Since 2000, the AAMC has been honored to partner with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in cooperative agreements that facilitate a wide range of activities to improve and increase collaborations between academic medicine and public health, support enhanced teaching of concepts of population health, and provide practical hands-on experience at the community level. Both parties recognized that improved coordination between medicine and public health would help improve the health of populations.
Previous cooperative agreements promoted the academic medical community's participation in CDC's efforts to prevent and control disease, injury, and disability. This was accomplished by allowing AAMC member institutions to participate more fully in the CDC's extramural research activities and through "in-house" projects directed by AAMC.
Priority Areas of Interest
- Promoting the teaching of prevention and public health in academic medical centers
- Promoting the training of public health and prevention researchers within academic medical centers
- Increasing the number of underrepresented minority students in medical schools
- Activities to eliminate health disparities
- Building public health workforce capacity
AAMC-Based Projects
Regional Medicine-Public Health Education Centers (RMPHEC)
The RMPHEC Initiative was developed to support the improvement of population health, public health, and prevention education for medical students and residents. Grantees were required to partner with at least one state or local public health agency to help integrate this content into their curricula. Grantees developed educational approaches and materials consistent with their institutions' curricular structures and themes.
Enduring outcomes of grantee work include curricular and administrative changes to support the inclusion of public health in their educational programming, increased institutional interest in MD-MPH and preventive medicine residency programs, and the development of productive partnerships with public health colleagues.
Publications, population health competencies, and the development of web resources helped to disseminate RMPHEC and RMPHEC-GME work, while consultations with non-RMPHEC institutions, involvement in AFMC, LCME, and NBME activities, and conferences provided opportunities to learn what was occurring at other institutions and broaden the network of educators and public health professionals with interests in this area. Although funding was limited to a small proportion of medical schools and residencies, collaborative activities helped to address medical education policies at a national level and to share RMPHEC experiences and resources beyond the grantees.
In 2003, seven medical schools became pilot RMPHEC sites through a competitive process. Although planned as a multi-year activity, funding beyond the first year was not available, and the pilot program was discontinued. The selected pilot sites were Mercer University School of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Texas Tech School of Medicine, University of Kansas School of Medicine, and the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.
In early 2006, AAMC and CDC embarked on a second phase of the RMPHEC project. A call for proposals was developed that requested that applicants "fully integrate population health into the medical school curriculum."
All LCME-accredited U.S. medical schools, including those that had participated in the pilot RMPHEC project, were eligible to compete for this opportunity. As in the pilot, medical schools were required to collaborate with public health practitioners at state or local public health agencies.
Download RMPHEC Project Descriptions
RMPHEC-GME Grantees
In 2008, the RMPHEC initiative expanded to incorporate Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs to receive funds for public health/population health activities in their curricula.
From a field of 40 applications, these 13 residency sites representing the spectrum of medical specialties were selected: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, Cambridge Health Alliance, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Mayo School of Graduate Medical Education, Montefiore Medical Center, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Rhode Island Hospital, University of Florida HSC/Jacksonville, University of Massachusetts Medical School, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
Download RMPHEC-GME Project Descriptions
Extramural Projects
Completed projects supported through the extramural grants program of former AAMC-CDC Cooperative Agreements.
Download AAMC-CDC Extramural Grantees
U.S.-Brazil Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial & Ethnic Discrimination & Promote Equality (JAPER)
The CDC and the Brazilian Ministry of Health are collaborating under the U.S. Department of State-led U.S.-Brazil Joint Action Plan to Eliminate Racial and Ethnic Discrimination and Promote Equality (JAPER), a binational agreement signed in 2008.
JAPER is a bilateral instrument that targets racial discrimination; provides a platform for cooperation to combat racial discrimination broadly; and shares best practices in tackling discrimination in education, law enforcement, labor, health, gender-based violence, economic empowerment, and many other areas. CDC’s Office of Minority Health and Health Equity (OMHHE) coordinates U.S. participation in the JAPER health subcommittee.