Category: Webinar

Introducing the 2021 Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals

Course Objective

  • Describe the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals.
  • Identify changes made in the 2021 version of the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals.
  • Discuss how the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals can be used to support the public health workforce.

Date: February 1st, 2022

Presenter:
Kathleen Amos, MLIS
Director, Academic/Practice Linkages
Public Health Foundation


In this month’s Log-In Learn, Kathleen Amos, Director of the Academic and Practice Linkages for the Public Health Foundation, presents the newly revised Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals. She introduces the Core Competencies as a longstanding initiative of the PHF’s Council on Linkages between academia and public health practice, in an effort to synthesize the foundational or cross cutting skills for public health professionals. She presented an overview of their usage, including Healthy People 2030, the Public Health Accreditation Board, and the TRAIN Learning Network. She explained that revision included two open comment periods, but feedback is always welcome, including after the webinar. She reviewed the main feedback received, including requests for better harmonization, expanded content on certain topic areas (especially health equity and management and finance), and increased ease of use, and explained how each of these were addressed. She concluded by sharing resources and tools, training, and assistance for implementation of the updated Core Competencies.

Participants will learn about the following:

  1. Describe the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals.
  2. Identify changes made in the 2021 version of the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals.
  3. Discuss how the Core Competencies for Public Health Professionals can be used to support the public health workforce.
Connecting the Dots With Systemic Thinking for Equitable and Healthiest Communities

Course Objective

  • Define key concepts, including: systems, systemic thinking, equity, social justice, and complexity.
  • Explain how systemic thinking links to existing frameworks for equitable and healthier communities.
  • Demonstrate use of two tools for exploring deep leverage points.

Date: January 11th, 2022

Presenter:
Priti Irani, MSPH
Research Scientist

Office of Public Health Practice, New York State Department of Health


In this month’s Log-in2Learn, Priti Irani, MSPH connects system thinking to the revised 10 Essential Public Health Services, which put health equity at the center. She begins by introducing the New York State Prevention Agenda, and defining key concepts of justice, systemic thinking, and targeted universalism. She then illustrates a concrete application of systems thinking by going through the example of food insecurity in New York State as a complex problem. She demonstrates how to use the iceberg model to look for hidden structures and mental models, as well as a causal loop diagram to find deep leverage points that guide interventions for greater impact. Finally, she shares additional online resources to continue the learning and application of systems thinking, and answer questions from live webinar participants, including incorporating paradigm shifts into different jobs.

Participants will be able to:

  1. Define key concepts, including: systems, systemic thinking, equity, social justice, and complexity.
  2. Explain how systemic thinking links to existing frameworks for equitable and healthier communities.
  3. Demonstrate use of two tools for exploring deep leverage points.
School of Hard Knocks: The Impact of the Pandemic on School Children and Their Families

Course Objective

  • Identify forces currently at play which are impacting child well-being
  • Explain how workforce pressures factor into access to mental health services
  • Describe what can be done to help support schools, children, and families

Date: December 7th, 2021

Presenter:
Donna M. Bradbury & Bonnie Catlin
NYS Office of Mental Health
Office of Prevention & Health Initiatives


In this month’s Log-in2Learn webinar, Donna M. Bradbury, MA, LMHC, and Bonnie Catlin, LCSW, discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted school-aged children, their families, and how the NYS Office of Mental Health (OMH) has mounted a response. They begin by providing epidemiological context to the current mental health crisis, including risk factors and changes in prevalence, as well as the OMH’s response to address the disportionate impact on underserved populations. They summarize the strengths and limitations of OMH’s shift to telehealth, such as barriers to access, caregiver involvement, provider responsiveness, and privacy concerns. With new federal resources to expand access, they go over response efforts, such as Project Hope and a 56% increase in number of OMH clinic satellites, as well as prevention programs, such as Healthy Steps, Project TEACH, the NYS trauma-informed network, and restorative practices. They wrap up by presenting the systems of care framework and answering questions from webinar attendees.

