Public Health and Academic Leaders Unite Through Texas Consortium

June 10, 2025 | Mayela Arana

In a state as vast as Texas — spanning 254 counties and operating under a decentralized public health system — collaboration is key to strengthening public health efforts. With local and county health departments working independently and the state stepping in where no local health department exists, fostering partnerships across institutions is both a challenge and an opportunity.

Recognizing this, the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) brought multiple schools of public health together under a unified program: the Academic Health Partnership Initiative. Led by the DSHS Office of Practice and Learning within the Center for Public Health Policy and Practice, this initiative is designed to strengthen, support, and enhance activities between public health practice and academic institutions, in which the Academic Public Health Consortium plays a key strategic, collaborative role.

Partnership Purpose and Benefits

DSHS believes that forming Academic Health Department (AHD) partnerships creates accountability, clearer collective value, and greater access to funding opportunities. AHD partnerships, which can range from student internships to fully integrated collaborations and shared resources, provide a framework for public health departments and universities to work in lockstep. By taking a statewide approach, DSHS not only enhances public health workforce development but shapes a more resilient and connected public health infrastructure in Texas.

In addition, DSHS asserts that strengthening academic public health partnerships…

• Improves the relevance of education to public health practice.
• Creates innovative public health practices and research.
• Strengthens connections, communication, and trust.
• Shares and replicates evidence-based projects, initiatives, and interventions.
• Maximizes resources, expertise, and funding.
• Provides opportunities to meet strategic goals.
• Helps build and train the public health workforce.

Evolution of DSHS Partnerships with Academic Institutions

DSHS has always valued its relationships with academia and collaborations have been a long-standing piece of their work. State legislators also acknowledge this powerful connection between public health agencies and universities. In fact, through 1999 legislation, Chapter 121, Subchapter F, Health and Safety Code directed DSHS to establish a “public health consortium” composed of academic partners to conduct activities like developing curricula and trainings, conducting research on improving health status outcomes, and developing competency certification standards for public health workers.

DSHS’s partnerships with universities have since grown and evolved — while the agency has historically gravitated toward schools of public health as natural partners, DSHS recognizes that public health is a broad field and it can benefit from having expertise in other disciplines. As such, the Academic Public Health Consortium consists of schools of public health within eight Texas university systems but is open to any school or local health department to contribute and participate.

Building a Shared Vision Through Statewide Collaboration

The Academic Public Health Consortium held roundtable discussions across the state to collect initial input for its Statewide Strategy. Members undertook the following collaborative steps to co-create their shared strategies and goals.

• Set up introductory meetings with each school to introduce the concept and get buy-in.
• Discuss the specifics all parties would like to gain from the partnership (e.g., collaboration on research projects or grants, training for staff, internship placements, consultation on curriculum, support for accreditation, guest lectures, hosting career panels, etc.).
• Identify work groups or committees with each school and agree on meeting frequency.
• Draft a sample memorandum of understanding or agreement to answer the following: what is our purpose, what are we going to do, how are we going to do it, why is it important, and how will we both benefit.
• Conduct inventory of current activities.
• Review each organization’s strategic priorities, goals, and needs.
• Conduct a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) or SOAR (strengths, opportunities, aspirations, and results) analysis.
• Develop goals and priorities focusing on the mutual needs of each organization and action plans to achieve them, such as:
• Increasing student placement in applied practice experience opportunities.
• Increasing the number of real-world scenarios in the classroom.
• Providing workforce trainings to health department staff.
• Increasing student exposure to public health careers through panel discussions.
• Conducting a rural workforce training needs assessment.

The resulting roadmap helps monitor and evaluate progress on agreed-upon action areas and show the impact of the partners on achieving the organization’s mission and goals, including:

• Prepare, educate, and train the public health workforce.
• Support public health careers.
• Speed the translation of research to practice, share best practices, and pilot projects in communities.

The Consortium plans to develop subcommittees, get more public health practitioners involved across the state, and secure funding to support the Academic Health Partnership Initiative’s activities.

Advice for Others Seeking to Establish AHD Partnerships

Organizations can structure AHD partnerships in a way that best suits the nature of the relationship and those involved. There is no right or wrong way to operate this type of partnership, and it may evolve over time. One of the broader and bigger goals is to lay a solid foundation of trust, communication, and structure. Create a space where you can get to know each other better; discover each other’s strengths and needs and communicate opportunities and challenges. Like any good and solid relationship, strong partnerships are not created overnight — they require consistency, intentionality, hard work, and grace.

Learn more about Academic Health Department Partnerships or explore other workforce development resources from the Public Health Foundation. If your health agency wants more information about planning support, please submit a PHIG technical assistance request through PHIVE or contact performanceimprovement@astho.org.

Special thanks to Marie Flake, MPH, BSN, RN, and Courtney Dezendorf, Director, Office of Practice & Learning at the Texas Department of State Health Services, for their contributions to this blog post.