Abstract
Research has established a need to develop management skills among public health professionals. The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill created the Management Academy for Public Health as a pilot program for this specialized training need. This article describes why a management academy for public health managers was formed, its curriculum and instructional methods, and the evaluation findings from its first year. The program sponsors hope to effect individual and organization level change, eventually leading to improved community health. Results suggest that this innovative program gives public health professionals needed skills and improves their job performance.
CONCERNS ABOUT THE competency of the nation's public health leaders and managers have spurred calls for curriculum revision in schools of public health and the development of numerous leadership degree programs and institutes. 1-4 While these developments may improve curricula for new professionals and the skills of senior leaders, no consensus has been built about how to develop middle managers' skills. To address this need, the Management Academy for Public Health (MAPH) was launched in 1998 as a national demonstration project to offer management training tailored for public health professionals.
Four sponsors-the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Health Resources Services Administration, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation-jointly funded the 4-year pilot program. The sponsors stipulated that MAPH be a partnership between a school of public health and a school of business, develop the skills of 600 public health managers from the southeast in 3 years, and evaluate the effectiveness of that training in enhancing individual management skills and organizational effectiveness. The School of Public Health (SPH) and the Kenan-Flagler Business School (KFBS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) were selected to offer the MAPH in a four-state demonstration area: Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia.
This article reviews the need for such a program, describes the program's curriculum and methods, and presents evaluation findings from its first year.