The CEFP: Implications for Public Health Education and Training

The 300-year history of the American academy outlines many of the contemporary pressures that are shaping the modern university. Faculty members need to balance the expectations of teaching, research, and service to amass a dossier that will lead to tenure. The academy needs to offer curricula that prepare graduates to enter the work force. Administrators need to encourage strong community ties to convince benefactors to invest in the renovation and expansion of university facilities. These pressures are especially acute in academic public health. The public health research agenda has extended from the study of infectious disease into behavioral risk and chronic disease. Schools of public health struggle to link curriculum, research, and service that will educate students, advance scholarship, and develop community interaction for the prevention of disease and the promotion of health. The Collaborative Evaluation Fellows Project provides a mechanism for the convergence and resolution of these pressures facing schools of public health.