Participants will be able to:

  1. Identify forces currently at play which are impacting child well-being
  2. Explain how workforce pressures factor into access to mental health services
  3. Describe what can be done to help support schools, children, and families
Open Season on Ticks

Course Objective

  • List different tick species and what diseases they may transmit
  • Describe methods to reduce tick bites and identify symptoms of tick-borne disease
  • Identify ways to engage partners to help raise awareness and prevent tick-borne diseases in your community

Date: November 9th 2021

Presenter:
Faith Lustik
Public Health Planner

&

Lisa Lagos
Public Health Educator

Jefferson County Public Health Service


In this month’s Log-In2Learn webinar, Lisa Lagos and Faith Lustik from the Jefferson County Public Health Service introduce the management of tick-borne disease from the perspectives of community education and planning. Lisa begins by reviewing the history of Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne disease, from its initial community identification to its known geographic and seasonal distribution today. She described tick-bite identification, Lyme disease symptoms and incubation period. She then introduces other tick-borne diseases, including anaplasmosis, Ehrlichiosis, Babesiosis, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and Powassan virus disease. Individual techniques of protection are reviewed. Faith wraps up the presentation by focusing on stakeholder engagement. She explains how to use surveillance data to alert providers, and explains the importance of including students, outdoor workers and trail users in outreach.

Participants will be able to:

  1. List different tick species and what diseases they may transmit
  2. Describe methods to reduce tick bites and identify symptoms of tick-borne disease
  3. Identify ways to engage partners to help raise awareness and prevent tick-borne diseases in your community
Challenging Misinformation: Exploring Equity- and Community-Driven Strategies

Course Objective

  • Define terms such as “infodemic management”, and other current terminology as related to misinformation within a variety of interpersonal and media settings 
  • Discuss the link between misinformation, trust, and behavioral change, including issues surrounding the politicization of health information, historical reasons for mistrust among many groups, and the role of social media 
  • Describe promising equity-and community-driven strategies to: 
    • address misinformation 
    • build trust at the community and population levels  
    • strengthen communication systems to improve health, social, and policy outcomes 
  • Discuss relevant case studies and resource

Date: September 7th 2021

Presenter:
Renata Schiavo, PhD, MA, CCL
Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University
Founder and Board President, Health Equity Initiative
Principal, Strategies for Equity and Communication Impact (SECI)


In this month’s Log-In2Learn webinar, Dr. Renata Schiavo, PhD, MA, CCL, surveys evidence-based systems strategies for health professionals to challenge misinformation. She begins by reviewing socio-ecological models from the science of trust, emphasizing the importance of social, political and environmental factors. While acknowledging the new challenges posed by social media, which does not rely on peer-review or fact-checking processes, she reminds us that misinformation is older than the information age, going over historical reasons for mistrust such as the Tuskegee syphilis study. She defines an effective infodemic response, goes over 7 types of mis/dis-information as well as healthy information behaviors. This background leads to the paradigm shift to equity- and community-driven strategies, which Dr.Schiavo breaks down by priority and explains how to incorporate into health promotion programming.

Participants will learn how to:

  1. Define terms such as “infodemic management”, and other current terminology as related to misinformation within a variety of interpersonal and media settings 
  2. Discuss the link between misinformation, trust, and behavioral change, including issues surrounding the politicization of health information, historical reasons for mistrust among many groups, and the role of social media 
  3. Describe promising equity-and community-driven strategies to: address misinformation, build trust at the community and population levels , strengthen communication systems to improve health, social, and policy outcomes 
  4. Discuss relevant case studies and resource
Redefining Resilience in the Post-COVID Era

Course Objective

  • Discuss how COVID 19 has exacerbated disparities within health departments.
  • Describe how to utilize trauma informed principles to shift internal policies and procedures to support resiliency amongst staff.
  • Identify the stages of trauma resilience and implementation into policies.
  • Explain the importance of viewing staff as whole people within an equity and resilience framework.

