Summer 2001 Issue
Academy Sharpens Business Skills of Public Health Professionals
By May of 2001, 201 public health professionals graduated from the Management Academy for Public Health, a 10-month training program designed to provide public health administrators with advanced training in management and business administration. These graduates returned to their local and state health departments armed with the vital management skills to help them maximize the effectiveness of their departments and the programs they administer.
Participants in the Management Academy, which is held on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, take courses taught by faculty from both UNC’s School of Public Health and Kenan-Flagler Business School. The program is designed to supplement the participants’ traditional public health training and includes courses such as managing people, strategic management, financial management, civic entrepreneurship, and social marketing. Over the first two years of the program, the curriculum was evaluated and modified to better meet the needs of its participants. As a result, it has evolved to place a special emphasis on managing people, finances and information.
“The basic idea is that by strengthening the management skills of the individuals who make up the public health departments, the departments’ efficacy in the communities they serve will also improve,” says Richard H. House, Ed.D., CDC Foundation public health management fellow. “The program was launched because it was clear that public health workers needed more refined management skills. By the second year, we were better able to determine which areas were most important for the participants.”
The Management Academy for Public Health was formed in 1998 through a unique partnership that includes CDC, the CDC Foundation, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. House, a former associate dean of the School of Public Health at UNC and an expert in public health management training, has provided consultation and support for the implementation of the program. He continues to serve as the liaison between the CDC Foundation and the other partners and works closely with the Management Academy administrators at UNC to ensure the success of the program.
In the spring of this year, the CDC Foundation engaged The Lewin Group, a private health care consulting firm, to perform an external evaluation of the program. The Lewin Group will measure the impact of the program on its participants, as well as evaluate the effectiveness of the collaboration between UNC’s public health and business schools. The data Lewin gathers, along with data from internal evaluations, will help the partners assess the long-term sustainability and possible expansion of this pilot program as it enters its third year.
- Caren McDonald