous terms and can be easily adapted to any current health issue and communication product that will engage learners while developing communication competencies.

In many undergraduate public health programs, global health is an introductory course encountered early in the curriculum. At the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, the undergraduate global health course reinforces introductory content within a global health framework while building skills in preparation for upper-division work. The global health course was completely redesigned in January 2018 to increase student engagement and incorporate high-impact educational practices, including experiential learning opportunities, diversity/global learning, and collaborative assignments. New activities incorporated include a water carrying exercise to simulate efforts required for the billions of people worldwide who manually transport water for daily use and a model United Nations scenario-based activity based on a writing assignment proposing an international policy from the position of a selected country. Incorporation of relatively brief written assignments early in the undergraduate public health curriculum additionally serves to support student development of written communication skills throughout the program and helps in early identification of students who may need additional support in writing skills. Assessment of the new course was conducted through student feedback, student performance on assignments, and student growth/development throughout the course. Through successful course redesign students emerge excited about international opportunities for public health practice and with a greater empathy for global citizens living abroad.

Health promotion undergraduate courses frequently use active learning strategies in an attempt to ensure that future health professionals are prepared to improve population health outcomes. One teaching method with limited research in health promotion courses at the undergraduate level is interteaching (IT). IT is based on behavior analytic techniques and uses paired discussion and student-informed clarifying lectures to teach course objectives. A number of studies suggest that IT is more effective than traditional teaching methods (i.e., lecture). However, research is needed to compare IT with other active learning strategies (i.e., strategies that foster critical thinking by engaging students in analysis, synthesis, and evaluation through discussion and active student responding) and in new subject areas. The present study compared IT with an active learning strategy known as the Learning Pathway (LP) in an undergraduate community health education/promotion planning course. The LP uses group work and guided self-instruction to help students address a societal issue of their choice. Results indicate that students performed slightly higher on multiple-choice quizzes during the IT condition and correctly answered more fill-in-the-blank midterm and final exam questions related to content covered in the IT condition. However, students indicated that they preferred the LP teaching method. Although further research is needed to investigate active learning strategies that are most effective on various outcomes in health promotion courses, this study suggests that IT may be more effective than the LP on teaching course objectives as measured by quiz scores.

This study examines students’ perceptions of an open pedagogy experiment in which they created their own textbook for an undergraduate public health course. The lead author’s primary motivation for developing this assignment was the high cost associated with the traditional textbooks that were otherwise needed to cover the breadth of subject matter in the course. The resulting open textbook included 19 chapters, covering all the required components of the course, and the final version was published in a statewide open educational resource repository. Students provided feedback about this undertaking by way of an end-of-term survey. The results showed high percentages of students who associated the textbook creation project with greater engagement and satisfaction than the passive use of traditional textbooks. Students also reported their perception of a learning benefit related to the creation of course content. Pedagogical implications of this study are discussed, and future research questions are proposed.

Public health programs are increasingly offering health policy content to meet workforce demand for public health professionals with health policy analysis and communication skills. Undergraduate public health education in health policy and related curriculum is lacking. Existing work describes service- and experiential learning approaches, which may not be feasible in large courses or public health programs with limited administrative or financial resources. This article describes health policy curriculum, learning objectives, and course activities (i.e., individual writing assignment, mock policy debate, and policy analysis exercise) that integrate an active learning approach and use simulation to develop policy analysis and communication skills in an undergraduate classroom setting. An active learning approach can increase teaching effectiveness, critical thinking, peer interaction, and student engagement to cultivate these applied skills. The described curriculum has been used in various modalities (in-person, hybrid, and remote) with positive reception in a public research university with a high percentage of first-generation college students. Student course evaluations and an independent assessment of the policy analysis exercise reflect high student interest, engagement, problem solving, satisfaction, perceived benefits, and application of policy analysis and communication skills, providing support for teaching health policy curriculum to undergraduate students using an active learning approach. The discussion includes strategies to address resistance by public health instructors and students to using active learning techniques.

The practice-based teaching (PBT) pedagogical approach is vital to prepare students to learn collaboratively how to solve real-world complex public health problems. Despite evidence of the new PBT approach in graduate public health courses, little is known about the development of PBT in undergraduate public health courses. The purpose of this article is to describe an undergraduate course design using PBT, offer suggestions for using the effective PBT STEPS (Securing Partnerships, Technology and Training, Engagement and Implementation, Presenting Deliverables, Sizing Up Results) framework, and explain lessons learned. The experiences are based on 4 years of successful implementation of the PBT course project, Exercise Is Medicine on Campus (EIM-OC) initiative. The college campus is a promising setting to promote EIM-OC and physical activity awareness. Undergraduate public health students in the Health Administration of Programs course partnered with the campus Wellness, Alcohol and Violence Education Program for the fall initiative. We used the comprehensive PBT STEPS framework in planning the EIM-OC. The evaluation included the number of participants at the Chancellor Walk and activity stations and student reflective writing papers. The findings suggest the effectiveness of PBT pedagogy for faculty to redesign an existing course. Students gain a deeper understanding of campus health and health topics. Faculty can guide students and empower them for working with partners to think, act, and practice like professionals during academic preparation.

