Culturally responsive approaches to cultivate care and innovation among emerging public health leaders for ethical community engagement: Perspectives informed from lived experience

Marina Suzanne Hernandez^*Ruth Murcia

• University at Albany, Albany, United States

Traditional methods of public health research, practice, and education continue to overlook the value of multidisciplinary approaches to research, practice, and training in addressing health problems. Students who graduate from public health programs gain insufficient exposure to other fields of study and lack the leadership skills to effectively navigate interprofessional teams. Generally, public health programs do not adequately prepare students to engage with scholars from other fields such as humanities, ethnic studies, gender studies, etc. whose dynamic perspectives have not traditionally been considered in public health frameworks. Students, thus, become professionals who are ill-equipped to apply transdisciplinary approaches that critically examine the complex landscape of social health determinants and evolving health crises. Moreover, emerging student leaders with intimate connections to communities of interest are forced to shed their identities to conform to public health “best practices.” We aim to strengthen leadership development in public health programs through innovative research methods and collaborative pedagogies. We critique the conceptualization of “interdisciplinarity” within the public health field, demonstrate the potential of innovative methods to responsibly engage with culturally diverse communities, and propose strategies to strengthen community-researcher collaboration to foster more robust leadership skills among public health scholars. Our recommendations integrate diverse tools and resources from other fields of study that will achieve more equitable health solutions.