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Bailey, Eric
Ethnic & Rural Health Disparities (ERHD)
Graduate Certificate Online Program
Statement of Need for Proposed Program and Basis for Need at ECU
We are submitting our proposal for a new graduate certificate program entitled, “Ethnic and Rural Health Disparities (ERHD) Graduate Certificate Online Program” in response to a curriculum void and a need to address ethnic and rural health disparities issues in the Brody School of Medicine and the Department of Public Health at East Carolina University (ECU). A capstone course, MPH 6009, which is new curriculum for the certificate program, is being submitted within this package for approval prior to consideration of the full ERHD certificate program.
ECU is located in Greenville, North Carolina (NC). Greenville, NC and ECU have a geographic location and history that promotes a strong culture of service to Eastern North Carolina and throughout the state. This community service culture challenges the institution to continuously strive to meet the area’s employment needs in the growing service, construction, manufacturing, agriculture, education, and healthcare industries. In addition to the regional economy, ECU is also growing in the number of students that it serves on a state, national, and international level. The institution, currently at approximately 27,500 students, will continue to grow in its capacity to absorb students entering the University of North Carolina (UNC) system. ECU also has a reputation for strong programs in distance education and was named by the UNC system as a leader in distance education. ECU is currently experiencing tremendous growth in its capacity to serve the region, state, and national needs. The institution is flourishing with growing faculty expansion and an administration and faculty striving for excellence in teaching, research, and service.
One of the major pedagogical challenges related to ethnic health and rural health disparities is how to teach this topic to health professionals and public health administrators who maybe new to health disparities as a field of research and public health service. One new approach is to use the online, distance education infrastructure within ECU and the 16 campus UNC system to reach the rural, underserved health disparity communities of eastern North Carolina. With the success of our current set of online ethnic health and health disparity-related courses in the Department of Public Health, we identified a need to develop an online graduate certificate program in Ethnic and Rural Health Disparities at ECU’s Brody School of Medicine.
This proposed curriculum enhancement has high priority status from the faculty in the Department of Public Health, School of Nursing, Allied Health and Brody School of Medicine, and upper administration at ECU. This is demonstrated in the planning of this project. The Dean, Vice Dean for Academic Affairs and Chairperson have all been involved in project planning and have committed matching time to this project as they feel it is an incredibly valuable endeavor. The project is strongly linked to and supports ECU’s practice-based program which is specifically tailored to individuals working in public health, medicine, and health or health-related agencies without formal training in public health.
The three major objectives for the certificate program are to get graduates to: (1) identify ethnic and rural health disparities issues; (2) analyze more comprehensively ethnic and rural health disparities issue; and (3) develop more culturally competent projects, plans and policies that are designed for specific ethnic and rural communities in NC, the United States and communities around the world.
The Department of Public Health is within the Brody School of Medicine. The Brody School of Medicine provides accredited education programs for medical students, residents and fellow, doctoral students in the basic medical sciences, and practicing physicians. The hallmarks of these programs are close-faculty student interaction, experiential learning, and development of students’ ability to continue learning even after they leave the formal educational setting. Our education programs are consistent with our missions of enhancing generalist training and offering opportunities in medicine to minority and disadvantaged students.
The Master of Public Health degree program in the Department of Public Health admitted its inaugural class in fall 2003. This interdisciplinary program prepares professionals to provide public health leadership in a variety of health and human service settings. Consistent with the regional characteristics of eastern North Carolina, ECU’s MPH degree focuses on public health needs of rural and minority populations. Full-time students can complete the 45-semester hour curriculum in two years. Courses are being taught in the late afternoon or evening to encourage individuals already working in the health field to upgrade their education. Part-time students can take up to four years to complete their MPH degree. The core curriculum, consistent with accreditation requirements of the Council on Education for Public Health, integrates the applied and theoretical foundations of public health with those of medicine and other health-related disciplines. Our MPH program received National Accreditation in June 2007 from the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH).
