UNC certificate program in core public health concepts: lessons learned.

OBJECTIVES: Public health workers need to be trained in the core public health sciences. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health created a Certificate in Core Public Health Concepts to meet the training needs of public health workers, primarily those working in state or local public health agencies. METHODS: This article examines the demographic, educational, job classification, and workplace characteristics of certificate program applicants from the first 3 years of the program. In addition, this article assesses student performance and graduate satisfaction with the program. RESULTS: Among the 273 applications reviewed, the majority were from females. They worked in a variety of job classifications: 19% were public health agency workers, 64% were public health system workers, and 17% worked in other occupations. Nearly all students received High Pass or Pass grades on courses. Initial data on graduate satisfaction with the program are positive. CONCLUSIONS: Implications of the findings for training the public health workforce are discussed.     

Impact of a rural preventive care outreach program on children's health.

A "treatment-control" research design incorporating a modified "tracer disease" methodology for measuring health outcomes has been applied to the evaluation of a rural pediatric outreach preventive health care program in Appalachia. The primary research objective was to assess the general level of effectiveness of the health services provided by the program in preventing and/or reducing illness due to common childhood diseases among children receiving these services, when compared to similar (i.e., "matched") children receiving standard pediatric outpatient care but without such outreach services. The research findings indicate that prevalence rates for the selected tracer diseases were generally comparable among program children and their controls. However, evidence of effective identification and treatment of an increased prevalence of iron deficiency anemia by the program was demonstrated. Comparison of the program and control children on their sociocultural characteristics also suggests that the comparable health outcomes for the two groups may have been achieved in the case of the program children despite their somewhat disadvantaged socioeconomic and environmental circumstances relative to the controls; and apparently with lower outpatient services utilization and lower overall costs.     

A sustainable behavioral health program integrated with public health primary care.

The need for behavioral healthcare for the poor and indigent is well documented in rural North Carolina, and integrated behavioral healthcare--that is, mental health screening and treatment offered as part of primary care services--has proven a very effective and efficient method to improve patients' health. In 2000, the Buncombe County Health Center (BCHC) began a grant-funded program treating depressed patients in its public health clinics and school health programs. The Health Center used the opportunity to send a team to the Management Academy for Public Health to learn business principles that could be applied to the challenge of sustaining this program as part of its ongoing public health service delivery for the county. Using their business plan from the Management Academy, the BCHC sought funding from various stakeholders, and, through their support, was able to institute a fully integrated behavioral health program in 2004. The BCHC has now joined forces with other partners in the state to address statewide policy changes in support of such programs. These efforts are an example of how a community health center can apply entrepreneurial thinking and strategic business planning to improve healthcare and effect wide-ranging change.