Integrating practice and teaching in public health: Strategies to engage faculty and practitioners in teaching

Public health practice is the application of public health scholarship, knowledge and skills to practice settings through collaboration with government entities, policy makers, community and advocacy organizations, non-governmental organizations, and health care delivery systems. Public health practice also includes advancing scholarship through publication, teaching, and communication efforts that convey the skills and tools needed to translate research into practice applications. Effective public health practice requires the collaboration and integration of academic public health faculty and public health practitioners to teach public health students and to train and educate the public health workforce. Through the Center for Public Health Practice at the Drexel University School of Public Health and the Pennsylvania Public Health Training Center, we have developed effective strategies for creating this integration using various tools.

Strategies to be discussed include (1) alignment of academic competencies defined by ASPH with the workforce competencies defined by the Council on Linkages to improve the knowledge and skill base of students and practitioners; (2) using SPH academic faculty to develop and deliver trainings for the public health workforce, adapting academic materials and content for practice use; (3) engaging public health practitioners as adjunct faculty to teach MPH students, providing a “real world” approach to MPH competencies; (4) using practice tools—webinars, panels, and policy briefs, to translate and disseminate faculty research to the practice community.