Reflections on Real World Public Health Day 2013

By Kelly Washburn, MPH, ICH Research Associate II

 

On April 3^rd 2013, The Institute for Community Health (ICH), in collaboration with the Cambridge Public Health Department (CPHD), hosted its 10th annual Real World Public Health (RWPH) Day. This free, half-day seminar aims to provide public health graduate students with insight into “a day in the life” of a local public health department. The event features breakout workshops, a career panel, and a keynote speaker from the field – this year Patrick Wardell, CEO of the Cambridge Health Alliance delivered the keynote.

Over the past few months, I’ve worked closely with CPHD staff to plan and implement this year’s RWPH Day. As a former MPH student, I remember seeking out real-life examples of the information my professors discussed in class. One of the major benefits of Real World Public Health Day – the workshops in particular – is that the event provides students with a great opportunity to learn about a variety of public health issues that public health departments and the field in general currently confront.

Workshop foci change each year and typically feature the current “hot topics” in public health. This year, the workshops highlighted climate change and emergency preparedness; fatherhood as a social determinant of health; and policy development for workforce domestic violence. By depicting partnerships across different sectors, the workshops provide students with examples of the opportunities and challenges that exist when multiple stakeholders work together. The workshops are intended to be very interactive, and students are encouraged to generate discussion questions. In many workshops, students also have the opportunity to offer programmatic recommendations to presenters.

The specific goal of the career panel is to introduce students to a variety of career paths within public health, with each panelist speaking about his or her job responsibilities and the skill sets required. Along with the workshops, the career panel provides students with the opportunity to learn about the breadth of career options available to public health graduates and encourages students to explore different opportunities to work in public health. This year’s panel featured a research associate, a registered nurse, an emergency preparedness coordinator, and a health promotion and marketing coordinator who was actually a student in the audience a couple of years ago! She shared that attending Real World Public Health Day greatly influenced her career decision to go into health promotion and marketing.

The overall feedback from this year’s students was very positive; many stated they enjoyed hearing about the complexity of public health programs, how their coursework can be applied in real life, and the various career paths open to them. Hearing and seeing the students’ enthusiasm certainly validates the importance of continuing to offer this event in years to come!

Kelly Washburn, MPH is a Research Associate II at the Institute for Community Health.

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The views expressed on the Institute for Community Health blog page are solely those of the blog post author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of ICH, the author’s employer or other organizations with which the author is associated.

 

 

Dissemination: Strategies for doing it right in community based participatory research

By Shalini A. Tendulkar, Institute for Community Health, Stacey King, Cambridge Public Health Department

For academic researchers, dissemination typically involves the sharing of research findings through peer-reviewed journals. In the world of community-based participatory research or evaluation, dissemination can take on many different forms. Regardless of whether you ultimately disseminate your work here are few strategies to help you along the way…

• Have an open discussion about dissemination with your partners and collectively identify the potential shared value of dissemination.
• Collectively identify dissemination goals with partners early on in the project. Ask what would be most useful to partners. For example, they may want to include information and photos on their website that would be important to their own stakeholders. This may be relatively simple, but extremely valuable. Revisit these discussions at checkpoints throughout the project timeline.
• If you are an academic partner, recognize that community partners are generally not in the “business” of writing articles. Be respectful of this when discussing dissemination with community partners.
• Take time to learn how partners typically communicate with their stakeholders. Include some ways to work within their usual outreach. For example, they may host community meetings or hold events for families. These may be opportunities to co-present or staff an information table. Community-based organizations, like other entities, are always looking for ways to demonstrate their value to the people they serve.
• Be open to considering non-traditional forms of dissemination. Click here to view the Institute for Community Health’s dissemination catalog to help start a conversation with your partners about the various forms of dissemination.
• When developing grants with partners, try to allocate time and money to dissemination efforts if possible. If you have examples of dissemination strategies that have worked well in the past, it’s always useful to include these in a discussion. This will help the partners visualize better what could be effective for them.
• Give all your partners an opportunity to be involved in dissemination efforts and recognize their contributions appropriately either through co-authorship or other types of acknowledgements.
• Be focused in selecting dissemination strategies and set the group up for success. Generating a longer list of ways to disseminate will make everyone feel overwhelmed. Decide what you can do this year, what you can do next year, and so forth. Make sure that the group feels the plan is realistic and has value to everyone. Check in periodically on what is working and adjust the plan accordingly. Everyone wants to feel that they are contributing to a successful effort.
• When considering dissemination it’s important to recognize that some participants may have very tightly controlled communication policies compared with others. It’s important to understand these policies and involve the appropriate individuals in making decisions about dissemination and how communication occurs. Especially when media is involved, you’ll only have one chance to “get it right.” Media has special challenges, and policies vary from agency to agency.

What other strategies have worked for you?

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The views expressed on the Institute for Community Health blog page are solely those of the blog post author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of ICH, the author’s employer or other organizations with which the author is associated.