Curriculum Mapping and Needs Assessment to Inform the Training of Health Policy Leaders

To identify synergies and gaps in knowledge, skills, and attributes identified by health policy leaders and create a summary measure of congruence with the Health Policy Leadership Fellowship Program curriculum.

We mapped the Health Policy Leadership Fellowship Program curriculum to the most highly ranked knowledge, skills, and attributes identified through the Health Policy Leaders' Training Needs Assessment survey.

Overall, the Health Policy curricular elements had the highest percentage of congruence with the needs assessment Knowledge elements (>60%). The lowest levels of congruence (<30%) occurred most frequently within the Attribute elements.

Mapping an existing program's content and elements to needs perceptions from professionals practicing in the field may help to both inform and evaluate an existing program's ability to attract and meet the needs of target learners. While needs assessments have traditionally been used to help develop programs, this study also demonstrates their application as a process evaluation tool when mapped to existing programs' curricular elements.