Final Reflections MHST 631 Health Promotion

This course was a challenge to get through at times, especially when balancing a demanding workload and project deadlines with coursework. That said, I genuinely enjoyed the content, which made the coursework less of a task and more enjoyable. It also gave me more clarity on where I want to go professionally. While I currently work in a treatment-focused area, I find myself increasingly drawn toward prevention and policy, and I’d like to lean into that space more professionally.

Assignment 1 was one of the biggest "aha moments", as I had focused on developing a standardized clinical care pathway for individuals who’ve experienced a brain injury. This felt like a natural extension of my day-to-day work. Through the coursework and instructor feedback, I realized that while clinical pathways are important, they mostly live in the treatment side of care. Health promotion is different. It’s about prevention, equity, and creating the conditions where people don’t end up needing those pathways in the first place.

As I moved through the course, I used the Population Health Promotion Framework (PHPF) to look at the bigger picture. What the issue really is, who needs to be involved in the change, and what social determinants of health we need to take action on to create change. When I started to think about building policy to support prevention, the Social Ecological Model helped me design strategies that reach beyond individual behavior to also engage providers, organizations, and systems, moving to a system-level approach. Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) helped me see the value in starting small, with early adopters and community champions to build momentum for lasting change.

Before the course, I had the perception that infographics were simple to create; after all, they don’t contain much text. But through the assignment and developing an infographic I learned how hard it is to translate complex ideas into something that’s both clear and concise. Being able to communicate key messages in an accessible way has been a huge takeaway and is a skill I want to keep building.

This course helped me shift my thinking services to systems, and from reacting to problems to preventing them in the first place. I look forward to the next level of this course.