CEPH accreditation of stand-alone baccalaureate programs: a preliminary mapping exercise

The purpose of this article is to provide a brief background of quality assurance efforts in health education, provide a brief overview of the new Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) accreditation process for stand-alone baccalaureate public health programs that prepare health education specialists, and describe the experience of two academic programs in reviewing their curricula for coverage of the newly approved CEPH requirements. The University of Alabama and the University of North Carolina Wilmington undertook a curriculum mapping exercise identifying which courses in their programs Introduced, Reinforced, and/or Covered each of the Critical Components Elements identified by CEPH. The mapping process is described, and recommendations for other programs considering accreditation under the newly adopted CEPH standards are provided.