Program Philosophy

Vision

The vision of the Programs in Health Education and Community Health Education is to create a world class learning environment that attracts, retains, and graduates leaders who share with faculty a deep commitment to health promotion, disease prevention, and health equity for diverse regional, national and international communities; and, work collaboratively with both faculty and community members through educational, service, and research endeavors, in order to advance and disseminate the behavioral and social science serving as the foundation for effective community health education. Through the work, research, and service of our professors, students, and graduates across varied occupational settings and in collaboration with varied partners, we strive to favorably alter the social determinants of health and to transform social structures to improve the health of communities regionally, nationally, and internationally. We will contribute to addressing the needs of diverse community members across their lifespans, especially the most underserved populations impacted by disparities, inequities, structural racism, and social injustices. This includes collaborating with our partners and community members in advocacy work for changes in social policy.

Mission

The Program’s mission is to address the health of the public through the preparation of specialists in health education who focus on the community as the setting for analysis, assessment, program planning, intervention, evaluation, and research. This mission includes promoting health, preventing disease, and advancing health equity, while training exceptional leaders for the delivery of significant contributions to diverse regional, national, and international communities through teaching, research and service. These leaders' contributions to partnerships aspire to improve social determinants of health and social structures, while addressing disparities, inequities, structural racism, and social injustices—including via advocacy for changes in social policy.  Varied structures, institutions, organizations, and agencies in the community setting—such as schools, hospitals, clinics, worksites, and nonprofits—are engaged in collaborative relationships for purposes of fulfilling the mission.

Educational Goal Statement

• To deliver education that provides a firm foundation rooted in knowledge of the behavioral and social science principles that guide effective community-based health education, including methods of analysis, assessment, program planning, evaluation, and research. 
• To provide classroom instruction, advanced seminars, webinars, colloquia and statistical laboratory instruction that ensure training in core competencies essential for addressing public health through community health education that effectively promotes health, prevents disease, and advances health equity.

Research Goal Statement

• To advance and disseminate the evidence base for the behavioral and social science serving as the foundation for the community health education that effectively addresses the health of the public in diverse regional, national, and international communities. 
• To foster exposure to rich and varied programs of research that emphasize establishing the evidence base for community health education practices, using multiple types of evidence and varied research designs (e.g. efficacy, effectiveness, epidemiological, public health, ethnographic, descriptive studies, naturalistic studies, case-studies, process-outcome studies, meta-analyses).

Service Goal Statement

• To provide opportunities for engagement in internship, practice, and service activities that reflect collaboration with varied institutions, organizations, and agencies in the community setting—including schools, hospitals, clinics, government agencies, criminal justice sites, worksites, and non-profits—thereby providing a firm grounding in the practical application of knowledge in the real-world, as well as reinforcing and extending the knowledge base gained through education.  
• To promote the sharing of expertise, learning, and working collaboratively with program peers, faculty, other professionals, community stakeholders, and community members—whether via service volunteering at a community agency, for an internship, on advisory boards, institutional committees, advocacy groups, trans-disciplinary groups, or other organizational groups. 

Diversity Goal Statement 

• To recruit and retain a diverse student body, faculty and staff—as the multicultural setting for accomplishing educational goals.
• To provide an education that prepares students for engagement with diverse populations in regional, national, and international communities.
• To engage in health equity research aimed at reducing and eliminating health disparities and addressing the most vulnerable populations.

The following values guide the Program:

In order to magnify excellence as a program, we value the importance of attracting and retaining graduate students who have demonstrated the capacity and/or potential for leadership, achieving at the highest levels academically, and successfully working collaboratively with program peers, faculty, other professionals, and community representatives.

Well-Rounded Preparation. In order to ensure that our graduate students have received well-rounded preparation for professional careers as health education specialists in varied community settings, we value the process of mentoring graduate students toward realization of their highest academic and professional potential through actively engaging students in instructional, webinars, colloquia, internship, practicum, service, and research endeavors.

Contributing to the Evidence Base with Diverse Forms of Evidence. We value preparing a next generation of professionals that is capable of drawing on both traditional forms of scientific inquiry, including investigator initiated experimental and quasi-experimental studies; as well as practice-based evidence that is derived from the experiences of practitioners working in communities (e.g., through community-based participatory research) to advance the behavioral and social sciences underlying health education practice. Thus, our faculty embrace broad definitions of what constitutes evidence and support adapting evidence-based practice and practice-based approaches to evidence that are trauma informed and linguistically, racially, and culturally responsive—while being tailored for specific populations and individuals.

Diversity, Health Equity, and Multicultural Competence. We value training that prepares professionals to function in diverse regional, national, and international communities, while advancing health equity, necessitating grounding in multicultural competence principles and practices that guide professional conduct as a health education specialist (i.e., working collaboratively with communities so they actively determine their own health, advancing the right to equity in health, ensuring empowerment, advocating for equal access to opportunities that support health, delivering education and interventions that are grounded in cultural responsiveness and cultural humility, and co-producing knowledge with community members’ input to ensure research designs are culturally appropriate and produce findings of cultural relevance).