Moose Alperin, Principal Investigator/Project Director
The Region IV Public Health Training Center (PHTC) has been awarded a $4.3 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agency. These funds will be used over the next four years to improve the ability of the public health workforce to meet national, state, and local needs under the direction of Principal Investigator Melissa (Moose) Alperin, EdD, MPH, MCHES.
The new round of funding begins in July 2018 and calls for an increased focus on training in three primary skill areas: systems thinking, change management and persuasive communication. These are three of the strategic skills identified by the National Consortium for Public Health Workforce Development and the de Beaumont Foundation in the report “Building Skills for a More Strategic Public Health Workforce: A Call to Action.” Additionally, trainings will be offered based on state needs and priority health concerns, including mental health, opioid use and childhood obesity. The new funding also increases emphasis on student field placements, which aim to increase the number of skilled public health professionals working in rural and/or underserved communities.
The Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH) at Emory University has been funded by HRSA as a public health training center since 2010 — first, as the Emory PHTC and then, in 2014 as the Region IV PHTC. The Region IV PHTC, headquartered at the RSPH, includes seven community-based training centers (CBTs) at partnering institutions (Alabama Public Health Training Network, Alabama Department of Public Health; Florida Agriculture and Mechanical University; University of Louisville; Mississippi Public Health Institute; University of North Carolina Wilmington; Medical University of South Carolina; and East Tennessee State University) and three technical assistance partners (University of Alabama at Birmingham, University of Georgia, and the National Network of Public Health Institutes). Together the Region IV PHTC network serves eight southeastern states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Nine additional Public Health Training Centers also received funded by HRSA to serve other HHS regions across the U.S.
The Region IV PHTC Learning Community
