Dean's Faculty Scholars Program: Center for Public Health Preparedness

Center for Public Health Preparedness
Arnold School of Public Health
University of South Carolina
1233 Washington St., Suite 700
Columbia, SC 29201

e-mail: gcurrie@gwm.sc.edu
Phone: 803-978-7576
Fax: 803-978-7586

Dean's Faculty Scholars Program

Dr. Donna Richter, Arnold School of Public Health Dean, has a vision to infuse public health emergency preparedness into the curriculum of the Arnold School of Public Health in an effort to strengthen public health workforce readiness, an urgent need in light of recent events. To help fulfill this vision, each year the USC-CPHP invites all Arnold School of Public Health faculty to submit proposals to become Dean’s Faculty Scholars in Public Health Preparedness. This initiative is offered to faculty to support the design, training, implementation and evaluation of public health preparedness-related curriculum modules to be taught during the academic year.

The program is designed as an incentive for public health faculty to incorporate educational components into graduate courses that:

increase student awareness of public health emergencies, whether naturally occurring or man-made; and
expand student knowledge regarding the roles and responsibilities of public health professionals in disaster preparation, mitigation, planning, response and recovery.

If you would like to view the current Request for Proposals, click here (PDF file).

Mentoring is provided by USC-CPHP staff and/or select partners with specific content and/or methods expertise. These mentors will aide the Dean’s Faculty Scholars in compiling their projects into marketable "products" (which may include items such as Power Point presentations or CD-ROMs of the project’s curriculum component and evaluation findings) to be disseminated across the country through the CPHP network.

Projects that were funded for the 2006-2007 academic year were:

"Ready or Not: Interactive Learning Experiences in Community-Based Long-Term Care Preparedness," which is examining preparedness efforts in home health care agencies. The project is currently under development in two Health Services Policy and Management (HSPM) courses: 768 (Health Services Administration II) and 846 (Advanced Topics on Health Policy and Management II).

"Disaster Epidemiology and Public Health Preparedness," which is currently working to add curricular content in five Epidemiology and Biostatistics courses:
- EPID 742: Epidemiological Concepts in Selected Diseases or Health Conditions
- EPID 747: Environmental Factors and Human Health
- EPID 749: Investigative Epidemiology: Infectious Diseases
- EPID 730: Public Health Surveillance Systems
- BIOS 794: Statistical Methods and Applications

Projects that were funded for the 2005-2006 academic year were:

"Readiness is All: Experiential and Interactive Learning Modules," featuring an original case study on preparedness in nursing homes in South Carolina. Two educational products were developed: (1) a disaster preparedness curriculum module for HSPM 700 students, and (2) a module on long-term care institutional responses to a complex disaster for HSPM 764 students, both of which were initially implemented in the Fall of 2005 but have remained permanent additions to the courses.

"Computer Module on Accidental and Planned Releases of Hazardous Chemicals," added to Environmental Health Sciences 670 (Environmental Pollutants and Human Health). An example situation involving a chemical plant that uses chlorine in its manufacturing process is being examined through the Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Operations (CAMEO7 ) comprehensive software program, which is used by primary responders to plan a response to a chemical release.

"Retail Food Defense," examining the vulnerabilities of the state’s food supply system, public health policies and industry standards, and best practice models for response to breaches in the Food Defense system. An educational module was implemented in HPEB 752 (Nutrition and Public Health) in the spring of 2006.

* Special thanks to Drs. Marjorie Aelion, Amy Brock Martin and Sarah Laditka for their exceptional work as Dean's Faculty Scholars. Please visit our "Products" site to view their modules.

Columbia, SC 29208 • 803-777-7000 • sphweb@gwm.sc.edu