An Interprofessional Approach to Teaching Advocacy Skills: Lessons from an Academic Medical–Legal Partnership

A Scoping Review of Legislative Advocacy Training in Healthcare Professional Education

“…Students Seventeen articles featured medicine students, [1,14,16,21,[24][25][26][29][30][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50] 20 featured nursing students, [15,[17][18][19][20][27][28][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][51][52][53][54] and four featured pharmacy students. [34,39,41,55] The earliest article was published in 1999 (medicine), followed by a 2000 article (nursing).…”

“…Goals/purposes, deliverables/outcomes, and training types varied widely between articles. Most articles described an applied program (n=15), [1,16,18,21,25,[27][28][31][32]40,48,[50][51][52] followed by simulation (n=13), [14,19,29,[33][34][35][36][37][38][39]42,46,53] and didactic [15,17,20,24,41,[44][45]47,49,] (n=12). There was one article that was categorized as reflection [26] for learning type.…”

“…Among the studies that reported the amount of time allocated to teaching advocacy, nine programs lasted a month or less. [1,[14][15]24,26,[44][45]49] Most studies (n=12) described semester-long programs, [17,[27][28]30,32,[35][36][37][38]41,43,55] while eight reported including advocacy in the curriculum for a year or more. [16-21, 48,51] Five of these programs were for nursing students, [17][18][19][20]51] while the longest program was integrated into all four years of an undergraduate medical curriculum.…”

“…[11] In order for HCPs to effectively advocate for health policy change, especially those in underserved and rural communities, most require additional evidence-based, structured training to feel adequately prepared to address the systemic healthcare needs of their communities. [1] To effectively support change, HCPs need to: 1) understand legislative and regulatory systems; 2) learn how to effectively navigate advocacy and policy processes; 3) educate decision-makers so they have a better understanding of the complex healthcare system; and, 4) establish partnerships and coalitions that support positive community-guided change. HCPs need comprehensive training and support while they are students teaching them how to engage, inform, and collaborate with legislators and policy makers to address health policy gaps.…”

“…HCPs need comprehensive training and support while they are students teaching them how to engage, inform, and collaborate with legislators and policy makers to address health policy gaps. [1,2,4,6] However, despite the need for healthcare policy, political advocacy and engagement are not part of most HCPs' curricula, necessitating they seek ad hoc training on their own. The aim of this scoping review is to determine the type and extent of political advocacy training that students of different HCP disciplines receive during their training.…”