Date: August 3rd, 2021

Presenter:
Mateo Belen, MSW
Trainer and Principle Consultant
A Mateo Consulting


In this month’s Log-in2Learn webinar, Mateo Belen, MSW, discusses how organizations can shift internal policies and procedures to support resilience amongst staff in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. He begins by introducing us to basic trauma informed principles and explains the need to consider impacts based on race and gender. Belen highlights the need to acknowledge racism as a public health crisis and the importance of recognizing its effects amongst our employees in addition to the communities we serve. He then spends time talking about how resilience can be seen as a coping mechanism and how it can be fostered by organizations. He shares effective strategies that can be incorporated into work structures in order to support resilience and provide adequate backing to employees in times of crisis.

Participants will be able to:

  1. Discuss how COVID 19 has exacerbated disparities within health departments.
  2. Describe how to utilize trauma informed principles to shift internal policies and procedures to support resiliency amongst staff.
  3. Identify the stages of trauma resilience and implementation into policies.
  4. Explain the importance of viewing staff as whole people within an equity and resilience framework.
Making Community Colleges and Public Universities Incubators Of Health Equity For Young Adults

Course Objective

  • Describe how the coivd-19 pandemic and its economic consequences, Black Lives Matter and other recent movements campaigning for social justice, and emerging federal higher education policies create an opportunity to strengthen the role of institutions of higher education in promoting health equity among young adults.
  • Explain how community colleges and public universities can contribute to reducing racial/ethnic and class inequities in health, academic and life success among young people enrolled in the community colleges and public universities that serve populations previously excluded from higher education
  • Identify specific roles public health and other professionals in health departments, health care and social service institutions, and higher education can play in the development of equity enhancing policies, programs and environments 
  • Describe how these institutions of higher education can expand and strengthen programs to promote mental health, food security, sexual and reproductive health and health care access, four challenges that can undermine academic success 

Date: June 1, 2021

Presenter:
Nicholas Freudenberg, DrPH, MPH
Distinguished Professor of Public Health City University of New York School of Public Health and Health Policy
Director, CUNY Urban Food Policy Institute

Erinn C. Bacchus, MPH
Doctoral Student, Community Health and Health Policy
Graduate Student Assistant, Healthy CUNY

 


In this month’s Log-in2Learn webinar, Nicholas Freudenberg, DrPH, MPH and Erinn C. Bacchus, MPH, discuss how community colleges and public universities can contribute to reducing racial, ethnic and class inequities in health, academic and life success among young people. After a brief overview of trends related to student demographics, tuition and public support over the past 25 years, the speakers highlight the unique health challenges experienced by students of color and those from low income backgrounds. They then walk us through ways in which universities can move from stratifying students to building equity. These include how to support and engage students to promote health, how to create cultures of inclusion, how to partner with public and private institutions and how to use data to inform strategies. They end by addressing pertinent questions from audience members regarding self advocacy and best ways to hold institutions accountable.

Participants will be able to:

  1. Explain how community colleges and public universities can contribute to reducing racial/ethnic and class inequities in health, academic and life success among young people enrolled in the community colleges and public universities that serve populations previously excluded from higher education
  2. Describe how these institutions of higher education can expand and strengthen programs to promote mental health, food security, sexual and reproductive health and health care access, four challenges that can undermine academic success
  3. Identify specific roles public health and other professionals in health departments, health care and social service institutions, and higher education can play in the development of equity enhancing policies, programs and environments
  4. Describe how the coivd-19 pandemic and its economic consequences, Black Lives Matter and other recent movements campaigning for social justice, and emerging federal higher education policies create an opportunity to strengthen the role of institutions of higher education in promoting health equity among young adults.
State changes to alcohol availability during COVID-19: What can state/local public health departments do to protect communities’ health?

Course Objective

  • Describe trends in alcohol use and related harms over the last two decades.
  • Explain state level changes to alcohol availability during the pandemic.
  • Summarize state and local public health strategies to curtail industry sponsored efforts to increase in alcohol availability to protect population level harms.

