Pedagogy in Health Promotion

The professionalization of the fields of health education and health promotion has largely coincided with the completion of job task analysis conducted by major organizations in the field (e.g., the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, Society for Public Health Education). The process through which these job task analyses and skill-based competencies are implemented in professional preparation programs poses a risk to stifle advancement and innovation in health education and promotion. In this perspective, we discuss Competency Focused Practice (the current state of the field) to a goal of Philosophically Grounded Practice. We provide comparisons of the implications of these two schools of thought with respect to ethics, social determinants of health, and practical methods in health education and promotion.

Historical analysis is a vital but underutilized tool for analyzing and teaching public health and health promotion. An applied history of public health course, designed to meet a Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) competency and learning objective, was qualitatively evaluated to determine the extent to which the course shaped students’ and alumni’s views on public health values, identities, and practices. A second aim examined the course’s impact on students’ and alumni’s public health work and their ability to discuss structural biases, inequities, and racism and health. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 alumni and 11 students. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The four main themes were the importance of history as foundational knowledge and for the development of professional identities; history as a means to understand race, racism, and the social determinants of health; self-reflection and critical thinking as public health practices and the relevance of history to community health promotion; and the effectiveness of multiple pedagogical techniques. Findings suggest that a course including the history of public health institutions, concepts, practices, and health equity can be a valuable tool to teach students about the social determinants of health, health equity, and racism and health, gain perspective on current health problems, improve critical thinking skills and self-reflection as public health practices, and develop a professional identity. We recommend that MPH programs include a history of public health course and/or incorporate historical perspectives in existing courses. This training is increasingly important to prepare students to promote health equity.

Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC) are underrepresented in the public health workforce. Strengthening the public health pipeline through graduate institutions of public health is a necessary anti-racist approach to address health disparities. Programs that provide effective mentoring are one strategy for evidence-based anti-oppressive instructional practice, proven to help racial and ethnic students historically targeted by oppression in propelling career trajectories, professional development, and overall institutional experience in graduate school. The Mentoring of Students and Igniting Community (MOSAIC) program was founded in 2019 as a comprehensive and anti-racist faculty-to-student mentorship initiative for BIPOC and first-generation students. Through a scoping review of mentorship programs at schools of public health and an iterative feedback process that included faculty, students, and staff, the MOSAIC model was created. Built on the tenets of successful mentorship approaches, MOSAIC focuses on increasing equity and educational justice with a focus on professional development and academic success through faculty-to-student mentorship. The growth of MOSAIC has demonstrated it fills a critical gap for students of color and first-generation students in a school of public health. MOSAIC intends to act as a programmatic model for replication at other schools of public health to provide necessary support and mentorship for BIPOC students.

Demographic estimates suggest that as the population continues to grow and age in the coming decades, the United States of America will continue to become a more diverse society. The increased diversification of the population makes it urgent for public health professionals, including health education specialists, to master the concepts of cultural and linguistic competence during their academic preparation to be more applied in their professional work. The purpose of this study was to investigate the incorporation of concepts of cultural and linguistic competence in the curriculum among accredited public health schools and programs and other health education and promotion programs to prepare public health education specialists. Point of contact at selected 2021 Council on Education for Public Health list of accredited Schools and Programs of Public Health and an online directory of Health Education and Promotion programs were surveyed. Descriptive statistics were calculated to examine the responses of the participants. While most of the programs reported including cultural competence content and skills in their curriculum, fewer reported inclusion of linguistic competence. Academic programs should prioritize incorporating cultural and linguistic competence in their curriculum not only because of accreditation requirements but because of the moral and professional imperatives presented by the changing demographic changes in the United States.

In 2017, the University of Minnesota Extension launched an online program called “Systems Approaches to Healthy Communities” that targets public health professionals and health promotion advocates to address how policy, systems, and environment interact with their work. This program was developed through evaluation of existing programs and content to expand reach for Minnesota Extension. Through five modules (Frameworks for Healthy Communities, Taking a Systems Approach, Engaging with Communities, Knowing Your Community, Putting It All Together), participants are informed on their role in public health efforts, barriers to lasting change in communities, and how to coordinate their work with local partners they might not have otherwise. Systems Approaches to Healthy Communities was developed following a number of pilots and revisions, which will benefit others looking to develop novel online programming or translate existing curricula to new modalities.

