BUSPH's Practice Office Awarded $1.275 Million to Help Train Local Health Agencies
The Office of Public Health Practice at Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) has been awarded a $1.275 million grant over three years to help the state provide better training to public health staff members and governing officials who run local boards of health in hundreds of cities and towns around the state.
In January, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH) selected the Practice Office to manage the Local Public Health Institute of Massachusetts (Institute), which offers courses to Massachusetts’ 351 local boards of health.
“This is an exciting opportunity to link the resources of the school to the front line public health workforce,” said Kathleen MacVarish, the director of practice programs in the Practice Office, who will also direct the operations of the Institute. “We’ll be able to connect our faculty, staff and students to state and local practitioners and address real world public health problems and challenges.”
MDPH established the Institute in 2005 in an effort to give local public health workers easier and more ample access to relevant courses. Massachusetts is one of the few states in the country where public health and environmental services are provided by the individual city and town governments, as opposed to many states that provide them on a broader, county basis. Many local agencies, therefore, have small staffs and limited resources, making it difficult to for the staff in those offices to get or provide adequate training.
As part of the three-year grant, BUSPH will work closely with an Institute Advisory Committee on everything from identifying target audiences, to the scope of trainings offered and from curriculum development to shaping the Institute’s long-term vision. The committee will be made up of representatives from local health departments and public health professional organizations,
In collaboration with local health departments and MDPH, BUSPH will use the grant to develop innovative new programs and identify where the need is greatest for more training and improvement, according to Wayne LaMorte, MD, PhD, MPH, who will be the principal investigator. One challenge, he said, is how to effectively reach all members of various local health departments who are spread across the state.
“BUSPH has been using technology more and more to enhance the quality of education for our students,” said LaMorte, who is assistant dean for education and professor of epidemiology. “This will be an opportunity to apply what we have learned to provide high quality training throughout Massachusetts.”
Besides LaMorte and MacVarish, who is a clinical assistant professor in environmental health, other BUSPH faculty on the Institute’s leadership team include Harold Cox, the associate dean for Public Health Practice; Anne Fidler, ScD., assistant dean for Public Health Practice and an associate professor of environmental health; Robert Schadt, EdD, director of Office for Teaching, Learning and Technology; Jennifer Tsoi, MPH, and Hope Worden, MSW, PhD.
BUSPH has been actively involved in ensuring that the Massachusetts health workforce receives adequate training. Since 2000, the Practice Office has managed the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) funded Public Health Training Center which has educated thousands of state and local public health workers across New England.
In 2006, the Institute implemented a new program for Massachusetts local health workers, “Foundations for Local Public Health Practice: Tools Needed to Get the Job Done,” that was developed at BUSPH with support from local health directors. Cox and MacVarish have also been part of a working group examining how different city and town health departments could regionalize to provide more equitable service to residents.
Submitted by Elana Zak