Arkansas Colleges of Health Education officials believe their new graduate degree program will bolster their offerings and health in the community.
The Higher Learning Commission gave the go-ahead for the school to offer a master of public health degree. Nutrition and rural and community health will be the focus of the program.
The new program is designed to complement the school's other graduate programs and give people working in public health a chance to expand their credentials. There are master of science programs in biomedicine, occupational therapy, and physical therapy at the institution.
Community health and nutrition outreach will be supported by the program.
Kyle Parker, president and chief executive officer, said in the release, "We are excited to add this additional degree to our programs as it closely coincides with the ACHE mission of addressing the overall wellbeing and quality of life of our region."
Many public health programs parallel other degree programs institutions offer to help people better understand the environment in which they are likely to work.
There are health outcomes.
The colleges looked at what they could do to improve Arkansas' health outcomes when they came up with the master's program.
According to the America's Health Rankings platform, Arkansas is the 48th healthiest state in the country. Ratings of measures were used to rank the health categories. They were included.
Social and economic factors include community and family safety, economic resources, education and social support.
The physical environment includes air and water quality.
Quality of care, access to care, and preventive services are some of the things clinical care has to offer.
Smoking and tobacco use are included in the behaviors.
Health outcomes include physical and behavioral health.
Smoking is one of the health related challenges Arkansas faces, according to the report.
One of the primary goals of a master of public health program is to teach students how social determinants of health impact health and how to addressgaps they create on individual, community and Health departments, health care organizations and public health policy are places where graduates might find work.
The rural and community health concentration in the school's new degree program will help graduates understand how to help change public and health policy to move forward with resources. She said rural culture is different from urban culture in regards to how and where people live and how they experience health and illness.
They won't take a break if they're out in the fields. We think that we have a 9-5 job. Individuals won't take the time to drive three hours to go to the hospital if there is something going on. We need to change policy and have access that works for them in their environment.
A person's ability to understand and act on health care information is important.
The public health degree's nutrition concentration will facilitate learning for people across multiple disciplines, according to the school's director of clinical and community nutrition.
People can learn how to cook and find food in a hands-on setting through the nutrition concentration.
"It's a very unique experience, and we'll be able to take that to this kind of multidisciplinary team that I've just described previously and hopefully create this new cohort of preventive, nutrition- minded people that want to take a little bit different approach to medicine and health
Flexibility.
Most of the course content will be offered online, providing flexibility for working health professionals, according to the news release.
"We will always have the opportunity for online, except for things that areExperiential, like the teaching kitchen, and we may have some seminars where we really want to engage our students in some activities that you're just not going to get the same experience if you're online," said
Students can engage in the program on a part time or full time basis. Full-time students will be able to complete the program in two years, while part-time students will have up to five years.
45 semester hours of instruction will be included in the curriculum. There will be 24 hours of core instruction for everyone in the program, and 15 hours for their concentration. The students will have three hours each to work on projects that are intended to help the community.
The college's executive director of marketing, communications and community relations said the public health degree program will be able to accommodate 50 students. The tuition for the whole program was estimated by her.
Elizabeth McClain, Arkansas Colleges of Health Education chief wellness officer, and Blake Metcalf, ACHE director of clinical and community nutrition, tend to tower gardens Thursday at the school's Research Institute Health and Wellness Center in Fort Smith. The school received approval from the Higher Learning Commission to begin a new master of public health degree, which will offer two concentration areas in nutrition and rural and community health, starting in the 2024 fall semester. Visit nwaonline.com/photo for today's photo gallery. (River Valley Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
Elizabeth McClain, Arkansas Colleges of Health Education chief wellness officer, and Blake Metcalf, the school's director of clinical and community nutrition, set out items in a teaching kitchen Thursday at the school's Research Institute Health and Wellness Center in Fort Smith. The school received approval from the Higher Learning Commission to begin a new master of public health degree, which will offer two concentration areas in nutrition and rural and community health, starting in the 2024 fall semester. Visit nwaonline.com/photo for today's photo gallery. (River Valley Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
Blake Metcalf, Arkansas Colleges of Health Education director of clinical and community nutrition, tends to a tower garden, Thursday, Jan. 26, 2023, at the ACHE Research Institute Health and Wellness Center in Fort Smith. ACHE received approval from the Higher Learning Commission to begin a new master of public health degree, which will offer two concentration areas in nutrition and rural and community health, starting in the 2024 fall semester. Visit nwaonline.com/photo for today's photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
