Writing Plan Phases
  • phase completed
  • phase in-progress

The School of Public Health (SPH), one of the six professional schools in the UMN Health Sciences, is an established leader in public health research and is home to 19 graduate degree programs. In 2022, the School of Public Health developed its first undergraduate degree. While some institutions offer a Bachelor of Public Health or Bachelor of Science degree, the School of Public Health faculty have designed a Bachelor of Arts program to comprehensively examine public health contexts rather than develop an undergraduate pre-professional degree. In Fall 2023, the first cohort of Public Health Bachelor of Arts students were enrolled. 

In discussions through the WEC process, faculty members identified several reasons that writing and writing instruction were vital to the School of Public Health and health care more broadly. Any public health researcher or practitioner aims to bring the best, most current knowledge on health issues to populations who would benefit from increased health information. Integrating research from technical fields (biomedicine, epidemiology, environmental health, medical informatics) with the ability to communicate to broad, lay audiences (including policymakers, healthcare managers, care providers, patients, and families) represents a significant challenge for public health professionals. 

School of Public Health First-Edition Writing Plan

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Writing in the School of Public Health

Somewhat different from colleagues in basic sciences or medical research, the nature of the field demands a sophisticated understanding of audience and context. Writing in epidemiology and community health typically involves grant-funded research writing, academic review and publication, and communication across scientific disciplines. Health policy researchers work with federal, state, county, and community agencies to provide real-time answers to decision-makers facing public health concerns and crises. Finally, practitioners involved in community-engaged scholarship may work directly with patients and communities on health, wellness, and nutrition topics and questions. Therefore, in WEC meetings, faculty described a long and diverse list of the types of writing that may be common among graduates in the B.A. program. This list includes:

  • Academic papers, responses to reviewers, research papers, proposals
  • Laws, policies, and regulations at the federal, state, and local levels
  • Policy analyses, briefs for elected officials, senior leaders on campus, including Regents 
  • Reports and related deliverables for clients: Contracts, evaluations for funders 
  • Public information materials and research briefs for practitioners and media outlets
  • Scientific presentations at conferences for other researchers and health professionals
  • Opinion pieces for newspapers
  • Professional social media (e.g., LinkedIn)
  • Summaries for participants to recruit and retain participants and explain research and studies
  • Advertising and marketing products intended for public consumption
  • Issue and program descriptions as part of public information campaigns
  • Social media resources in various modes (written and recorded)
  • Surveys and forms
  • Instructional materials
  • Media materials for private entities, nonprofit organizations, or state agencies involved in community health initiatives

As a consequence, this faculty-generated list of characteristics of public health writing is broad, and all characteristics may not apply equally in all contexts:

  1. Public health writing is precise, thorough, and accurate.
  2. Public health writing is unbiased and informative but also educational and persuasive.
  3. Public health writing is accessible and engaging, even when topics are complex and unfamiliar.
    1. To be engaging, public health writing should be culturally responsive.
    2. To be accessible, public health writing should consider preferred language, educational attainment, and other contextual factors that could be barriers to access.
  4. Public health writing is highly organized and logically structured according to purposes and audiences (PSAs or research articles)
  5. Public health writing is technical and scientific but generally concrete (as opposed to abstract) and descriptive.
  6. Public health writing is interdisciplinary.
  7. Public health writing is timely- up-to-date, responsive to events, and produced under time pressure.

Writing Abilities Expected of Public Health Majors

The SPH faculty generated the following list in response to the question, “With which writing abilities should students in this unit’s major(s) graduate?”

DESCRIBE and SUMMARIZE COMPLEX ISSUES

  • Describe complex public health issues clearly, concisely, and accurately.
  • Distill complex information into concise summaries in summary documents (e.g., fact sheets or issue briefs) or as context for other documents and genres.

ENGAGE RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES

  • Recognize and identify the range of research methodologies that constitute public health research.
  • Consider the method's relevance to the research subject and appropriateness for its intended conclusions.
  • Evaluate the quality of the research produced and published in public health.

SOLICIT, CREATE, and INTERACT WITH MULTIPLE FORMS OF INFORMATION and DATA

  • Take thorough, neutral, observational notes about public health practices, populations, and contexts in public and health care settings.
  • Draft interview and survey questions, conduct survey research, and build reports and summaries from collected data.
  • Demonstrate familiarity with joint research and practitioner genres.
  • Extract accurate and meaningful data stories from published literature and other data sources.
  • Create graphical representations of data (tables for research studies, infographics for community presentations) that tell a data story that the target readers can accurately re-articulate.

ADDRESS DIVERSE AUDIENCES

  • Describe data in language suitable to the audience (medical, professional, or public), avoiding jargon when possible and using concrete language for lay audiences.
  • Motivate behavior change in readers by synthesizing available evidence and addressing reader-specific concerns.
  • Organize information in ways that target audiences can easily navigate.

DEVELOP EFFECTIVE and TRANSFERABLE WRITING PROCESSES

  • Write collaboratively to produce coherent texts.
  • Offer productive feedback on writing (peer review) and revise their writing after considering feedback.
  • Reflect on their writing processes (i.e., researching, drafting, revising) across professional contexts.

Menu of Grading Criteria Used in Public Health Courses

As a health care field, some expectations are guided by external evaluators and agencies, including accrediting bodies, federal and state health services, licensing agencies, federally mandated reporting practices, and guidelines established for NSF and NIH-funded research projects. The challenge is, therefore, not to create a single list of expectations and criteria but rather to organize these many demands into a coherent and developmental curriculum. Effective initial assessment, careful policy development, and ongoing assessment and assurance are key elements of public health practice, so this decision reflects a shared sense of what is required for effective and sustainable change.

Highlights from the Writing Plan

The aims described in the initial description of the First-Edition Writing Plan activity reflect the faculty’s vision of the implementation plan, support, and assessment.

  • Create an environment where the faculty are supported in the writing activities and confident in creating, implementing, assessing, and revising the program writing goals.
  • Develop expanded assessment strategies that successfully integrate writing expectations across major courses.
  • Meet student satisfaction goals in developing public health professionals who feel empowered to use different modes of writing communication in their work.

The goals for the First-Edition Writing Plan are:

  1. Establish greater familiarity among SPH faculty and instructors about the learning goals, course content, writing activities, and expectations across core major courses offered in Fall 2024 to Spring 2026 or as anticipated (leading into the second-edition plan).
  2. Develop and refine a menu of evaluative criteria based on previous WEC meetings for triennial evaluation, curricular mapping and planning, and opportunities for internal assessment of writing expectations.
  3. Develop instructional materials for applicable courses emphasizing the acquisition, development, performance, and improvement of student writing in public health contexts in concert with WAC staff (and other educational support offices as necessary).
  4. Establish a foundation for the ongoing development of curricular resources to continue to be implemented as the program grows.
  5. Involve students, faculty members, the School of Public Health's stakeholders, and wider communities in a dialogue about the multifaceted work of writing and communication in public health.