Population and Family Health APEx

The APEx is a planned, supervised and evaluated Applied Practice Experience (APEx) that allows students to apply classroom knowledge and skills to meaningful fieldwork and make significant practical public health contributions to organizations and agencies locally and globally. 

Population and Family Health (PopFam) MPH students complete an APEx during which they demonstrate at least three foundational public health competencies and at least 2 of the following population and family health competencies: 

  • Advocate for ethics, social justice, and human rights principles surrounding long-term, action-oriented public health research, policies, or programs. 

  • Develop strategies to engage with diverse communities, with attention to privilege and power dynamics, and to human resource assets and constraints in diverse locations and contexts. 

  • Design and synthesize methodologically sound, evidence-based research to improve both public health practice and policy in one or more of the main substantive areas of the Department* 

  • Implement data collection strategies and instruments to guide program development and monitoring and evaluation strategies for use in a broad range of local and global contexts, particularly in resource-constrained settings.  

  • Propose viable, effective, and context-specific programs in one or more of the primary substantive areas of the Department*, and articulate the location of these programs within public health systems and local contexts. 

*Substantive areas of the Department: Sexuality and sexual and reproductive health and rights; child, youth, and family health; maternal and child health; health and human rights; public health and humanitarian action; implementation science; and complex health systems. 

Planning and Placement

Students in a certificate program can select an APEx related to their certificate area, but this is not required except for students in: (1) the Public Health and Humanitarian Action Certificate, and (2) the Global Health Certificate. Students in those certificates should consult their certificate director to identify requirements beyond those set by the Department of Population and Family Health. 

Most students begin the planning process for their placement at the beginning of their second semester and complete their APEx during the summer between their first and second years of study. 

  • Students in the 2-year MPH program, 4+1 program, and dual degree programs complete a minimum of 240 hours for their APEx; and 

  • Accelerated students complete a minimum of 140 hours. 

Students complete their APEx in New York City, elsewhere in the United States, or abroad. Common APEx sites for PopFam students include community-based organizations; non-governmental organizations; departments of health and other city, state, and federal government agencies; research organizations; and healthcare delivery organizations.

PopFam APEx Spotlights

In PopFam, students should consult with their faculty advisor and the Director of Academic Programs, Chelsea Kolff, throughout their APEx search. A required session for 1st year MPH students will be held at the start of the spring semester. 

The Office of Field Practice supports the APEx across all departments. They coordinate the school-wide infrastructure needed to plan, conduct, and evaluate the APEx. They also provide school wide APEx opportunities, and a travel stipend to all students who complete their APEx planning process on time, to defray travel costs related to their APEx.  

In addition to the Office of Field Practice, students also find APEx sites through faculty members, the Career Services search engine Mailman CareerLink, email announcements from the Department and School, and direct outreach to organizations. 

A key component of the APEx is developing practice-based products for the host site. Examples of products developed by past PopFam students include program evaluation plans, needs assessments, public health educational materials and curricula, program frameworks such as theories of change, logic models, and monitoring and evaluation plans, health communications and promotional materials, workshop or training materials, funding proposals, data collection and analysis plans, research tools, scoping reviews, policy memos, and health assessment reports. 

After completing their APEx, PopFam students present their work and learnings as an abstract that is submitted to their faculty advisor. PopFam students in the Global Health or Public Health and Humanitarian Action certificates participate in certificate-specific post-APEx seminars instead of submitting an abstract to the Department. 

Contacts

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