Proposed Guidance Definition of Academic Public Health Practice from the A and P Public Health Practice Subcommittee
Academic Public Health Practice is the application of public health scholarship, knowledge and skills to practice settings through collaboration with government entities, policy makers, community and advocacy organizations, non-governmental organizations, and health care delivery systems.
Faculty engage in academic public health practice through interdisciplinary research and technical assistance when they connect with practitioners to bring science and practice skills to the process of assessing problems, developing interventions, and assuring effective implementation and evaluation of those interventions. Public health practice also includes advancing scholarship through publication, teaching, and communication efforts that convey the skills and tools needed to translate research into practice applications.
Academic public health practice is distinct from academic service. Service activities are those that contribute to governing and sustaining academic environments and professions. Examples of academic service include peer review of manuscripts and proposals, leadership in professional associations, and participation on School committees.
Contributions to Academic Public Health Practice are evidenced by leadership, high quality peer reviewed reports and publications, funding, and impact on the policies and practice of public health.
Examples of evaluation criteria have been compiled by the Association of Schools of Public Health and include:Research on practice attributable to the faculty member represents a contribution to moving a discipline forward.
- Publications in high quality, high impact journals with evidence that these works are cited by others.
- In addition to articles in refereed journals, "publication" can mean producing peer reviewed technical reports that are used by organizations and/or communities to help them assess public health problems, assure the delivery of public health services, or develop public health policies.
- Engagement in collaborative practice projects.
- Evidence that the practice activities involved or resulted in the creation or development of new approaches for the improvement of the public's health.
- Evidence that the public health practice activities have contributed to the teaching activities of the faculty member and/or the School.
- Grants and contracts received to fund public health practice activities. Competitive peer-reviewed funding is a marker of practice quality.
Additional examples and guidance are presented in Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH), Demonstrating Excellence in Academic Public Health Practice, June 1999.
Publications on Academic Public Health Practice
- Demonstrating Excellence Series (from ASPH web-site)
- Demonstrating Excellence in Academic Public Health Practice
- Demonstrating Excellence in Practice-based Research for Public Health – 3rd Monograph in the Demonstrating Excellence Series
- Demonstrating Excellence in the Scholarship of Practice-Based Service for Public Health
- Demonstrating Excellence in Practice-Based Teaching for Public Health - ASPH/W.K. Kellogg/BHPr, HRSA publication
- Additional ASPH publications