Tackling complex twenty-first century global health challenges requires crossdisciplinary collaborations that extend beyond physical classrooms and across continents. The Transdisciplinary Education and Community Health Collaboratory (TEaCH CoLab) is a global teaching co-op established by health promotion and humanities faculty at three universities (Waterford Institute of Technology and the Institute of Technology, Carlow in Ireland, and the University of Washington, Bothell in the U.S.). The primary goals of TEaCH CoLab are to enhance global learning and problem-solving among the next generation of community and public health practitioners, to improve public health teaching (with a focus on digital pedagogy), and to increase empathy and community-connectedness. In this descriptive article, we present our program model and lessons learned from the first three years of collaboration to provide insights into how such capacity-building projects are established and sustained over time and across diverse geographical, cultural and temporal landscapes. Collaboration happens primarily online through academic and community partnerships, collaborative online learning, and pedagogy discussion and development. Students get to engage with course content and experiential learning that is part of a shared, global curriculum which emphasizes social justice, health equity, cultural humility and anti-racism, and advocacy. Our “lessons for the field” are collective, practice-based reflections by members of TEaCH CoLab based on their experiences and their involvement in development and facilitation. Our model for learning may help other health promotion scholars and practitioners develop meaningful global learning experiences that strengthen the interconnectedness of praxis, pedagogy, and communities.

An important feature of public health education is integrating and synthesizing complex concepts across a variety of disciplines. Novel and effective approaches are required to successfully integrate learning and knowledge across Master of Public Health (MPH) programs. The MPH program at Western University uses Integrated Workshops (IWs) as a unique approach to integrating learning and knowledge. Occurring three times over the course of the 1-year program, these workshops provide an opportunity to reflect on past learning and integrate interdisciplinary knowledge from across courses to solve a complex public health problem. IWs are designed for learners to explore the intricacies of a problem by synthesizing their current knowledge along with new information delivered from experts and stakeholders. Learners pull information from across subjects and seek out new information (as needed) to problem-solve under time constraints—basic information is provided 12 hours in advance and new information is added during the workshop, in real-time. Learners develop key public health skills in critical thinking and decision making with incomplete data. Integrated workshops are an effective approach to training the next generation of public health leaders to handle the intricate problems at the heart of public health today.

The adversity of the 2020 to 2021 academic year highlighted the need for quality online courses. Challenges of teaching data analysis and helping students meet the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) competencies increase in an online environment. To address recent competency changes by the CEPH, a fully online asynchronous course was developed to address the MPH evidence-based approaches to public health competencies and prepare students for the Public Health Workforce. Both problem-based learning and experiential learning theory methodologies informed course design. In the Spring of 2020, with feedback from our Public Health partners, we re-designed a traditional biostatistics course with a holistic approach to data analysis. Students in the class were expected to work individually and as team scientists. They were exposed to data analysis elements from project initiation to dissemination while simultaneously learning methodologic concepts. This article outlines the structure and implementation of an online introductory data analysis course designed for MPH students as a model for re-designing the traditional MPH introductory biostatistics course. Both course development and design are discussed, and evaluations from both students and the instructor are provided.

There is increasing attention regarding the preparation of doctoral students in schools of public health (SPH) to teach; however, few studies have examined pedagogical preparation for doctoral students in public health-related disciplines. This study aimed to describe the pedagogical training and experiences available for doctoral students in behavioral and social sciences (BSS) programs in SPH and examine the facilitators and barriers to offering pedagogical training and experiences. Qualitative semi-structured interviews were completed with 13 pedagogy instructors, program directors, or administrators in SPH with BSS doctoral programs. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Just over half (54%) of the doctoral programs offered or planned to offer a pedagogy course in their curricula. Doctoral students in most programs had access to other teaching training opportunities, most commonly through university centers for teaching and learning. All doctoral programs required or provided students with the option to serve as a teaching assistant and, in some cases, instructor. Key factors contributing to if pedagogical training and experiences were available in the doctoral programs were the degree of priority placed on teaching preparation for doctoral students; logistic challenges, such as time and funding constraints; the level of need to fill teaching assistant and instructor positions; and competencies requiring teaching training for Doctor of Public Health students. Doctoral programs considering changes or expansion of pedagogical training and experiences should consider how to overcome common barriers and leverage facilitators in order to provide students with the best possible pedagogical preparation for both academic and non-academic careers.