Penn Center for Public Health announces new team to build skills for public health practitioners

Penn’s Center for Public Health announced the formation of a new team to assist public health practitioners.

The initiative is titled the “Public Health Impact Hub” and was unveiled on Nov. 17. It will focus on building skills for public health professionals, reducing professional development barriers, and delivering customizable support.

The Impact Hub will address “navigating government oversight, working with legislators, writing grant applications to obtain more funding, and creating and measuring goals,” according to the release, and it is funded by the Scattergood Foundation, an organization that works to strengthen nonprofit work.

“We see this as a meaningful investment in the field, one that reinforces Penn’s leadership in public health education and innovation, and merges community, accessibility, and practical application,” Richard Wender, executive director of the Penn Center for Public Health and chair of Family Medicine and Community Health, wrote in the release.

Alongside Philadelphia public health initiatives, the move will provide virtual and in-person trainings with global organizations. The Impact Hub hopes “clients will be empowered to continue the work themselves following the Hub’s support, whether that is simply training for one day or weeks of ongoing collaboration,” according to the release.

The Penn Center for Public Health is currently offering two, three-day learning institutes targeting various topics — geographic information systems, mixed methods research, program planning and evaluation, public health communications and marketing, and grant writing strategies. The initiatives, according to its website, are meant to “support professional workforce development.”

Samantha Matlin, Penn Medicine professor and director of Workforce Education at the Center for Public Health, wrote in the release that the Impact Hub was created in order to “meet the needs of public health practitioners who are doing critical work every day but frequently don’t have access to the tools, resources, or training they want.”

“This initiative is about meeting people where they are — offering real-world solutions, flexible formats, and sustained support that can build capacity across their organization and beyond,” she added on its website.