​The Academic Health Department (AHD) Research Agenda offers potential research questions focused on the AHD model – a type of partnership within public health in which practice organizations, such as health departments, and academic institutions that train future health professionals are formally affiliated. Developed by the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice (Council on Linkages) through its AHD Learning Community, this research agenda aims to support and encourage collaborative research on the structure, functions, and impacts of AHD partnerships. It contains a variety of questions related to measuring the value of AHD partnerships in enhancing public health and determining best practices critical to partnership success. Questions are framed around the logic model for AHDs published in A Logic Model for Evaluating the Academic Health Department (Erwin et al. 2016 March/April. Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, 22(2):182-9) and are organized into five sections reflecting inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impact.

This research agenda is meant to serve as a starting point and to evolve over time as research related to AHD partnerships continues to develop. The current version of the research agenda was approved by the Council on Linkages in October 2016 and updated in November 2016. It contains 62 potential research questions.

For more information about the AHD Research Agenda, please contact Kathleen Amos at kamos@phf.org.