Establishment of an International Information Network for International Health Development: a survey of public health administration and management courses.

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to examine the content emphasis of courses of public health administration and management (A & M) among member institutions of the Asia-Pacific Academic Consortium for Public Health (APACPH), to determine comparability of curricula across campuses. A survey of course syllabi from APACPH schools was conducted by three separate reviewers to identify topical subject matter presented in general and specialty A & M courses delivered to graduate students at each campus. Based on this review, three synthetic general content A & M courses, and one specialty A & M course (i.e. Hospital Administration) were created as a basis for intercampus cross-institutional comparisons conducted by the author. Despite the number of courses provided by the different APACPH institutions, specific content areas consistently appeared across institutions, suggesting possible foundational A & M content for public health students. In general, there was much better coverage of similar topics at the introductory level of instruction, and much greater consistency was observed across institutions that provided course work addressing the administration of hospitals. Several recommendations are made for further studies of other content areas, and for the development of minimum training content areas as a basis for cross-institutional studies.