Levers of Change: How to Help Build the Public Health Workforce of the Future.

CONTEXT: Public health leaders are working to rebuild the US public health workforce. Master of Public Health (MPH) programs have a stake in this, given their role in educating and training public health practitioners. Over the last 10 years, MPH programs have implemented changes to program structure, content, and approach, but workforce gaps persist. OBJECTIVE: This study sought to explore the factors that inform and influence MPH program design and changes they make in order to elucidate how MPH programs may be further engaged to help address current and future public health workforce needs. DESIGN: Sequential mixed-methods study. SETTING: US MPH programs accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH), and applicants approved to seek accreditation. PARTICIPANTS: In total, 115 representatives representing at least 43% of the 215 accredited/applicant MPH programs in the United States. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Factors that inform and influence programmatic and curricular changes within MPH programs. RESULTS: The shifts that MPH programs have made to program focus and the approaches used to support student competence development are influenced by individual, programmatic, institutional, and national factors, including faculty and staff background, access to resources, program team/faculty culture, access to resources, program placement, university priorities, and national policies. Most influential in catalyzing changes made by MPH programs between 2015 and 2020 were CEPH MPH accreditation standards, feedback from interested parties, learning best practices, university initiatives, and access to resources including funding and faculty. Identified factors served as facilitators and/or as barriers, depending on the context. CONCLUSIONS: There are multiple levers at different levels that may be utilized by national public health leaders, university administrators, and program constituents to effect change within MPH programs, helping them to be even better positioned to help address public health workforce needs of today and tomorrow.

Master of Public Health Education in the United States Today: Building Leaders of the Future.

OBJECTIVES: For decades, there have been calls to action to change the status quo of public health education in the United States to respond to workforce needs and help reinforce capacity. During the last 10 years, schools and programs of public health have planned and implemented programmatic and curricular changes. This study explored the focus of master of public health (MPH) education in the United States today. METHODS: We used a 3-phase mixed-methods study to compile data to describe the current state and focus of MPH education in the United States via survey data collection (November-December 2019), semistructured interviews (January-February 2020), and document reviews. RESULTS: Survey responses represented at least 43% (93/215) of eligible MPH programs in the United States. Most respondents (86%, 99/115) reported that the primary focus of MPH education in the United States is to prepare graduates for public health practice and employment linked to public health, and 54% (59/109) reported that their MPH programs adopted this focus in the last 5 years. MPH programs invested in student learning, competence development, and supporting workforce readiness, including a focus on leadership abilities. Programs noted that they seek to develop strategic thinkers and engaged leaders with abilities to understand and address emergent public health needs. CONCLUSIONS: Public health education in the United States is in a period of change. MPH programs reported responding to workforce needs by closing gaps in workforce capacity and developing compassionate and professional leaders who can understand needs, collaborating with communities, and facilitating action that will ameliorate health disparities and promote social injustice by practicing public health in new ways.

A New Baseline: Master of Public Health Education Shifting to Meet Public Health Needs.

CONTEXT: Schools and programs of public health have been preparing graduates to join the workforce for a century, but significant gaps in numbers and abilities exit. Many have called for a change to the status quo, to transform public health education to create a competent workforce able to address current and emergent needs. OBJECTIVE: This study explored if Master of Public Health (MPH) programs have shifted their program design, curriculum, and/or instructional methods (instructional design), and if so, how and why. DESIGN: A sequential mixed-methods study. SETTING: MPH programs accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health, and approved applicants. PARTICIPANTS: Some 43% of accredited MPH programs in the United States (n = 115) responded to the online survey (open November 21, 2019-December 20, 2019), providing a representative sample. Stratified purposeful sampling was used to select 8 MPH programs for follow-up semistructured interviews. Categorical and qualitative data were analyzed for trends, association, and themes. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Degree of, types of, and reasons for shifts in MPH program instructional design considered and implemented. RESULTS: MPH programs in the United States have shifted their approaches and curriculum to meet identified and emergent workforce needs. In the last 5 years, 81% made changes to program design (focal competencies, admissions, graduation criteria), 88% to curriculum (added or removed courses, changed course content), and 65% to pedagogical methods (where and how learning is supported). CONCLUSIONS: Despite concerns about stagnation, MPH programs have shifted to competency-based education aligned with workforce needs, have adapted approaches to support diversity of future workers, and are focused on bolstering workforce readiness. These changes were made to enhance focus on knowledge acquisition, skills building, and professionalism, factors recognized as critical for success, and facilitate more engaged pedagogical strategies, working with communities for impact.

