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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Virginia L. Thomas, MS, RN, Milwaukee Area Health Education Center (AHEC), 2220 E. North Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53211, 414-226-2432, thomsmit@execpc.com and Capri-Mara Fillmore, MD, MPH, MSc, City of Milwaukee Health Department, 841 N. Broadway, 3rd Fl, Milwaukee, WI 53202-3653.
In this time of shortage of public health professionals, agencies are taking a closer look at recruiting college students into health professions. One approach is to provide students real-life experiences in public health, giving students a sense of what types of activities constitute public health. Their accomplishments over a short period of time provide valuable public health information for use in future public health programming. One such program, the Community Health Internship Program (CHIP), provides 6-week work experiences for students in a public or private community health setting. Each intern works under the tutorship of a mentor for project implementation and evaluation. Program requirements are that interns (1) attend seminars or other events scheduled throughout the internship period, (2) prepare a summary of their project outcomes, and (3) prepare and deliver a poster presentation to the group of interns and mentors at the end of the project. Information gained from the projects includes 5-year trends in public health nursing service in schools, community resource assessment, comparing resources for pregnant teens to teen mother residential data, developing a Spanish mini-immersion program for medical residents, evaluating follow-up after breast cancer screen in a low-income population, and developing educational outreach materials to prevent childhood lead poisoning. While information is helpful to the local community health providers in program planning, interns obtain useful skills as well as insight into the scope of public health. This partnership is an effort to maintain an active recruitment of community health professionals to meet tomorrow’s health care needs.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Community Health Planning, Workforce
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.