A Whole-Community Approach to Training Public Health and Medical Students in Public Health Emergencies

In 2024, a community-higher education partnership in the Midwest prepared public health and medical students for public health emergencies using an innovative whole-community approach of private-public collaboration. The partnership program consisted of evidence-based, workshop-style training with community resident participation. Researchers posed 2 questions before program initiation: (1) How willing were students to respond to emergencies (on a Likert-type scale of 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) before and after the program? and (2) What was the main challenge to mass-casualty drill planning and implementation for program partners? Twenty-two student participants completed a survey before and after the program, and researchers interviewed the 7 program partners after the program. We used a pretest-posttest design to assess differences in student participant self-efficacy in responding to and willingness to respond to public health emergencies. We found no significant difference from pretest (mean [SD] = 15.64 [1.84]) to posttest (mean [SD] = 16.32 [1.76]; P = .07) in the "self-efficacy in response provision" subscale. We found a significant increase in scores from pretest (mean [SD] = 14.18 [2.82]) to posttest (mean [SD] = 17.18 [2.28]; P < .001) in the "willingness to report to work and treat patients" subscale. We also found a significant positive change in subscale scores for "willingness to participate in all disaster situations" from pretest (mean [SD] = 12.41 [1.68]) to posttest (mean [SD] = 13.68 [1.36]; P = .004). The main challenge to the drill was the need for additional mock victim volunteers. When planning local drills, the whole-community approach can provide the foundation needed for community collaboration and capacity building for disaster preparedness.