Health Education/Health Promotion Track
Mesha Ellis, PhD – Subject Matter Expert
Goal & Course Offerings
The Health Education and Health Promotion (HEHP) Track prepares public health professionals to apply behavior change methods to strengthen health status among community residents through lifestyle management and population-based health promotion services. Participants in the track use science-based strategies to address public health problems across individual, peer, family, school, and community domains. Participants in the HEHP Track learn to apply various behavior change theories to design effective programs that arise from identified priority settings and essential input from community stakeholders. Additionally, the HEHP Track enables public health professionals to work effectively with communities by drawing on community intelligence, strengths, assets, and resources. Program graduates will act as program planners, organizers, decision makers, and researchers in community-based organizations, government agencies, private sector organizations, and academia.
Required Track Courses
MPH 530. Community Health Promotion I (3 credit hours) This course examines methods of community health assessment, planning, implementation, and evaluation. Students learn to develop or adapt a health promotion program that reflects cultural competence, analyze types of program evaluations that can be used for a health promotion program and create written materials to support a health promotion program.
MPH 531. Community Health Promotion II (3 credit hours) This course is designed to provide students with the knowledge, values, skills and abilities that are required to assess, organize and prepare communities for public health emergencies. Building on the core competencies of public health, the course will include team-building, lectures, small group work, interacting with community emergency responders, community organizing, community services and program evaluation.
MPH 532. Methods of Program Evaluation (3 credit hours) This course introduces students to quantitative, qualitative and ethnographic methods of quality measurement and improvement in public health. Students will learn formative and summative program evaluation methods and explore public health standards for conducting program evaluation.
MPH 534. Health Communications for Public Health (3 credit hours) This course will address key considerations for constructing effective health communications, including the application of behavior change theories and general marketing principles. This course is designed to provide professional and graduate students with an overview of theory and research into the role of mass media as they affect public health.