Innovative Framework for Academic and Public Health Departments’ Partnership on Preparing Future Practitioners- Preliminary Data

Abstract

This article presents a model to respond to current public health challenges and transform knowledge into preventive strategies. It also presents an innovative way for academic institutes and public health departments to focus on public health workforce development. Academic institutes partnership with public health departments have started fostering service-learning opportunities to engage students in public health with an emphasis on the specific public health outcomes. However, the benefit of service-learning projects on the health departments and the populations served is largely unknown. Recently, these service-learning opportunities are becoming less sustainable due to the inability of preceptors to provide the necessary support for students during the internship project. This article presents an innovative framework developed for sustainable academic health department partnership and describes the rationale for the collaboration. The evaluation of the framework suggested positive outcomes for students, the academic institution, the health department, and the communities. This framework can serve as a guide for academic institutions and public health departments whose goal is to address the current public heath challenges via using service-learning method and develop strong public health workforce.