Date: May 4th 2021

Presenter:
Sean J. Haley, PhD, MPH
Asst. Professor of Health Policy and Management
City University of New York’s Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy


In this month’s Log-in2Learn webinar, Sean J. Haley, PhD, MPH, addresses the alarming increase in alcohol availability and consumption over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. He starts by providing context to the state of Alcohol Use Disorders amongst the U.S. population over the years. In detail, he then discusses the changes in attitudes and behaviors towards alcohol as the pandemic began to worsen and stay-at-home orders were placed. He highlights the unique characteristics of this increased consumption, identifying individual, social and structural factors. Dr. Haley makes sure to emphasize that this is not a temporary problem and substantiates his statement with research from past disasters, decade long trends and industry motivations. He then switches to what can be done to control this problem. He walks us through the many action steps, at varying levels, that can be taken by state and local public health departments in order to protect communities’ health.

Participants will learn the following:

  1. Describe trends in alcohol use and related harms over the last two decades.
  2. Explain state level changes to alcohol availability during the pandemic.
  3. Summarize state and local public health strategies to curtail industry sponsored efforts to increase in alcohol availability to protect population level harms.
Breaking Through Public Health Bureaucracy: tools and tips to successfully navigate internal administration and processes

Course Objective

  • Describe how the federal government appropriates funding to public health agencies and other entities
  • Describe the key challenges faced by health departments implementing federally funded programs
  • Identify 3 strategies to overcome challenges and enhance efficiency in program implementation

Date: April 6, 2021

Presenter:
Jennifer McKeever, MSW, MPH
Founder and Principal of WE Public Health, LLC

&

Rishika Desai, MPH
Senior Analyst at the Association of State and Territorial Health Official (ASTHO)


In this month’s Log-in2Learn, Jennifer McKeever, MSW, MPH & Rishika Desai, MPH, discuss the complexities of public health bureaucracy and the best ways to navigate it. They start by talking about what these bureaucratic issues might look like, how the pandemic has impacted them and the type of problems they might create at different levels. Jennifer and Rishika go on to describe how the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) tried to assess this in their recent qualitative study and highlight some of the key findings and recommendations for overcoming administrative bottlenecks that slow down program implementation. Through a conversation with the audience on what difficulties they’ve experienced, our presenters try to determine the common root causes. Lastly, they share ways in which agencies have responded to these challenges, now and in the past, and guide us through the unique steps that research has helped identify as tools to solve at least some of the bureaucratic problems we face in public health.

Participants will learn  the following:

  1. Describe how the federal government appropriates funding to public health agencies and other entities
  2. Describe the key challenges faced by health departments implementing federally funded programs
  3. Identify 3 strategies to overcome challenges and enhance efficiency in program implementation
The Challenge of Vaccine Hesitancy in the COVID Pandemic

Course Objective

  • Describe the continuum of vaccine acceptance and hesitancy
  • Identify the concerns that underlie hesitancy toward vaccination in general and COVID vaccination in particular 
  • Critique different approaches for achieving high uptake of COVID vaccines

Date: March 2nd, 2021

Presenter:
James Colgrove, PhD, MPH
Professor of Sociomedical Sciences,
Columbia Mailman School of Public Health
Dean of the Postbac Premed Program,
Columbia School of General Studies


This month’s Log-in2learn webinar comes at an opportune time, in the midst of a national vaccine rollout. Our presenter, James Colgrove, PhD, MPH, covers everything you need to know about vaccine hesitancy in the U.S.. He starts off with a brief history of the roots of vaccine hesitancy in the country and explains how these views have developed into the spectrum that we see today. He then shifts his attention to the COVID-19 pandemic, discussing the available vaccine options, their development process and the public’s response to them. He carefully walks us through the different concerns regarding the vaccine and breaks down the demographic characteristics of each group. He lays a heavy emphasis on the need to address hesitancy using targeted strategies that meet the unique needs of each group. He shares a number of approaches to do this and highlights key messages that have been effective. He ends by reiterating the main challenges and the importance of addressing broken relationships and mistrust as we attempt to address vaccine hesitancy during COVID-19.

Participants will be able to:

  1. Describe the continuum of vaccine acceptance and hesitancy
  2. Identify the concerns that underlie hesitancy toward vaccination in general and COVID vaccination in particular 
  3. Critique different approaches for achieving high uptake of COVID vaccines
Region 2 Public Health Training Center