Access to Healthy Food and Neighborhood Walkability: Insights through Inter-Professional Curricula

Within the same university, the School of PreventiveMedicine and Public Health and the School ofArchitecture, Design and Planning developed across-disciplinary collaboration to improve populationhealth outcomes and health equity. This coursewas initiated through the production of two professionalcourses that share syllabi, methodology,literature and other resources, survey methods, andan online teaching site toward the development ofa shared community-informed Design & HealthProject in two neighborhood communities. Thisapproach recognized that sharing these resourcesassisted both public health students and architecturestudents to acquire insights, tools and vocabulariesof the other profession and to effectively learnthrough creative thinking and problem solving. Ourprogram provided students the opportunity to substantivelyintegrate perspectives and approachesby overlapping portions of our respective coursesin each department—while providing each studentwith a strong foundation in their primary field. Thisapproach has fostered innovation and transformativeprofessional practice in both fields by creatinga spectrum of opportunities for cross-disciplinarytraining that integrates population health conceptsand concerns through community-based engagedscholarship.

Volume Editors
Billie Faircloth, Howard Frumkin & Sara Jensen Carr

ISBN
978-1-944214-09-8