Advancing Interprofessional Education: Healthy People 2020 Learning Modules

Background: Over the last few decades, there has been a steady shift in public health approaches to health promotion and disease prevention from a focus on individual interventions to a greater focus on population-based approaches. Reaching out to non-traditional public health partners to advance this mission is a key opportunity.

Purpose: Using Healthy People 2020 as a framework, the purpose of this project was to build a series of educational modules that address policy approaches to advance health across a wide spectrum of health professions.

Results: We created eighteen modules that can be used individually to supplement an existing course or combined to create a stand-alone course for the education of undergraduate, graduate and/or professional students; modules can be adapted to the specific audience by using the appropriate exercises and student assessments. Each module includes readings, powerpoint slides, video lectures, in-class activities and student assessments. Several modules include case studies to demonstrate practical use and associated challenges of public health practice to accomplish Healthy People 2020 goals. The modules were a collaborative effort as they were created by faculty from CEPH accredited schools and programs and public health practitioners from across Philadelphia, providing students with a look at the career trajectories of professionals involved in a range of health professions.

Implications for Academic Learning and Practice: Healthy People 2020 “strives to engage multiple sectors take actions to strengthen policies and improve practices that are driven by the best available evidence and knowledge.” We took this approach to developing the modules as we engaged practitioners from across the inter-professional health spectrum. Demonstrating the practice of inter-professionalism through the lens of Healthy People 2020 will encourage students to bring these concepts into their practice post-graduation, thereby providing a more realistic training experience that will more closely parallel real-world practice.