Health Policy Training for Health Equity Leaders.

Health professional training programs increasingly recognize the importance of health policy training. Despite integration of this training into health professional education, there have been limited published studies about health policy training and few studies that meaningfully measure and evaluate learner outcomes. The Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine developed a multidisciplinary, post-doctoral, health policy fellowship program in 2009, uniquely focused at the intersections of health policy, health equity, and leadership development. The program curriculum was intentionally designed with desired learner outcomes, aligning training and learner experiences with these outcomes, and meaningfully capturing and measuring outcomes in program evaluation. We present our training approach as well as results from an alumni survey assessing learner outcomes one to five years post fellowship completion. To our knowledge, this is the first study that evaluates the longitudinal impact of health policy training on the career trajectories of program graduates. We believe this offers a number of opportunities for replication and translation across health professional training programs.

Exploring the Link Between Substance Use and Mental Health Status: What Can We Learn from the Self-medication Theory?

The high rate of co-occurring mental health issues and substance-use disorders has been well documented. The primary objective of this research was to evaluate the association between use of alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs, and unmet mental health need and service use. A secondary aim of this research was to determine if the observed patterns of alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drugs use and unmet mental health need and mental health service use are consistent with a theory of self-medication theory. On the latter view, people use psychoactive substances as a self-regulation strategy to alleviate distress. Research was conducted through secondary analysis of 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) data. Overall, study findings supported the established correlation between mental health issues and substance use as well as a theory of self-medication. This study focused on people 18-25 years of age.

Understanding health policy leaders' training needs.

PURPOSE: We assessed the training needs of health policy leaders and practitioners across career stages; identified areas of core content for health policy training programs; and, identified training modalities for health policy leaders. METHODS: We convened a focus group of health policy leaders at varying career stages to inform the development of the Health Policy Leaders' Training Needs Assessment tool. We piloted and distributed the tool electronically. We used descriptive statistics and thematic coding for analysis. RESULTS: Seventy participants varying in age and stage of career completed the tool. "Cost implications of health policies" ranked highest for personal knowledge development and "intersection of policy and politics" ranked highest for health policy leaders in general. "Effective communication skills" ranked as the highest skill element and "integrity" as the highest attribute element. Format for training varied based on age and career stage. CONCLUSIONS: This study highlighted the training needs of health policy leaders personally as well as their perceptions of the needs for training health policy leaders in general. The findings are applicable for current health policy leadership training programs as well as those in development.

Health Policy Training: A Review of the Literature.

The context within which health care and public health systems operate is framed by health policies. There is growing consensus about the need for increased health policy leadership and a health professional workforce prepared to assume these leadership roles. At the same time, there is strong evidence supporting the need for a broader policy lens and the need to intentionally target health disparities. We reviewed the published literature between 1983 and 2013 regarding health policy training. From 5124 articles identified, 33 met inclusion criteria. Articles varied across common themes including target audience, goal(s), health policy definition, and core curricular content. The majority of articles were directed to medical or nursing audiences. Most articles framed health policy as health care policy and only a small number adopted a broader health in all policies definition. Few articles specifically addressed vulnerable populations or health disparities. The need for more rigorous research and evaluation to inform health policy training is compelling. Providing health professionals with the knowledge and skills to engage and take leadership roles in health policy will require training programs to move beyond their limited health care-oriented health policy framework to adopt a broader health and health equity in all policies approach.