PhD conferral Cassandra Barber

Keywords: Health Professions Education, Social Accountability, Quantitative Methods, Population Health
 

"Aligning Education to Societal Needs: Evaluating Social Accountability in Health Professions Education"

This thesis investigated social accountability in health professions education, defined as the obligation of health professions schools to address the priority health needs of the communities they serve. Despite increasing international interest and expanding literature over the last several decades, schools continue to struggle to demonstrate social accountability. This thesis employed a program evaluation logic model to systematically evaluate social accountability and identify links between program inputs and activities and intended outcomes. Four empirical studies were conducted to investigate social accountability in health professions education and facilitate its operationalization in practice. A narrative review of social accountability frameworks identified key constructs, and an international survey documented a global gap, suggesting that efforts in practice focus predominantly on educational inputs and processes, neglecting outcomes, and impacts. Subsequent chapters propose leveraging open-source data and establishing school service regions to begin to evaluate graduate outcomes. The thesis concludes with a call for a programmatic approach, moving beyond isolated efforts and capturing the multifaceted nature of social accountability.

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