Comparing the roles of social context, networks, and perceived social functioning with health-related quality of life among self-reported rural female cancer survivors.

PURPOSE: Rural women, compared to urban, experience worse survivorship outcomes, including poorer health-related quality of life (QOL). There is a need to characterize the role of multilevel social factors that contribute to QOL, including context, networks, and functioning. Our objectives were to (1) use latent class analysis to identify distinct classes of social context and social networks and (2) examine how multilevel social factors (context, networks, and functioning) are associated with health-related QOL. METHODS: We recruited self-identified rural survivors to the Illinois Rural Cancer Assessment (2017-2018), via community-based sampling methods, and participants completed the survey online, by phone, or on paper. We used latent class analysis to generate multidimensional variables for contextual and network factors. We next modeled each social factor sas a predictor in separate, bivariable linear regressions for the QOL outcomes, followed by multivariable, adjusted regressions. RESULTS: For our first objective, there were three classes each of county-level contexts (1, highly rural, socioeconomically disadvantaged, and mostly lacking in cancer-related services; 2, mostly rural, moderately disadvantaged, and underserved; 3, mostly metropolitan, less disadvantaged, and most-resourced) and social networks (1, no caregivers; 2, only spousal caregivers with whom they communicated daily; 3, multiple caregivers with varying daily communication). For our second objective, among all social factors, only functioning was associated with better mental health-related QOL. No factors were associated with physical health-related QOL. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest a rich diversity of social context and networks among rural female cancer survivors, and social functioning is particularly important for mental health-related QOL.

Qualitative Analysis of Infant Safe Sleep Public Campaign Messaging.

The 1994 Back to Sleep public education campaign resulted in dramatic reductions in sleep-related infant deaths, but comparable progress in recent years has been elusive. We conducted qualitative analyses of recent safe sleep campaigns from 13 U.S. cities. Goals were to (a) determine whether the campaigns reflect the full range of American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) 2011 safe sleep recommendations, (b) describe tone and framing of the messages (e.g., use of fear appeals), (c) describe targeting/tailoring of messages to priority populations, and (d) ascertain whether the campaigns have been evaluated for reach and/or effectiveness. Methods included computer-assisted analyses of campaign materials and key informant interviews. All campaigns included "ABC" (Alone, Back, Crib) messaging; many ignored other AAP recommendations such as breastfeeding, room-sharing, immunizations, and avoiding smoke exposure. Campaigns frequently targeted priority populations such as African Americans. Fear appeals were used in three quarters of the campaigns, and 60% of the fear-based campaigns used guilt/blame messaging. We did not find published evaluation data for any of the campaigns. More attention is needed in public education campaigns to the full range of AAP recommendations, and evaluations are needed to determine the impact of these interventions on knowledge, behavior, and health outcomes.

Building a conceptual framework to culturally adapt health promotion and prevention programs at the deep structural level.

The debate on the effectiveness and merit for the amount of time, effort, and resources to culturally adapt health promotion and prevention programs continues. This may be due, in large part, to the lack of theory in commonly used methods to match programmatic content and delivery to the culture of a population, particularly at the deep structural level. This paper asserts that prior to the cultural adaptation of prevention programs, it is necessary to first develop a conceptual framework. We propose a multiphase approach to address key challenges in the science of cultural adaptation by first identifying and exploring relevant cultural factors that may affect the targeted health-related behavior prior to proceeding through steps of a stage model. The first phase involves developing an underlying conceptual framework that integrates cultural factors to ground this process. The second phase employs the different steps of a stage model. For Phase I of our approach, we offer four key steps and use our research study as an example of how these steps were applied to build a framework for the cultural adaptation of a family-based intervention to prevent adolescent alcohol use, Guiding Good Choices (GGC), to Chinese American families. We then provide a summary of the preliminary evidence from a few key relationships that were tested among our sample with the greater purpose of discussing how these findings might be used to culturally adapt GGC.

Toward theoretical understanding of the fertility preservation decision-making process: examining information processing among young women with cancer.

