Core--Minority health and health disparities education

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

The Education Core wilt employ principles of strategic academically based community service (ABCS), a type of service learning that employs participatory action research and community problem solving, as the teaching/learning model for helping to facilitate effective and sustained reductions in minority health disparities. The program will be comprehensive, encompassing a range of learners from medical students and medical residents to local school staff and students, and members of the community. The ABCS curriculum to be developed will focus on obesity and obesity-related disease. Students at all levels - from Penn and Cheyncy- will learn by integrating theory, research, and service as they focus on those factors responsible for obesity-related diseases and, by so doing, they will enhance their understanding and competency in areas such as cultural sensitivity, biosocial and biocultural interactions in disease, and biosocial and biocultural factors in creating and maintaining health disparities. Students will analyze those factors - especially modifiable ones - that increase risk in underserved populations, and, as part of their educational experiences, develop and implement interventions that are community-based and sustainable. Partners will include local organizations and groups, in particular university-assisted community schools with which the University of Pennsylvania has had long-standing collaborative partnerships.