A Win-win Partnership Between Academia and Public Health Practice

Partnerships are fundamental to successful public health practice, and collaborations between academia and public health practice, as recommended by the Institute of Medicine and the Council on Linkages between academia and public health practice, are vital to ensuring a competent public health workforce. During times of economic crisis, graduate public health nursing students with clinical expertise, people and communication skills, and critical thinking capabilities are uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between academia and public health practice. In 2009, 5 registered nurses enrolled in a master of science in nursing program with a focus on public health partnered with public health professionals from the state Department of Public Health to conduct an active surveillance study to understand the increase in vancomycin-resistant enterococci incidences that occurred since 2005. The purpose of this paper is to describe the successes and challenges of the collaboration to provide an insight for those who wish to build similar collaborations. Even in light of the challenges that occurred during this collaboration, faculty should strongly consider developing partnerships with public health practice in order to contribute to important public health surveillance and other functions, and to provide relevant experiences for students.