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Formed in 1992, the Council facilitates collaboration among key academic and practice players in order to strengthen the public health infrastructure, and implement the recommendations of the Public Health Faculty/Agency Forum. The Council's membership includes representatives from 17 federal agencies and national organizations representing academic institutions and practice agencies and organizations. For many years, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) provided core funding support for the Council and the Public Health Foundation served as staff. Today, the Council receives funding support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and is staffed by the Public Health Foundation (PHF).
Mission
To improve public health practice and education by:
- Fostering, coordinating, and monitoring links between academia and the public health and healthcare community,
- Developing and advancing innovative strategies to build and strengthen public health infrastructure, and
- Creating a process for continuing public health education throughout one's career.
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The Public Health Faculty/Agency Forum: Background
The 1988 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report, The Future of Public Health stated that schools of public health were “somewhat isolated from the field of public health practice.” To help bridge this perceived gap between the academic and practice communities, the Public Health Faculty/Agency Forum was established by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1990. Its members included the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH), American Public Health Association (APHA), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
The four principal goals of the Public Health Faculty/Agency Forum were to develop recommendations for:
- Strengthening relationships between public health academicians and public health practitioners in public agencies;
- Improving the teaching, training, and practice of public health;
- Establishing firm practice links between schools of public health and public agencies; and
- Collaborating with others in achieving the nation’s Year 2000 health objectives.
After nearly two years of deliberations and an extensive public comment period, the Public Health Faculty/Agency Forum issued its final report entitled The Public Health Faculty/Agency Forum: Linking Graduate Education and Practice. The report recommended a variety of initiatives and strategies to improve the teaching and practice of public health by building meaningful collaborative relationships. In addition, the Public Health Faculty/Agency Forum issued a list of "Universal Competencies" to help guide the education and training of public health professionals.
The desire of the Public Health Faculty/Agency Forum to see its recommendations and the competencies implemented led to the formation of the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice in 1992.
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