We envision “a healthier Louisiana population with a workforce addressing the structural and emergent issues affecting public health.”
Therefore, our School’s Mission is to: “improve the drivers of health through evidenced-based education, research, and practice for populations in the context of a changing climate.”
Nurture faculty and staff skills in the areas of advocacy and leadership to equip
our SPH workforce to address the structural and emergent issues affecting public health.
Increase SPH-sponsored offerings for faculty and staff on the topic of advocacy, policy
evaluation and leadership by 50% each year to a minimum of 2 synchronous offerings
per year plus an active resource list. 100% of faculty and staff should participate
in at least one offering per year.
Incentivize and reward faculty engaging in leadership and advocacy efforts
Increase faculty and staff participation in community-based leadership and advocacy
efforts as documented in annual evaluations with the goal of 100% of faculty and staff
participating by year 5 and a 5% increase each year in the number of events and activities.
Provide the community with resources to foster autonomous community advocacy and leadership
to improve the drivers of health.
Increase in community knowledge related to advocacy and leadership as documented by
an increase of 5% each year in the number interactions with community partners.
GOAL 2 (EDUCATION): Community Driven Student Engagement & Accountability
Quantify and expand community engaged research,advocacy and leadership through evidence-based educational offerings in the context of a changing climate.
Examine level and description of assignments in the MPH core courses which challenge
students with place-based learning to directly engage, attempt to address a community
or organizational public health issue, or address community engaged research. Once
baseline is established, determine appropriate increase needed.
Develop and implement database to track PE to increase visibility of students and
examine community impact on the structural and emergent issues affecting public health to improve rates of funded internship sites.
Through the creation and implementation of a database for newly linked Practice and
Culminating Experiences, evaluate community impact and increase number of funded internship
sites to a minimum of one per program.
Put in place systems to incentivize, motivate and facilitate student engagement with
communities, businesses and organizations to improve student skills and increase employment
opportunities to address the structural and emergent issues affecting public health.
SPH will choose organizations in line with our mission to focus volunteer efforts
to be chosen by a newly established school-wide “Community Engagement” committee.
This committee will propose an incentive plan for engagement of each of the three
groups within the school: faculty, staff, students.
GOAL 3 (RESEARCH): Impacting Change & Improving Health
Increase faculty and student engagement in innovative, evidence-based research with a focus on partnerships and collaboration in the context of a changing climate.
Increase the number of collaboration-based grant submissions that incorporate community
engaged research across the areas of research priority for the school by 10% annually.
Increase the number of grant submissions that include student participation by 10%
annually.
Increase the visibility of SPH through effective, evidence-based dissemination of
research including varied methods of communication.
Develop a mechanism to respond to direct queries from the public to link appropriate
faculty or provide community with data, information, or direction and assistance as
resources allow.
Increase faculty training in research dissemination and communication to include both
online asynchronous resources and one synchronous training per year.
Build institutional capacity, infrastructure and systems to facilitate community-engaged
research opportunities
Facilitate the formation of at least one new interdisciplinary team per year around
various public health issues of concern to communities which work to procure funding
for community-engaged research to address priority public health issues.
