Public Health Hands on Experience

EBPH – Applied Practice Experience Course

This course strengthens students' knowledge and skills to apply the principles of Evidence-Based approaches in critically assessing public health problems. This course emphasizes the principles of scientific reasoning, including identifying evidence of the effectiveness of policies and programs through information systems, behavioral theory, and program planning models to provide recommendations and solutions to public health problems. This course will develop students' critical appraisal skills and practical application of evidence through an Applied Practice Experience (APE). The APE is a planned, supervised, and evaluated practice experience where students engage in hands-on training in a site focused on public health. The main objective of the APE is for the student to develop two public health-related products, identify at least five (5) competencies to build during their experience, and develop an e-Portfolio evidencing the attainment of the selected competencies.

Students must have completed or participated in the Introduction to the Applied Practice Experience in Public Health to review preceptor’s requirements, student’s requirements, explore field sites and preceptors, and complete the learning agreement. These seminars are offered during the summer prior the MPH 5602 course. The selection of MPH competencies and practicum sites will be done during the introductory seminar.

Integrated Learning Experience

Integrated Learning Experience Research Projects.pdf
The Integrated Learning Experience is the culminating experience for students in the Master of Public Health (MPH) at the San Juan Bautista School of Medicine (SJBSM). The ILE offers students the opportunity to synthesize foundational and generalist competencies and integrate and apply the knowledge and skills obtained throughout the program. The ILE consists of a research project where students, under mentors’ guidance, identify a public health issue and develop a research question to produce a high-quality written manuscript to address a gap or a hypothesis. The ILE is divided into three courses offered during the second and final year of the program, one per quarter: MPH 9406 Integrated Learning Experience I, MPH 9506 Integrated Learning Experience II, and MPH 9606 Integrated Learning Experience III (Figure 1). Students must have completed or participated in the Introduction to the Integrated Learning Experience Seminar. These introductory seminars are offered during the summer prior the MPH 9406 course.

Figure 1. Integrated Learning Experience Courses

MPH 9406 Integrated Learning Experience I (Field Work Phase I)

The MPH 9406 Integrated Learning Experience I, is the first of three courses that comprises the culminating experience for students in the MPH program. This course will take the student through the various steps of research design and its application in the public health field to identify a specific and appropriate research topic and develop a comprehensive research proposal. The course incorporates a collaborative component in which students will work in small groups to co-develop the foundational elements of a shared research framework. Each student then will produce an individual research proposal based on this collaboratively developed design. Students will receive lectures and hands-on workshops with emphasis on research approaches, research question, specific aims/hypothesis, literature review, sampling, collection methods, statistical analysis, ethics in research, and research communication.

MPH 9506 Integrated Learning Experience II (Field Work Phase II)

The MPH 9506 Integrated Learning Experience II is the second of three courses that comprises the culminating experience for students in the MPH program. During this course students will start the implementation of the research proposal developed during the MPH 9406 course. Students will be provided with hands-on workshops on database construction and management using REDCap, manuscript development and review, development of data collection training materials, data entry procedures, data cleaning and pre-processing techniques, and data visualization using R and Excel. As part of this course, students will create a data collection plan, data codebook, database template, data collection training manual and the introduction, literature review, and methodology section of a scientific manuscript following the journal author’s guidelines.

As part of the sequential structure of the Integrated Learning Experience, students are expected to have completed MPH 9406 with an approved IRB proposal, finalized methodology, and secured access to the selected data source (dataset or research site). In MPH 9506, students transition into implementation, including data collection and database development.

MPH 9606 Integrated Learning Experience III (Field Work Phase III)

The MPH 9606 Integrated Learning Experience III is the third and final course that comprises the culminating experience for students in the MPH program. During this course, students will be provided with hands-on workshops to practice data-analytic methods to conduct the analysis of the research data collected, work on the final sections of the manuscript following the journal author’s guidelines and present their final product through a final presentation to the community.

Memorandum of Understanding (MOU):