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Public Health is essential to disaster preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. This has never been more evident than during the COVID-19 pandemic when public health was the disaster response lead. However, students are graduating from accredited schools and colleges of public health with limited or no education in disaster management. This is a crisis unto itself, and it is incumbent upon The Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) to take immediate action. Public health preparedness should be recognized as a core element in public health curricula, and practical experiences, such as drills and simulations, are necessary to equip students with the confidence and competencies needed in high-stress situations. The need for such preparedness education extends beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. It is a crucial step for creating a resilient and competent public health workforce capable of safeguarding community health in the face of complex and emerging challenges.

In 2003, the Institute of Medicine called for all undergraduate college students to have access to education in public health. Several major national initiatives have been launched to achieve this goal, such as the Educated Citizen and Public Health Initiative hosted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities in partnership with the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH), and the ASPPH-led 2010 Undergraduate Public Health Learning Outcomes Model that introduces students to public health at two- and four-year colleges and universities. Here, Leider et al analyze this previously unused administrative dataset to improve the understanding of trends in public health undergraduate training during the past two decades.

Objectives: Public health education must respond to 21st-century public health challenges in an ever-evolving landscape. We describe implementation and educational outcomes of the Columbia University Master of Public Health (MPH) Core (hereinafter, Core) curriculum since its inception. Methods This retrospective evaluation combined 6 years (2013-2018) of student survey data collected from students (N = 1902) on the structure and delivery of the Core curriculum to quantify implementation, student experience, and learning outcomes, both during study (Core Evaluation Survey [CES]) and after graduation (Graduate Exit Survey [GES]). We used χ2 tests and analysis of variance to compare outcomes across years, and we used McNemar tests to compare differences in outcomes from the same students at different time points. Results Of 1902 respondents to the CES, 1795 (94.4%) completed the Core curriculum. During the study period, 81.7% of students were able to integrate concepts across Core curriculum modules with ease; postgraduation, a similar proportion of respondents were able to apply Core curriculum content to departmental and certificate coursework and applied field experiences. On-time graduation rates were high (range, 85%-93%). Conclusions: The high percentage of students who reported their ability to integrate concepts and who completed the Core during the study period likely reflected changes to teaching team structures, training, attention to inclusion and equity, and collaboration to implement active learning strategies. The Core curriculum meets its intended goals by providing critical learning abilities to support ongoing interdisciplinary work.

A confluence of challenges is impeding faculty members’ ability to prioritize research with the goal of achieving a public health of consequence: research designed to improve conditions to produce a healthier society. Together, these challenges create a “churn” culture in which faculty focus on generating new business (i.e., grant funding and associated incentives) to replace lost revenue (i.e., expiring grants); this culture can relegate public health impact to a back seat. We share three strategies and related insights from our efforts to shift our department’s cultural narrative from churn to a “scholarship of consequence”: crafting research proposals of consequence, fostering thought leadership through collaborative writing, and mentoring faculty with a view to a scholarship of consequence. We describe each of the strategies and interim progress. Although they are a work in progress, we conclude that despite initial concerns, our evaluation metrics indicate improvement.

Public health education must continually adapt as it trains practitioners to address the dynamic public health landscape. New criteria from the Council on Education for Public Health underscore the importance of public health practice in public health education, requiring candidates in some degree programs to work with practice partners to graduate.1 Tenure-track faculty, often focused on obtaining grant funding and publishing, are generally not well positioned to teach practicebased concepts. Clinical-track faculty, often focused on practice-oriented work and held to different expectations for scholarly productivity than tenure-track faculty, have the potential to fill practiceoriented curricular gaps. To optimize clinical faculty contributions to the public health curriculum, we need to better understand their presence and roles. A deeper understanding of the clinical track will illuminate the value those faculty bring to their institutions and, in institutions without clinical faculty, whether it is worth starting a clinical-track line.At our own institution, the University of Michigan School of Public Health, the number of clinical faculty hired in the past five years grew substantially. In our setting, clinical faculty work in each of our six academic departments hold leadership roles in creating new academic programs, drive accreditation efforts, participate in teaching, work with community practice partners, and conduct research. Yet the extent to which other schools of public health employ clinical faculty and the duties of clinical faculty in these environments are not well documented. To begin to understand the presence of clinical faculty in public health education, including their roles and potential value to the field, we must first document basic information about these faculty in schools of public health.

