Grants & Initiatives
Continuing education at the School of Public Health has been created and is sustained by a number of grants and initiatives.
Center for Public Health Education and Outreach (CPHEO)
CPHEO supports initiatives that advance the University of Minnesota’s mission of research, education, and outreach. We accomplish this by coordinating and disseminating research; providing high-quality online and face-to-face courses for students, working professionals, and the community at large; and working with both internal and external partners to bridge the academic and public health practice communities.
Ultimately, CPHEO promotes lifelong learning by:
Engaging public health communities: We develop partnerships with public health agencies and organizations, building a network of academic and practice professionals who can effectively respond to critical public health issues.
Preparing public health leaders for lifelong practice: We work to expand public health professionals’ access to new discoveries and opportunities.
Creating a work environment that is stable, innovative, creative, nimble and responsive: We collaborate with academic and practice professionals to identify and respond to existing learning needs and to proactively create new learning opportunities.
Emergency Preparedness and Response
The University of Minnesota: Simulations, Exercises & Effective Education Preparedness & Emergency Response Research & Learning Centers (U-SEEE PERL & PERRC) offers competency-based emergency preparedness and response training that meets the needs of state, local, and tribal public health authorities and partners. The goal of U-SEEE is to develop a training model that builds system capacity while individuals apply knowledge to public health practice and demonstrate functional competency in planning for and responding to all public health threats.
U-SEEE PERL
Established in 2010, the goals of the U-SEEE PERL (University of Minnesota: Simulations, Exercises & Effective Education Preparedness & Emergency Response Learning Center) are to develop, deliver, and evaluate core competency-based training for the public health workforce, and to work together with state, local, and tribal partners to meet training needs in Minnesota, North Dakota, and Wisconsin.
Through these efforts, U-SEEE PERL supports achievement of the National Health Security Strategy to enhance community resilience by building essential public health security capabilities.
The University of Minnesota School of Public Health is one of 14 accredited schools of public health funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as a Preparedness and Emergency Response Learning Center (PERLC). These centers provide unique workforce development opportunities for state, local, and tribal public health authorities as part of a national training network.
U-SEEE PERRC
Established in 2008, the University of Minnesota: Simulations, Exercises and Effective Education Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center (U-SEEE PERRC) has had two main focus areas:
- Research to assess the effectiveness of public health preparedness and response simulation games that are role-based and capability-linked to self-efficacy expectations, knowledge, skills, and/or response performance.
- Research to determine whether training modalities and instructional methods (including electronic performance support tools) result in improved individual and system performance under response conditions.
Through the various research projects, U-SEEE PERRC has worked to:
- Identify best practices (e.g. design, usability, modalities) for training that incorporate experiential exercises, computer-based simulations, and virtual environments that are role-based and capability-linked to demonstrate self-efficacy expectations, knowledge, skills, and response performance.
- Establish metrics for measuring effectiveness and efficiency in improving and sustaining high-level performance of the public health preparedness system. A common conceptual model will be used to identify best practices across the center research activities.
The University of Minnesota: Simulations, Exercises and Effective Education Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Center (U-SEEE PERRC) is one of nine research centers funded at accredited schools of public health funded by the Centers for Disease Control.
Midwest Center for Lifelong Learning in Public Health (MCLPH)
MCLPH works to strengthen the technical, scientific, managerial, and leadership competence of the public health workforce. We provide a forum for the development of new educational opportunities, dialogue about the development of excellence in public health practice, and assessment and evaluation of the needs of public health professionals and systems.
MCLPH is a part of the Great Lakes Public Health Training Collaborative, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) funded public health training program, created to improve the nation’s public health by strengthening the competencies of the current and future public health workforce through the provision of education and training services. The Great Lakes PHTC serves the HRSA Region V area and consists of the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, which functions as the Collaborative’s central office, Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health, the University of Michigan School of Public Health, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, The Ohio State University College of Public Health, and the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
The Collaborative is an unprecedented partnership to establish and implement a unified strategic approach to improving the workforce development infrastructure of the entire region. Because each of the six Local Performance Sites were also former Public Health Training Centers in a previous HRSA grant, the region has unique expertise, resources, and partnerships that together form a strong foundation for public health workforce development and capacity building. Region V proposes to address a shared regional theme of capacity building for population health improvement.
Midwest Center for Occupational Health and Safety (MCOHS)
This continuing education center provides a variety of training courses in occupational and environmental health and safety, including:
- Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing
- Occupational and Environmental Medicine
- Industrial Hygiene (including Hazardous Substances)
- Occupational Safety
Courses are taught through the division of Environmental Health Sciences.
The center can design a training class to fit your health and safety needs. The on-site Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) compliant training saves time and money by bringing customized classes to your organization.
MCOHS faculty and staff are experts in regulatory compliance, ergonomics, industrial hygiene, occupational and environmental health and safety, and hazardous materials.
