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PÚBLICO PROPAGANDA CALIFICACIÓN ACUERDO INE OBSERVACIONES Social e
the manner in which interdisciplinary coordination, cooperation, and collaboration occur and support public health learning, research and service.)
On-‐Campus Relationships. By nature, public health is interdisciplinary. It values theory
and practices from psychology, sociology, economics, statistics, political science and other academic areas in order to improve the health of populations. In that spirit, the department chair, college dean and program director continue to maintain good relationships for teaching and research with other departments on campus such as anthropology,
communications, international area studies, nursing, nutrition, dietetics and food science, political science, statistics, public administration (MPA) and social work. Students in both our undergraduate and graduate programs are encouraged to take courses in these departments as electives, based on their interests.
Meetings with several department chairs and college deans throughout the university have produced a list of potential collaborations, allowing students expanded opportunities for elective credits outside the Department of Health Science, shared supervisory functions of international fieldwork experiences, interdepartmental membership on graduate
committees, collaborative research, collaborative writing of external funding proposals,
Chair
Department Health Science
Carl Hanson Internship Coordinator Stephanie Lutz Admin Assistant Michelle Forstrum Full-‐Time Faculty Curriculum Committee Academic Advisor Beth Liechty Health Science Students BPHA Advisory Council Adjunct Faculty Part-‐Time Faculty
and service as interdepartmental guest lecturers on select topics. For example, in
partnership with the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, the Department of Anthropology, and the Department of Sociology, the public health program has led
internship-‐based international training experiences in India, Taiwan, Peru, and Panama.
BYU offers a strenuous, friendly, and collegial environment for students and faculty. This interdisciplinary appreciation has increased in our own department and program, and similarly across campus, because of the university’s funded objective to increase faculty to student mentoring and graduate student to undergraduate student mentoring.
Increasingly, faculty members have teamed with students and other faculty from various disciplines to produce these mentoring environments. During the last three years, specific collaborations between department faculty members and other faculty members or other units across campus during the last three years are primarily reflected in copublished works (see Criterion 3.1.d). Nonscholarly collaborations include the annual World Senior Games, which has been coordinating healthy lifestyle screenings and seminars since 993 for more than 8000 participants in St. George, Utah (faculty co-‐coordinators: Rilla Hawkins, Department of Health Science; Dr. Ronald Hager, Exercise Sciences). In addition, Dr. Len Novilla along with Interprofessional Education Collaborative and multiple nursing faculty, has formed collaborative student projects and educational experiences between nursing and public health interests.
MPH Program. Current students and faculty represent varied areas of interest within
public health as well as different disciplines beyond our field. This strength is fostered largely a result of the program not having prerequisite course mandates. In fact, our student recruitment efforts extend across all programs and disciplines including health science, nursing, business and various biological sciences. We recruit broadly because we believe that public health is strong when persons with diverse undergraduate degrees and experiences come together to learn, share, discover, and apply the fundamentals and competencies of public health. The presence of students from a number of academic
programs in the same classroom helps to ensure that a variety of viewpoints are expressed and that faculty mentors represent these viewpoints in their instruction. Out-‐of-‐class cooperation across various disciplines is also exemplified through international area
studies (David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies). Herein, pre-‐medicine, nursing, biology, political science, international business, health education and public health majors assemble to tackle important projects in many parts of the world including Taiwan, India, Peru, and Panama.
BS in Public Health. Undergraduate students are likewise encouraged to take courses
outside the Department of Health Science, in addition to required and elective public health options found in the various programs. For example, there are growing numbers of
students interested in health care administration as a field. These students often pursue minors in business administration in order to fulfill their career goals. Likewise, we have students who take courses in scientific writing, grant writing, international studies, statistics and geography. Students are actively advised to acquire the skills needed to pursue their interests by taking classes both inside and outside the Department of Health.
Undergraduate research opportunities also frequently involve interdisciplinary work, as students are mentored by multiple faculty or work with an outside institution under a faculty mentor.
Off-‐Campus Relationships. BYU has a long history of providing opportunities and
encouraging students and faculty to perform community service at all levels including generating unique opportunities for the large percentage of students who possess language skills beyond English. Furthermore, both fieldwork requirements and a variety of class projects at both the graduate and undergraduate levels allow students to be exposed to many disciplines in a collaborative and coordinated fashion. Faculty members actively participate with both academicians and practitioners in health education/public health in activities related to scholarship and actual public health interventions. Examples of off-‐ campus relationships include those presented in criterion 3.1.b. and additional
relationships are noted below:
• Community Health Connect, Provo, UT
• Humanitarian and Welfare Services, LDS Church, Salt Lake City, UT • Huntsman Cancer Center, Salt Lake City, UT
• Huntsman World Senior Games, St. George, UT • Indian Health Walk-‐in Center, Salt Lake City, UT • Pan American Health Organization, Washington, DC • Russell B. Clark Gerontology Conference
• Salt Lake Valley Health Department, Salt Lake City, UT • Thrasher Research Fund, Salt Lake City, UT
• United Way of Utah County, Provo, UT
• Utah Asthma Task Force, Utah Department of Health, Salt Lake City, UT • Utah Cancer Registry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT
• Utah County Health Department, Provo, UT (Academic Health Department, Agreement) • Utah Rotary and Rotary International
• Utah State Attorney General’s Office, Salt Lake City, UT
BYU is fortunate to have a close working relationship with the local Utah County Health Department and strong connections to the Utah Department of Health given that the program has three leading public health practitioners from these settings as full-‐time faculty (Dr. Brad Neiger, Dr. Rosemary Thackeray, and Dr. Ali Crandall). Program faculty members formed an academic health department in 2008 at the Utah County Health
Department (see Resource File 1.4). This relationship has provided many opportunities for students and faculty to connect on public health projects in the community.