BACKGROUND: Young women with cancer now face the complex decision about whether to undergo fertility preservation. Yet little is known about how these women process information involved in making this decision. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this article is to expand theoretical understanding of the decision-making process by examining aspects of information processing among young women diagnosed with cancer. METHODS: Using a grounded theory approach, 27 women with cancer participated in individual, semistructured interviews. Data were coded and analyzed using constant-comparison techniques that were guided by 5 dimensions within the Contemplate phase of the decision-making process framework. RESULTS: In the first dimension, young women acquired information primarily from clinicians and Internet sources. Experiential information, often obtained from peers, occurred in the second dimension. Preferences and values were constructed in the third dimension as women acquired factual, moral, and ethical information. Women desired tailored, personalized information that was specific to their situation in the fourth dimension; however, women struggled with communicating these needs to clinicians. In the fifth dimension, women offered detailed descriptions of clinician behaviors that enhance or impede decisional debriefing. CONCLUSION: Better understanding of theoretical underpinnings surrounding women's information processes can facilitate decision support and improve clinical care.

Effects of an enhanced discharge planning intervention for hospitalized older adults: a randomized trial.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY: To identify needs encountered by older adult patients after hospital discharge and assess the impact of a telephone transitional care intervention on stress, health care utilization, readmissions, and mortality. DESIGN AND METHODS: Older adult inpatients who met criteria for risk of post-discharge complications were randomized at discharge through the electronic medical record. Intervention group participants received the telephone-based Enhanced Discharge Planning Program intervention that included biopsychosocial assessment and an individualized plan following program protocols to address identified transitional care needs. All patients received a follow-up call at 30 days post discharge to assess psychosocial needs, patient and caregiver stress, and physician follow-up. RESULTS: 83.3% of intervention group participants experienced significant barriers to care. For 73.3% of this group, problems did not emerge until after discharge. Intervention patients were more likely than usual care patients to have scheduled and completed physician visits by 30 days post discharge. There were no differences between groups on patient or caregiver stress or hospital readmission. IMPLICATIONS: At-risk older adults may benefit from transitional care programs to ensure delivery of care as ordered and address unmet needs. Although patients who received the intervention were more likely to communicate and follow up with their physicians, the absence of impact on readmission suggests that more intensive efforts may be indicated to affect this outcome.

Social work and transitions of care: observations from an intervention for older adults.

Making the transition from hospital to home can be challenging for many older adults. This article presents practice perspectives on these transitions, based on a social work intervention for older adults discharged from an acute care setting to home. An analysis of interviews with clinical social workers who managed 356 cases (n = 3) and a review of their clinical notes (n = 581) were used to identify salient themes relevant to care transitions. Concepts developed and discussed identify the role of surprises after discharge, an expanded view of the client system, and relationship building as instrumental in carrying out effective care transitions.

Japanese women's experiences from pregnancy through early postpartum period.

Declining availability and accessibility of perinatal health care are emergent social concerns. Based on the Listening to Mothers-II (LTM-II) surveys, we describe a total of 20 Japanese women's perinatal experiences. Data were qualitatively compared with those of U.S. women, using a theoretical framework for evaluation of primary health care. Japanese women overcame their worries by engaging in healthy behaviors, accepting hardships such as labor pain, and receiving assurance from health professionals and modern technology. We found that while U.S. and Japanese women's perinatal experiences reflected their unique cultural values and social context, a cross-cultural universality of birthing women's experiences exists.

Japanese Translation and Cultural Adaptation of the Listening to Mothers II Questionnaire.

The questionnaire used for the U.S. Listening to Mothers II survey was translated and culturally adapted to measure Japanese women's experience during the period of pregnancy planning through early postpartum. Methods included expert panels and two phases of cognitive interviews with 20 postpartum Japanese adult women. The number of problems with the translated questionnaire effectively decreased in the iterative process. Most problems were found in the question-interpretation stage of cognitive processing, such as wording/tone. Culture-specific concepts and unclear items were adapted to prevent erroneous interpretations in future studies. The future use of this questionnaire to generate data sets will be useful for professionals interested in developing evidence-based practices. The knowledge from this study can be helpful in improving health-care services and education for women with diverse languages and cultural backgrounds.