Doctor of Public Health students embark on summer tour of San Diego health organizations

This past summer, doctoral students in San Diego State University’s School of Public Health Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) program participated in a study tour of various community and population health organization facilities around San Diego County.

Beginning in late June, students spent two weeks meeting with public health leaders and touring labs and facilities from prominent local agencies and community health organizations, ranging from the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency to California's Office of Binational Border Health and the San Diego Wildlife Alliance.

The tour, organized by Christopher O’Malley, a member of the DrPH program’s inaugural class, served as an opportunity to expose doctoral students to the diversity of health management perspectives in the area.

“This whirlwind tour not only introduced students to new ways of managing community and population health, but it also let them compare and contrast the approaches taken by different organizations in different contexts,” said Alan Card, an associate professor in the School of Public Health who helped lead the tour.

Students reflected on these different approaches in an online discussion, where they recapped their experience and takeaways from the tour. 

They will also use the experience in their final projects, which requires a written grant application representing one of the organizations they visited. The grant’s goal will be to partner with another local organization and address a relevant health problem.

“Our DrPH students are already practicing leaders at organizations across the state, the country, and the world,” Card said. “But, in one career, you may only ever gain experience in a handful of different organizations. This tour gives students the chance to learn from a much wider set of strategies and practices for improving population health.”

The tour incorporates students in both the executive management and global health management concentrations in the DrPH program. It takes place during the first summer session of the three year program.

Next summer, this cohort will participate in an applied practice experience.