Academic leaders from across the country convened June 14 for a Public Health Conversation on teaching public health, cohosted by the School of Public Health and the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH).

The symposium, titled “Teaching Public Health: Health Equity for All,” is the fifth installment in the School’s Teaching Public Health series, which brings together deans, instructors, and pedagogical experts to share best practices and keep abreast of trends. Past symposia have focused on diversity, equity, inclusion, justice; transformative educational models; and writing and communication.

This year’s focus on health equity aligns with the ASPPH’s ongoing Framing the Future: Education for Public Health 2030 (FTF 2030) initiative and its vision of “equitable, quality education in public health for achieving health equity and well-being for everyone, everywhere.”

Lisa Sullivan, associate dean for education and professor of biostatistics, chairs the FTF 2030 steering committee, which is comprised of six faculty from schools of public health across the country.

“It is a great privilege to chair the ASPPH’s Framing the Future 2030 initiative, which is a tremendous opportunity to work towards an educational system for public health in 2030 that is inclusive, equitable, innovative, adaptable, and sustainable,” says Sullivan.

As part of a four-year plan to reimagine public health education, the committee assembled panels of experts to gather data, collaborate with stakeholders, and produce evidence-based recommendations for driving change in three key areas: inclusive excellence though an anti-racism lens, transformative educational models and pedagogy, and expanding the reach, visibility, and impact of academic public health.

Sullivan, co-chair of the Inclusive Excellence Expert Panel, says the idea is to bring everyone to the table to determine the next steps in academic public health together. To this end, she has moderated several forums on the FTF 2030 initiative, including a town hall at ASPPH’s 2023 Annual Meeting in Arlington, Va. and the symposium on June 14.

Over 1,000 attendees engaged in the hybrid-format event on Zoom and in-person in St. Louis, Mo. On the agenda were two panels, “Charting a Course: A Transformative Agenda for Education in Public Health” and “Leading the Change: Challenges and Opportunities in Academic Public Health.” Each panelist gave an eight-minute presentation effectively calling their fellow educators to action on a number of agenda items, including the importance of examining one’s educational philosophies for bias; the moral obligation in public health to cultivate critical consciousness; the ways those in academic public health must hold themselves accountable for delivering on diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice initiatives; and the implementation of evidence-based teaching methods in lieu of the status quo.

“We now have the opportunity to set a strategy for the next stage in our evolution,” says  Sullivan, who also participated in ASPPH’s original Framing the Future Task Force. Established in 2011 and concluded in 2015, the Framing the Future: The Second Hundred Years of Education for Public Health initiative re-envisioned the role of public health education a hundred years after the seminal Welch-Rose Report of 1915 laid out the first educational framework for an “institute of hygiene,” where students could train for careers as public health professionals in disciplines such as epidemiology, sanitary engineering, and hospital administration.

The recommendations from the 2011-2015 Framing the Future effort feature prominently in curricula offered by schools and programs of public health today, says Sullivan. The insights she gained as a member of the initiative’s Master of Public Health (MPH) Expert Panel, chaired by former SPH Dean Robert Meenan, played an instrumental role in a concurrent Schoolwide effort to upgrade the MPH at SPH. Launched in 2016, the redesigned MPH established the structure the program follows to this day.

“The original Framing the Future initiative was an incredible, and highly inclusive effort that literally changed education in public health,” says Sullivan. “I am so excited to be part of [FTF 2030] and to work alongside so many amazing, passionate professionals who feel the same way.”