Preparing Emerging Health Education Professionals: Are they ready for policy?

This study examined characteristics of undergraduate internship settings to help explain internship’s challenged when preparing future health educators for the world of policy. Online surveys completed by preceptors (N=>70) at the beginning and end of students’ internship were evaluated.  On those instruments, preceptors rated interns’ abilities for multiple policy-related measures (e.g., ability to influence health policy; promote the health education profession; communicate/advocate for health). Preceptors also rated the utility and importance of those same indicators to their agency. While concurring in policy’s importance, preceptors reported their agency’s inability to actually impact policy. Given preceptor demographics (education, experience, seniority, etc.), interns were placed with well-educated, experienced professionals in agencies where health policy matters (e.g., NGO, government, etc.). Data suggest that the nature of organizations where interns are placed may decrease preceptors’ belief in their ability to influence change and, ultimately, students’ exposure to policy-related tasks.  To move the field of health education forward in impacting health policy, professional preparation programs need to be mindful of what constitutes an effective and appropriate internship site. That preceptors’ perceptions may impact students’ abilities to see themselves as effective professionals in health policy is a cautionary tale for professional preparation programs. Not all preceptors or all internship sites are positioned such that future health professionals garner experience with the knowledge and skills of health policy. Absent that experience, future health education professionals risk serious limitations in their ability to be meaningfully involved in the health policy dialogue required by our profession and those we serve.