Charles/Chuck Treser, MPH

Senior Lecturer, Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences

University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine

 &

Environment Section Representative to the Education Board

The Education Board is charged with maintaining and enhancing professional knowledge, increasing technical proficiencies, and enabling members to promote and protect environmental and community health. In 2005, the board formed three sub-committees on which to concentrate activities. These were Continuing Education, Technology and Public Health Work Force. After the 2007 Education Board meeting a fourth committee was formed: Public Health Education. At the 2008 Education Board meeting the subcommittee members looked at the Education Board’s strategic plan, which expired in 2006, and decided to extend it to 2010. They then mapped out work plans for each of the subcommittees.

The Continuing Education Subcommittee has Joan Reede as the lead and Kaye Bender as the co-lead with Drew Harris, Jack Lanier and Michael Dickey as members. This group already met in person on March 10, 2008 to review proposed APHA Learning Institutes and approved 11 sessions on Saturday and eight sessions on Sunday. They also have used feedback from the needs assessment to revise the next needs assessment and the APHA Learning Institute proposal form. Annette Ferebee and Beth Benedict worked on the annual ANCC Provider Unit report, and will attend the ANCC annual symposium in July in Minneapolis.

The Public Health Work Force Subcommittee has John Neuberger as the lead and J. Henry Montes as the co-lead and Lynn Woodhouse as a member. Their focus is to provide leadership for APHA activities related to credentialing of the public health work force and increase understanding and support by public health practitioners of the role and importance of practitioners having academic preparation at accredited programs/schools.

The Technology Subcommittee has Chuck Treser as the lead and Amos Deinard as the co-lead and Gillian Barclay as a member. Their focus is to envision/develop innovative or reconfigured continuing education programs for APHA at annual or regional meetings through distance technologies. They are working on a trial Webcast and will then evaluate the results of that attempt.

Public Health Education is a new subcommittee with Gerald Ohta as the lead, Michael Gemmell as the co-lead, and Delois Dilworth-Berry and Lynette Golding as members. Their focus will be to develop and disseminate practical resources for APHA members and the general public that highlight the importance of public health (e.g., References to APHA strategic map: A1: Strengthen advocacy of APHA components and affiliates; B1: Communicate public health issues and science to key audiences; B3: Promote competency of public health work force; D1: Expand APHA resource base). They plan to use the Education Board Liaison assignments to APHA entities to gain information from the members on Educational needs.

Sessions sponsored by the Education Board for the upcoming APHA Annual Meeting in San Diego include the following:

·         Credentialing of the Public Health Work Force

·         Recruitment and Retention of the Public Health Work Force

·         How to write a successful Learning Institute Course

·         Undergraduate Public Health Education

·         Health Equity Initiatives

·         Peace Corps Master's International Program