Charting the Advocacy Landscape: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Syllabi in Public Health Graduate Education.

CONTEXT: Addressing public health challenges necessitates policy approaches, but concerns persist about public health graduates' preparedness to advocate. OBJECTIVE: This qualitative study sought to assess advocacy content and skills taught to Master of Public Health students enrolled in US accredited schools and programs of public health (SPPHs) by analyzing 98 course syllabi submitted to the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) between 2019 and 2021. Syllabi were submitted by SPPHs during their (re)accreditation process to demonstrate compliance with CEPH's advocacy competency requirement. DESIGN: Qualitative content analysis study. Syllabi were analyzed using MAXQDA Qualitative Data Analysis Software using a 2-coder approach. SETTING: SPPHs accredited by CEPH. PARTICIPANTS: Ninety-eight syllabi submitted to CEPH by 22 schools of public health and 54 programs of public health. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Exemplary language from advocacy courses and assignments and aggregate frequency of syllabi advocacy content and skills. RESULTS: Most advocacy courses (61%) were survey, health policy, or health care delivery courses, covering policy (66%), policy communication (46%), coalition-building (45%), lobbying (36%), community organizing (33%), and media advocacy (24%) skills. Only 7% prioritized advocacy skill instruction, and 10% addressed how to advocate in an equitable way. CONCLUSIONS: Defining public health advocacy and essential skills is crucial. Issuing competency guidelines, supporting advocacy faculty, offering standardized training, and expanding experiential learning are important first steps. More research is needed on how academic institutions are incorporating equity skill training into courses, whether separate from or combined with advocacy skills.

Bearing Fruit: The Fight For The FDA's Food Safety Reforms.

A food safety advocate recounts one long road to the passage of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011.

Practice-based teaching for health policy action and advocacy.

The Institute of Medicine has issued numerous reports calling for the public health workforce to be adept in policy-making, communication, science translation, and other advocacy skills. Public health competencies include advocacy capabilities, but few public health graduate institutions provide systematic training for translating public health science into policy action. Specialized health-advocacy training is needed to provide future leaders with policy-making knowledge and skills in generating public support, policy-maker communications, and policy campaign operations that could lead to improvements in the outcomes of public health initiatives. Advocacy training should draw on nonprofit and government practitioners who have a range of advocacy experiences and skills. This article describes a potential model curriculum for introductory health-advocacy theory and skills based on the course, Health Advocacy, a winner of the Delta Omega Innovative Public Health Curriculum Award, at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland.

Leveraging the nation's anti-bioterrorism investments: foundation efforts to ensure a revitalized public health system.

The emerging potential threats of bioterrorism combined with critical existing epidemics facing the United States call for immediate and urgent attention to the U.S. public health system. The foundation world is helping to answer that call and is sounding the alarm that our health defenses must be able to do "double duty" to protect us from the full spectrum of modern health threats. This Special Report presents a selective sample of recent and ongoing grant activities designed to revitalize and modernize the public health infrastructure, which is vital to protecting the nation's health and ensuring its safety.