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About The Medicine and Public Health Initiative
Author: Richard Levinson
Date: 08-20-07
Recognizing the potential benefits of collaboration between medicine and public health, in 1994 the APHA and the American Medical Association (AMA) established a working alliance to develop innovative solutions to deal with the health needs of the people of the United States. The Medicine and Public Health Initiative has since promoted joint strategic planning and stimulated collaborative efforts at the international, national, state and local levels.
The Initiative focuses on engaging leading medicine and public health organizations and individuals in efforts to reshape health education, research and practice.
Overview
Education: Strengthening the Public Health Workforce
MPHI is dedicated to restructuring and enhancing the education of all health professionals to incorporate health promotion and disease prevention methods as part of their professional practices and to encourage them to pursue interdisciplinary collaboration in the delivery of health care services. In addition, MPHI is pursing the goal of having all health professionals to develop a strong appreciation for the global nature of most major health issues and to be able to respond to these issues in a productive fashion. MPHI is working to incorporate these areas of emphasis into all levels of the training of health professionals including that of continuing education.
Applied Research: Putting Results We Know Into Practice
MPHI monitors and evaluates the broad areas of research that pertain to health care delivery to help determine gaps in coverage or in emphasis; to help assess ethical aspects of this research; to contribute to the determination of the long term cost-effectiveness of specific lines of research; to help develop public policy regarding areas of research development and implementation; and to help members of all health professions to become aware of and to utilize the most important research conclusions as they appear.
Community Demonstration: MPHI is pursuing the development and implementation of a wide range of community projects designed to improve the public's health status. These projects are being developed and implemented in collaboration with state-based MPHI activities and programs so as to most accurately reflect the health needs of local populations. Recent areas of emphasis include such issues as health care coverage for the uninsured; improving environmental health; and prevention of chronic diseases. MPHI provides technical assistance and guidance to the stateased groups in the development, implementation, and evaluation of these communityased projects.
Health Professions - MPHI is involved in helping to prepare members of all health professions to be effective leaders and practitioners in the 21st century. The challenges to their effectiveness arise from several areas including the unprecedented rate of technological progress; the growing worldwide concern about the costs and the efficiency and effectiveness of health care delivery; and the growing demand from sophisticated consumers for every better levels of health care. MPHI endeavors to keep abreast of the turbulent environment in which health care must function and to help discover and disseminate productive approaches for dealing with this turbulence.
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