Transportation-Public Health Leadership Program
In the United States, over 40,000 lives are lost annually on our roads, a staggering loss that underscores the preventable nature of many transportation incidents. We need urgent action.
A new training program, the Transportation-Public Health Leadership Program, will launch as a pilot program in 2025. This program offers an opportunity for leaders from public health and transportation to adopt holistic, collaborative approaches to improve transportation safety.
The program will focus on transportation safety and injury prevention, with a special emphasis on fostering safety collaborations and leveraging public health methodologies. In addition to providing a foundational knowledge to integrate transportation and public health approaches, the program aims to:
- Inspire new ideas and interest,
- Facilitate and support implementation activities, and
- Cultivate a community of practice for sustained efforts.
In its first year, the pilot program is available to six project sites made up of regional partners. Practitioners working in transportation, health, and/or injury prevention roles at the State, regional, and local levels are encouraged to participate as a project site. State Highway Safety Office staff are particularly encouraged to attend with colleagues from their state’s health community and other regional practitioners to advance a cohort of multidisciplinary backgrounds and perspectives. The program also bolsters practitioner ongoing efforts in strategic plans or local action plans, as well as regional or federal award programs.
The program will facilitate learning and skill development using various methods, including live virtual group instruction, narrated case studies, group discussions, and individual assignments. Participants can expect 12 monthly sessions to focus on learning modules or coached, peer mentoring meetings, with light workload between sessions.
Learning modules will focus on core topics in road safety and public health and integrated approaches through tools and real-world examples. Module topics include:
Basics of Public Health and Transportation
Explore how to apply key public health principles in transportation safety programs. Gain insights to serve as a foundation for collaboration and fostering health and safety. Develop essential skills in partner asset and goal mapping.
Identifying Root Causes of Traffic Injuries
Uncover core contributors to transportation injuries and fatalilties while learning about effective transportation safety programs. Gain practical tools for assessing at-risk areas, fostering authentic community engagement, and advancing holistic solutions in public health and transportation.
Planning, Strategy Development and Selection, and Goal Alignment
Learn to seamlessly integrate public health approaches and partners into strategic plans and processes. Gain practical expertise in collaboration and implementable tools throughout strategic planning phases from problem identification to outcome monitoring.
Public Health Oriented Program Development and Implementation
Identify innovative opportunities for joint program development, implementation, and evaluation with public health approaches and transportation safety. Increase confidence in ability to assess programming and workforce skills that bring in new, collaborative approaches.
Data Enhancement for Safety Monitoring and Evaluation
Delve into the relationship between public health and transportation safety data and integration efforts. Recognize the added value of health data sources in transportation safety, identify key data sources, and understand actionable steps to improve data sharing.
Coaches, trained facilitators, and subject matter experts will lead peer mentoring and team share sessions, interspersed between module topics.
Month | Participants/ Format | Focus |
---|---|---|
1 | Entire group | Module 1: Basics of Public Health and Transportation |
2 | Entire group | Module 2: Identifying Root Causes of Traffic Injuries |
3 | Coach and Teams | Team support with tailored materials |
4 | Entire group | Module 3: Planning, Strategy Development and Selection, and Goal Alignment |
5 | Coach and Teams | Team support with tailored materials |
6 | Coach and Teams | Team support with tailored materials |
7 | Entire group | Module 4: Public Health Oriented Program Development and Implementation |
8 | Coach and Teams | Team support with tailored materials |
9 | Entire group | Cross-team sharing |
10 | Entire group | Module 5: Data Enhancement for Safety Monitoring and Evaluation |
11 | Coach and Teams | Team support with tailored materials |
12 | Entire group | Review and/or new content on challenges/sticking points. Final cross-team sharing ad identification of additional needs/next steps |
Pilot Program
This program is led by the Highway Safety Research Center and Injury Prevention Research Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and supported by a grant from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. Learn more about the Adopting a Public Health Approach to Traffic Safety project.