Drexel Partners with Main Line Health on New Community Engagement Course

New course developed in partnership with Main Line Health open to all students, undergraduate and graduate, across Drexel University this fall.

Community Engagement: Listening to Community Voices to Promote Health Equity
Description for Course IPS T580, CRN 15659
Tuesdays, 4-6:50 p.m.

This fall, Drexel University in partnership with Main Line Health will launch a new interprofessional course, “Community Engagement: Listening to Community Voices to Promote Health Equity.” This hands-on, accelerated and experiential course will explore how community engagement focused on listening to the voices of the community can improve healthcare programming and better focus community services to achieve health equity and reduce social injustice.

Black and Brown community residents in West Philadelphia experience negative social determinants of health, health inequity, poor health outcomes and social injustice. New strategies are needed to promote health equity in marginalized communities. This course will build upon the 12-step community outreach and engagement approach to apply strategies for enhancing health equity and reducing social injustice in the West Philadelphia Promise Zone.

Course sessions will focus on the introduction to community engagement, team science, strategies for engaging community stakeholders, identifying community strengths, the importance of building trust, and an overview of qualitative and quantitative research method and data analysis. The latter weeks of the course will focus on practical field work, giving students an opportunity to conduct community conversations and apply what they have learned in their theoretical and research sessions through the lens of community voices.

Throughout the term, students will partner with community stakeholders and residents to apply the toolkits highlighted in this course and practice deep-dive, qualitative approaches to capture the voices of the community in a trusting and authentic manner.

This course is sponsored by Drexel’s College of Nursing and Health Professions (CNHP) in partnership with Drexel’s College of Medicine and Main Line Health’s Together for West Philadelphia Initiative. It will be taught by Lorretta Jemmott, PhD, vice president of health and health equity and professor of graduate nursing, and Helen L. Teng, PhD, assistant clinical professor in undergraduate nursing, with guest lectures from members of Main Line Health, community stakeholders active in Together for West Philadelphia, and faculty from CNHP, the College of Medicine and the School of Public Health.

Course details:

IPS-T580 Community Engagement: Listening to Community Voices to Promote Health Equity. An Accelerated Course in Theory and Practicum

• Fall Quarter 2022
• Tuesdays 4-6:50 p.m.
• 3.0 Credit Hours

Pre-Requisites & Co-Requisites: Students will need to have an interest in community engagement, including but not limited to personal interest and prior volunteer activities (i.e., religious or fraternal organizations, community-based institutions, community service).