In the state of North Carolina, the 2006 Report Card on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in North Carolina conducted by the Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities and the State Center for Health Disparities reported the following ethnic and rural health disparity trends:
· HIV disease deaths per 100,00 population for African Americans was 20.5; Hispanic/Latino 3.6, American Indian 2.9, White 1.5, and Asian/Pacific Islander 0.6.
· Prostate cancer deaths per 100,000 male population for African Americans were 73.0, American Indian 37.2, White 25.1.
· Lung cancer deaths per 100,000 population for Whites 60.3, African American 59.8, American Indian 48.1, Asian/Pacific Islander 21.3, and Hispanic/Latino 19.9.
· Breast cancer deaths per 100,000 female population for African Americans were 33.3, American Indian 23.7, White 23.5, Hispanic/Latino 11.6, and Asian/Pacific Islander 9.2.
· Percent of High School Students who smoked cigarettes on one or more of the past 30 days for Whites was 29.0, Hispanic/Latino 17.4, and African Americans 17.3.
· Suicide deaths per 100,000 population for Whites 13.5, Asian/Pacific Islander 6.1, American Indian 5.9, African American 5.5, and Hispanic/Latino 4.5.
The combination of these ethnic and rural health disparity data from a state and national perspective indicates that there is much to learn on all levels of higher education about the ongoing health disparity crisis in our state and nation. This is precisely the reason why there is a urgent need to assist our public health professionals in a new way through online, distance education to learn specific public health skills sets that will assist them in working better with ethnic and rural health disparity populations.
Statement of Educational Objectives & Proposed Course Sequence
The proposed new graduate online Certificate Program in Ethnic and Rural Health Disparities is designed to use the online, distance education infrastructure within ECU and the UNC 16 campus system to prepare public health graduate students in specific areas of ethnic and rural health disparities.
This proposed graduate online Certificate Program in Ethnic and Rural Health Disparities has three major objectives.
(1) Identify ethnic and rural health disparities issues;
(2) Analyze more comprehensively ethnic and rural health disparities issue; and
(3) Develop more culturally competent projects, plans and policies that are
designed for specific ethnic and rural communities in the United States and
global communities around the world.
Objective 1 is to identify ethnic and rural health disparities. This objective will be achieved by offering the following four online courses:
· MPH 6007 Global Public Health
· MPH 6008 Ethnic Health and Health Disparities
· MPH 6005 African American Health
· MPH 6009 Capstone Experience in Ethnic Health & Health
Disparities (pending approval)
Three of the online courses (MPH 6008, MPH 6007, and MPH 6005) have been successfully taught by Dr. Eric Bailey for the past three years and MPH 6009 will be team taught with Dr. Justin Moore of the Department of Public Health (pending approval).
Upon completion of each of the four online courses, students will fulfill the following six major MPH core competencies:
- Describe the role of social and community factors in both the onset and solution of public health problems.
- Identify individual, organizational, and community concerns, assets, resources and deficits for social and behavioral science interventions.
- Use evidence-based approaches in the development and evaluation of social and behavioral science interventions.
- Describe steps and procedures for the planning, implementation and evaluation of public health programs, policies, and interventions.
- Demonstrate sensitivity to varied cultural, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds of individuals and groups, including education, health, literacy, race, gender, ages, profession, political preferences, health conditions, religion/spirituality, place of origin, sexual orientation and lifestyle.
- Recognize the varied levels of health access among individuals and within communities.
Course descriptions are as follows:
· MPH 6007 Global Public Health – Explores the issues related to the fields of medical anthropology and public health leading toward developing global health interventions for all types of diseases and populations around the world.
· MPH 6008 Ethnic Health and Health Disparities – Explores the issues related to ethnic health and health disparities, leading toward developing new public health county, state and federal intervention programs for all types of diseases.
· MPH 6005 African American Health – Comprehensive, holistic, and sociocultural perspective focusing on national, regional, state, county and local African American health and health disparity issues leading toward developing public health interventions.
· MPH 6009 (pending approval) Capstone Experience in Ethnic Health and Health Disparities – Integrates the critical thinking concepts, research strategies, public health skill sets, and culturally competent training culminating in a final research project/proposal. Final research project/proposal will be evaluated by the Ethnic Health and Health Disparities Capstone Faculty Committee (This course has already been reviewed by the Graduate Curriculum Committee in January 2009).
