Mission & Objectives

Mission

The mission of the program in Public Health and Community Health Education is to provide an interdisciplinary, high-quality education with a focus on professional communication, health promotion, community wellness and evidence-based practice. Through coursework and field experiences, this program will prepare students for successful completion of the Certified Health Education Specialist examination and for a career in community health education.

 

Objectives

Upon completion of the Public Health and Community Health Education program, students will be able to:

  • understand and apply fundamental concepts in the discipline
  • find and analyze primary literature in the field
  • analyze data, with appropriate statistical analysis
  • demonstrate basic knowledge and skills related to evidence-based practice
  • communicate health information verbally and in writing
  • apply health concepts, health promotion and evidence-based practice in a real-world setting

 

Information Literacy

A fundamental component of an undergraduate education is information literacy.  In general, a student with a Bachelor’s degree should be able to:

  • Effectively access necessary information though basic reading and research strategies, with emphasis on scholarly literature.
  • Select potential resources in a variety of formats (book, journal, website, etc.), understand the differences between scholarly (peer-reviewed) and popular sources, and evaluate sources for significance and reliability.
  • Interpret information from sources and effectively communicate information in new work.
  • Ethically use information in the creation of new work, e.g., by citing sources properly and avoiding plagiarism.

The Public Health and Community Health Education program stresses information literacy throughout the curriculum. Information literacy skills are practiced at every level, and activities are designed to allow sequential development of these skills.