Research has shown that service-learning can increase student-learning outcomes across various disciplines. Service-learning opportunities have been steadily increasing in college settings, especially in health-related fields. This evaluation of an undergraduate public health course at a mid-size, public university in New England sought to understand the impact of service-learning on material retention, internships, and post-graduation public health careers. A 25-item questionnaire was emailed to students who took the course between the Fall 2010 and Spring 2016 semesters with 75 completed (33.3% completion rate). More than half of the respondents noted that their participation in a service-learning project positively affected their internship experience, their first post-graduation job, and their overall career, while also helping them retain the course material after graduation. Open-ended responses provided insight to the qualitative responses. Respondents noted that in addition to having the understanding and ability to put on programs in their community, they also had more confidence in their abilities. The opportunity to practice public speaking skills as well as work collaboratively in group settings, were both noted as essential skills needed to succeed in the public health workforce. It was concluded the project had a positive impact on student’s learning and retention in planning, implementing, and evaluating an actual health promotion program as well as how they were able to use those skills in their careers.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, many high school students were unaware of careers in public health—that there are many options available for those interested in improving health and preventing disease beyond being a doctor or a nurse. The Rutgers School of Public Health (R-SPH) developed PHocus (Public Health: Outbreaks, Communities, and Urban Studies) to introduce high school students to the interdisciplinary field of public health as well as to promote population and individual health. The PHocus Summer Experience was designed for high school students to explore population health and learn about the fundamentals of epidemiology, the breadth of topics addressed by public health, and public health careers. R-SPH hosted PHocus as 1-week sessions in Summer 2018 and 2019, available at both the School’s Piscataway, New Jersey, and Newark, New Jersey, locations. The Newark sessions targeted recruitment from high schools with underserved, minority, and/or economically disadvantaged students, and tuition for these students was supported through external funding. Across 2018 and 2019 PHocus Summer Experiences, 130 students participated, representing 63 high schools, in four 1-week sessions. The experience was rated very highly by participants; on a 4-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 4 = strongly agree), the median score for the program being a worthwhile experience was 4.0. R-SPH faculty, staff, and students, as well as external stakeholders, eagerly volunteered to be part of the program, suggesting that this educational program can be reproduced at other schools and programs of public health.

Alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) education in public schools varies throughout the United States. Marijuana prevention education, a potential component of ATOD education, varies even more so despite the growing number of states legalizing both medical and retail, or recreational, marijuana. Youth use of marijuana remains largely stable, but attitudes toward risk and legalization are changing. Evidence indicates more health risk for youth users as compared with adult users. While health risks are the same from state to state, laws are not, and there is a need for marijuana education in middle and high schools. The purpose of this study was to describe the characteristics of marijuana prevention education in public middle and high schools in Southeastern Colorado through survey data collected from school administrators in the spring of 2017. Results of the survey indicate that even within a state that legalized medical marijuana in 2000 and retail marijuana in 2012, public school districts lack consistency in the nature and extent of providing marijuana education and could use more guidance and resources from state- and federal-level research and practice.

Multiple public health workforce development assessments report individual worker knowledge and skill-based training needs. These assessments do not capture practitioners’ in-depth perceptions of complex public health challenges and whether workforce development approaches address these issues. To address this gap, the Public Health Learning Network—a national coalition of 10 Regional Public Health Training Centers located at United States accredited schools of public health, their partners, and the National Network of Public Health Institutes—conducted a public health workforce development assessment using a two-phased mixed-method design to explore systems-level gaps and opportunities for improving workforce development effectiveness. Phase 1 included a content analysis of major public health workforce development reports and peer-reviewed literature. Phase 2 included primary qualitative data collection of key informant interviews and focus groups via conference call with 43 participants representing 41 public health organizations at the local, state, and national levels. Results included a wide range of challenges with an emphasis on major systems changes, the shift in public health’s role to more effectively build community collective capacity, limited staff capacity and capability, and the need for more flexible and integrated training funding. Public health workforce development approaches recommended to address these challenges included improving pedagogical approaches toward more integrated, multimodal training delivered over time; increasing workforce capacity to address complex challenges such as racism and housing; and facilitating public health workforce development system coordination and alignment. Public Health Learning Network’s workforce assessment also identified opportunities for conceptualizing the definition and delivery of training toward ongoing learning.

Defining competencies within health disciplines is important because it provides a shared understanding of the fundamental knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary for research and practice while also offering a practical reference point for academic preparation and professional development. However, existing literature regarding competency frameworks does not address the unique needs of interdisciplinary population health research graduate students. The purpose of this project was to understand the competencies desired by interdisciplinary population health research graduate students within the Healthy Populations Institute (HPI) at Dalhousie University and to create a competency framework on which training and program development could be based. A student-led initiative was undertaken to identify core competencies necessary for interdisciplinary population health research graduate students from both traditional (e.g., health promotion) and nontraditional health (e.g., political science) backgrounds. Data were collected and analyzed via three phases: environmental scan, community resource mapping, and consultations with HPI research scholars. Through the environmental scan, core competencies and guiding principles were identified. Community resource mapping of local employment, volunteer, educational, and/or skill-building opportunities resulted in the development of a database. Consultations confirmed the validity of competencies identified in the scan and elicited further resources and suggestions for educational and professional skill development. This project resulted in a unique competency framework that will inform ongoing program development and foster additional opportunities for graduate students within HPI. The process of creating this framework may also be of value to other universities wishing to develop or refine their own set of competencies.