CERTIFICATE PROGRAM COURSES
Course Number / Credit Hours / Course TitleMPH 6007 / 3 / Global Public Health
MPH 6008 / 3 / Ethnic Health & Health Disparities
MPH 6005 / 3 / African American Health
MPH 6009 / 3 / Capstone Experience in Ethnic Health & Health Disparities
Graduate Hours / 12 TOTAL C.H.s / CERTIFICATE
Objective 2 is to analyze more comprehensively ethnic and rural health disparities issues.
This objective will be achieved when students complete the following three online courses:
· MPH 6008 Ethnic Health and Health Disparities
· MPH 6005 African American Health
· MPH 6009 Capstone Experience in Ethnic Health & Health
Disparities (pending approval)
For each course, students are not only required to complete the extensive testing course work but they also complete an applied medical anthropological, public health fieldwork project. These projects are designed to investigate some particular aspect of ethnic and rural health disparities and also to develop culturally competent solutions.
Objective 3 is to develop more culturally competent projects, plans and policies that are designed for specific ethnic and rural communities in NC, the United States and communities around the world. This objective will be achieved when students complete each of the certificate online courses:
· MPH 6005 African American Health
· MPH 6007 Global Public Health
· MPH 6008 Ethnic Health & Health Disparities
· MPH 6009 Capstone Experience in Ethnic Health & Health
Disparities (pending approval)
The anticipated outcomes of this ERHD Graduate Certificate Online program is to graduate new public health professionals from various professional and ethnic backgrounds who will have acquired a new set of public health skills designed to be more culturally competent in the field of public health and to be more culturally competent in ethnic and rural health disparities. These four online courses are designed to achieve this objective.
Timeline and Milestones
Timetable
Fall 2009 / Spring 2010 / Sum2010 / Fall
2010 / Spring
2011 / Sum
2011 / Fall
2011
Submit Final Course to Curriculum Committee: Capstone Experience in Ethnic Health & Health Disparities: MPH 6009 / X
Teach MPH 6007: Global Public Health / X / X / X
Teach MPH 6008: Ethnic Health & Health Disparities / X / X
Teach MPH 6005: African American Health / X / X
Teach MPH 6009: Capstone / X / X
Graduates of Certificate Program / X / X
Promote Certificate Program at APHA Conference / X / X
Conduct Cultural Competency Assessment / X / X / X
Statement of Admission and Retention Standards for Completion of Certificate
To be admitted, all applicants must send their materials to the Admission Committee and the Graduate School. Once the Graduate School admits the student, the student will receive a letter to enroll in the Certificate classes.
Admissions committee consists of the Director and Co-Director of the ERHD program. The materials from each applicant must include:
· An official transcript from every college or university the student completed seven or more s.c.h. of coursework.
· An acceptable score on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE).
· A resume or curriculum vitae.
· A short essay (less than 600 words) explaining why the applicant wants to pursue a Certificate and how her/his future career goals are related to this specialized certificate degree.
An interview is not required for admissions but may be requested at the discretion of the Director.
Applicants must also meet ECU’s admission requirements: an earned baccalaureate degree or its equivalent from an accredited college or university with a grade point average of 2.5 or above and acceptable scores on an approved standardized exam. Completion of the certificate requires completion of approved coursework with an overall grade point average of 3.0 (B). A student may earn only 3 semester hours of credit at a C level. This certificate program is entirely online and no face-to-face meetings will be required. Under normal circumstances, students should be able to complete the certificate program in 18 months. Completion of the Certificate program can also be a pathway for students to earn a Master’s of Public Health from the Department of Public Health at East Carolina University.
Acceptance into the ERHD Graduate Certificate Online Program will be determined by the admissions committee on evaluation of the applicant’s record of scholarship, standardized test scores, professional experience and accomplishments, the required essay, and personal interview (if one is required). The student will apply to the Graduate Division through the online application system and will be admitted by the Graduate Division. The ERHD program administrator will enroll students in coursework.