Implementation of an Innovative Interprofessional Curriculum for Community Assessment, Practice, and Research for Masters' and Doctoral Education

Purpose:

 Describe the implementation of an innovative inter-professional curriculum for community assessment practice, and research for doctoral education and discuss innovative approaches utilizing vulnerability and community assessment models.

Methods:

 Descriptive summary of an innovative curriculum designed for doctoral students (i.e. nurses and physicians) using inter-professional collaborative team approach at multi-centers at one large Health Science University (centers in Oregon and California).  The program uses a myriad of approaches to provide a thorough assessment of community/populations that includes an analysis of social, epidemiological, behavioral , environmental and predisposing, enabling and reinforcing factors that impact the overall health and quality of life of populations at the community and global health level.  This assessment includes the use of an ecological/ educational model (i.e. Precede/Proceed) and Vulnerability models as frameworks to evaluate populations and identify at-risk groups so that students at master's and doctoral levels (i.e. nurses and physician) can provide evidence based strategies to improve health outcomes

Results:

 Curriculum development of an innovative program with in-depth community/population assessment resulting in mentored practicum experiences across discipllnes; implementation of health promotion and quality safety programs for the community; development of research initiatives including grant funded projects and community based-participatory research and policy changes.

Conclusion: Assessing the needs of the community is an important part of healthcare and integral to the development, initiation and evaluation of health education programs, policies and regulations that promote population, community and public health and quality of life that resulted from this curriculum development.