The Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice (Council on Linkages) held its first meeting of the year on February 20th. More than 109 Council on Linkages members and friends participated in this virtual meeting to discuss current Council on Linkages initiatives  

The Council on Linkages welcomes two new representatives, Dr. Dee Jordan representing the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE), and Larry Jones, representing the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI).

Dee Jordan Ph.D., MPH

Instructor

Harvard Medical School

Department of Global Health and Social Medicine

SOPHE Representative

Larry D. Jones, MPH

Senior Advisor

Missouri Public Health Institute

NNPHI Representative

Dr Amy Lee, Council on Linkages Chair, also reported that the amendment to the Constitution and Bylaws to establish a Vice-Chair position did not receive sufficient votes to pass.

The Public Health Foundation (PHF) recently collaborated with the Alameda County Public Health Department to better understand their existing Academic Health Department (AHD) partnerships and identify opportunities to strengthen, formalize, and expand their partnerships. During this Council on Linkages meeting, Evette Brandon, Director, Quality Improvement and Accreditation, and Mia Luluquisen, Deputy Director, Community Assessment Planning and Education from the Alameda County Public Health Department shared insights on past and existing partnerships in Alameda County, highlighting their successes with minority serving institutions. They also discussed how they have utilized Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) funding to work with PHF to conduct an environmental scan to strengthen and expand their AHD partnerships. View an excerpt from the Council on Linkages meeting here. 

The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) is excited to host a workshop at the 2025 CSTE Annual Conference entitled, Pathways to Partnership: Enhancing Collaborations between Health Departments and Academia which will explore collaborations between state, Tribal, local, and territorial health departments and academic institutions as a means to enhance the workforce pipeline, train emerging epidemiologists, and strengthen the applied epidemiology workforce. The workshop will take place on Sunday, June 8, 2025 from 8:30am-12pm EDT in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The conference will also feature other sessions focused on workforce development and academic partnerships throughout the week. The CSTE Annual Conference connects more than 2,800 public health epidemiologists from across the country. Registration is now open.

The Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) is the independent agency recognized by the United States Department of Education to accredit schools of public health and public health programs outside schools of public health at the undergraduate and graduate levels. CEPH’s work assures quality and encourages improvement in public health education and training programs across the United States and abroad. Currently, CEPH accredits 259 public health schools and programs. To ensure that CEPH’s accreditation process aligns with workforce needs, the accreditation criteria are opened for revision at least every five years. The next scheduled revision is in 2026, and CEPH already has begun the process of reviewing and collecting data to inform this process. Over the next year to 18 months, there will be multiple opportunities for interested parties, including students, alumni, employers, and faculty to provide input on potential revisions to accreditation criteria.

The Retention and Recruitment (R&R) Learning Community is a relatively new initiative of the Council on Linkages and its development has been guided by a Workgroup of more than 70 members from health departments, academic institutions, and national organizations. The goal of the R&R Learning Community is to address factors influencing public health workforce retention and recruitment, equipping public health agencies with valuable tools and resources for these crucial aspects of public health practice. Due to a lack of funding for the Learning Community, launching the community is on hold. However, significant progress has been made in developing and sharing resources with the public health community. Building on previous work by the Public Health Foundation (PHF) and in collaboration with the R&R Workgroup, a Retention and Recruitment Toolkit was developed. This initial version of the toolkit is a PDF document that includes the organizing framework developed with support of the R&R Workgroup along with retention and recruitment links, examples, and strategies gathered over the past year. PHF will continue gathering resources and content to enhance the toolkit and later transition it into a more interactive web-based format. For more information about the R&R Learning Community, please visit the R&R Learning Community webpage or contact Mayela Arana at [email protected].

The Council on Linkages continues efforts to raise awareness and support implementation of the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals (Core Competencies). The current version of the Core Competencies was adopted by the Council in October 2021. Since the 2021 version was released, the Core Competencies have been accessed online nearly 100,000 times, with an additional 101,000 visits to the resources and tools designed to support implementation of the competency set. For more information about the Core Competencies, please visit the Core Competencies webpage or contact Mayela Arana at [email protected]. 

With more than 1,500 members from across the country, the Academic Health Department (AHD) Learning Community continues to support organizations in developing, sustaining, and expanding AHD partnerships. Currently the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials is supporting some continued activities of the AHD Learning Community, including the development of a new toolkit, a webinar series, technical assistance engagements with health departments, and success stories from AHD Learning Community members. As a reminder, the book, Academic Health Department Partnerships: Bridging the Gap Between Town and Gown, is available for purchase. For more information about the AHD Learning Community, please visit the AHD Learning Community webpage or contact Mayela Arana at [email protected].  

• Together with the Academic Health Department (AHD) Learning Community the Washington University in St. Louis is in the process of fielding a survey about AHD partnerships. They encouraged Council on Linkages members to participate in the research project conducted by the Prevention Research Center at Washington University in St. Louis, funded by the National Institutes of Health. While the survey is intended exclusively for members of the AHD Learning Community and should not be shared with others, you can reach out to Jess Gannon at [email protected] if you have any questions or wish to participate.
  

• At this time, there are no more Council on Linkages meetings scheduled for 2025. Council on Linkages staff will be reaching out to members in the near future to schedule the next meeting.​
  
  

Additional information about the meeting, including the agenda and other meeting materials, is available on the meeting webpage.

Questions and comments may be emailed to Mayela Aana at [email protected].