Objectives. We assessed expected ethics competencies of public health professionals in codes and competencies, reviewed ethics instruction at schools of public health, and recommended ways to bridge the gap between them. Methods. We reviewed the code of ethics and 3 sets of competencies, separating ethics-related competencies into 3 domains: professional, research, and public health. We reviewed ethics course requirements in 2010–2011 on the Internet sites of 46 graduate schools of public health and categorized courses as required, not required, or undetermined. Results. Half of schools (n = 23) required an ethics course for graduation (master’s or doctoral level), 21 did not, and 2 had no information. Sixteen of 23 required courses were 3-credit courses. Course content varied from 1 ethics topic to many topics addressing multiple ethics domains. Conclusions. Consistent ethics education and competency evaluation can be accomplished through a combination of a required course addressing the 3 domains, integration of ethics topics in other courses, and “booster” trainings. Enhancing ethics competence of public health professionals is important to address the ethical questions that arise in public health research, surveillance, practice, and policy.

Objectives Term limits might be appropriate for leadership positions in academic public health. This study assessed the appointment processes and terms for deans, directors, and chairs of schools and programs of public health and their views on term limits. Methods A 10-question survey was developed for the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health and provided electronically to 127 deans and program directors in November and December 2019, of whom 58 (46%) responded. Results Of 54 respondents to the question on term limits, 45 deans and directors of schools and programs of public health served with no terms or limits and 9 served with terms of 3-5 years with no limits on the number of terms. Respondents largely agreed with most arguments for or against term limits. Of 51 respondents, most indicated completely or moderately valid support for 2 arguments for term limits: diversity (n = 40) and succession planning (n = 40). Of 51 respondents, most indicated completely or moderately valid support for 3 arguments against term limits: stable and continuous leadership (n = 40), time for leadership development (n = 37), and loss of institutional memory (n = 35). Twenty-seven of 53 responding deans and directors viewed the most appropriate terms and limits as being more restrictive than their current terms; the other 26 viewed the most appropriate terms as being the same as their current terms. No respondents preferred less restrictive limits than their current terms. Conclusion Although term limits for deans, directors, and chairs are rare in schools and programs of public health, many deans and directors view term limits as appropriate. Schools and programs may reconsider their current policies for term limits.

Context: Strategic planning in population health and public health practice often uses single indicators of success or, when using multiple indicators, provides no mechanism for coherently combining the assessments. Cost-effectiveness analysis, the most complex strategic planning tool commonly applied in public health, uses only a single metric to evaluate programmatic choices, even though other factors often influence actual decisions. Methods: Our work employed a multicriteria systems analysis approach— specifically, multiattribute utility theory—to assist in strategic planning and priority setting in a particular area of health care (vaccines), thereby moving beyond the traditional cost-effectiveness analysis approach. Findings: (1) Multicriteria systems analysis provides more flexibility, transparency, and clarity in decision support for public health issues compared with cost-effectiveness analysis. (2) More sophisticated systems-level analyses will become increasingly important to public health as disease burdens increase and the resources to deal with them become scarcer. Conclusions: The teaching of strategic planning in public health must be expanded in order to fill a void in the profession's planning capabilities. Public health training should actively incorporate model building, promote the interactive use of software tools, and explore planning approaches that transcend restrictive assumptions of cost-effectiveness analysis. The Strategic Multi-Attribute Ranking Tool for Vaccines (SMART Vaccines), which was recently developed by the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering to help prioritize new vaccine development, is a working example of systems analysis as a basis for decision support.

During the past 10 years, the Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública (National Institute of Public Health) in Mexico has meticulously revised its educational model. This analysis resulted in the transformation of its educational model by tracing a new path in the pedagogical structure and faculty development to meet current challenges and students’ needs. The first stage dealt with the national and international accreditation standards that came with the 21st century. The second stage responded to evidence of cognitive research showing that students are better prepared when they are engaged, active, and responsible for their own learning. This transformation was grounded on the use of information and communication technologies and on a competency-based educational approach that has led the expansion and innovation of educational practice.