Training

HPDP’s mission includes the development of education and training programs to translate research into public health practice. We collaborate with partners to provide training opportunities for UNC students; post-doctoral fellows; health care practitioners; community members; and HPDP staff.

Training Programs

Kellogg Community Health Scholars Program

HPDP oversees the UNC site of the Kellogg Community Health Scholars Program (CHSP). Scholars at UNC participate in the Community Track, which is based upon the former Community Health Scholars Program and highlights community-based participatory research and relationships between academe, community and public health practice. The goal of the program is to increase the number of Scholars in schools of public health and other academic centers with community health disciplines, who possess the capacity to use the method of service learning and the principles of community-based research, to understand determinants of community health and to build the capacity of communities, health agencies, and academic centers to function as equal partners in research, service, and education.

The objectives are that at the end of a Scholar's tenure with the Program, he or she will be able to:

1. Develop an understanding of community health determinants through participation in organized service to meet the needs of communities,
2. Apply the principles of community-based research through participation in collaborative intervention studies,
3. Demonstrate the methods of service learning through participation as a co-facilitator or co-preceptor of courses, field practica, or continuing education workshops.

HPDP administers the CHSP grant and offers support to the two scholars who enter the program each year.

Center of Excellence for Training and Research Translation

The Center for Excellence's training activities focus on state leadership and community practitioners working with the 15 WISEWOMAN programs and the state leadership for the 28 Obesity Prevention programs. Training needs assessments were conducted for both programs in 2004 and a competency-based needs assessment was completed in 2006.

The Center TRT offers a weeklong training courses:

• The Obesity Prevention in Public Health Course funded by the CDC Nutrition and Physical Activity Program to Prevent Obesity and Other Chronic Diseases.

The Center TRT offers web-based trainings:

• Nutrition, Physical Activity and Chronic Disease Series
  
  
  1. Nutrition and Health
  2. Physical Activity and Health
     
     
• Nutrition and Physical Activity Self-Assessment in ChildCare (NAPSACC)

HPDP Seminar Series

• HPDP-Breakfast Presentations
• Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Series (co-sponsored by UNC Center for Public Service and Kellogg Community Health Scholars Program)
• Quarterly Evaluation Series

Experiential opportunities for UNC students

In the past year, more than 70 UNC students (at the doctoral, masters, and undergraduate levels) worked as research assistants on HPDP projects. Each year, dozens of graduate research assistantships (that cover salary, tuition, and health insurance) are awarded to masters and doctoral students for work on HPDP research studies. Through our community partners, we are also able to help students identify internship or practicum experiences.

Training for community partners

Through our core research demonstration project, HOPEWorks, and in partnership with the Division of Public health’s Healthy Carolinians program, we provide customized training programs to meet identified need. Examples of workshops we have developed and implemented in the past few years include: Grant-writing, Community-based Evaluation, Intervention Design, Analyzing and Using Data, and the Epidemiology of Health Problems.