The two new cohorts of the Management Academy for Public Health are coming to town over the next two weeks. This is the on-site at which teams get their marching orders—they meet with their business plan advisors for the first time and vet their ideas together; they sit for the first lectures, on business planning, social marketing, civic entrepreneurship, managing people, and finance; and they do the first exercises that will make their working groups into true teams over the next nine months of hard work.
Before they come this year, we are soliciting advice and thoughts for them from our Community of Practice: what do you think are the most important challenges facing public health these days? How are different public health departments addressing these challenges? What have you seen in your own community, or through your public health colleagues? More generally, what does it take to make a successful public health manager these days?
We’d appreciate your thoughts on any or all of these questions – or another we haven’t even thought of – to welcome our new students to town.
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5 comments:
I love the idea of this strategic partnership or alliance as a way for public health agencies to influence and work with businesses and establish new ways of meeting our goals, outside the agency which may have constraints as a government agency.
Will the MAPH be strongly encouraging these kinds of projects in the coming year? Will this be held up as a model worthy of wide imitation? Hope so!
Vince
I was referring to the OK plan below
Vince, we think that strategic alliances are central to public health business planning. Within the context of Management Academy we actually *require* that teams work with external partners; that's the way public health works best. We encourage Academy teams to bring a community partner with them to the training program.
I like the term "strategic alliance." It suggests that there is something specific for each partner to do, and something specific for each partner to get in return.
You are exactly right about the constraints on government agencies-- they have limitations in terms of the rules, the resources, and the priorities, to start with. Within those limitations, agencies have important roles and abilities. I believe there are untapped resources *outside* the government agencies that strategic alliances can unlock--
In response to your question as to what are the most important public health challenges these days, I would offer the following -- the pressure that the increase in population is putting on our public health systems. These include medical care for different population groups, especially the elderly; increasing amounts of resources for meeting the needs of larger populations, and here I would mention public water supplies , as we are still in a drought; and the effect that development to provide for more people is having on environment, and here I would mention the loss of wildlife habitat, recreational open space, and natural vegetation.
From the recent Wisconsin Public Health Association Conference: two topics: Youth violence -- it cannot merely be a problem for law enforcement: its causes are broad, and it affects all of us in some way. Also somewhat related to the previous "anonymous" writer's comments: the health risks of climate change and other environmental factors are many. By the way there was also a talk about the importance of partnerships in public health, which seems right down this book's alley.
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