A Design Thinking Educational Intervention to Augment Public Health Training

Design Thinking provides an effective framework for solving complex, multifactorial problems (Ku & Lupton, 2019). It has facilitated improvements in patient and provider satisfaction, and can increase efficiency of intervention development (Huang et al., 2019; Roberts et al., 2018; Vechakul et al., 2015). Current evidence suggests that traditional public health methods are antiquated with regards to innovation and efficiency. Design Thinking on its own may not carry the rigor of scientific evidence and public health theory, however, there is potential to improve the usability and effectiveness, cost, and efficiency of public health interventions by adapting successful tools from other industries and utilizing a combination of approaches (Mummah, Robinson, King, Gardner, & Sutton, 2016; Altman, Huang, & Breland, 2018). The feasibility of teaching and applying Design Thinking in public health has been demonstrated through case studies (Huang et al., 2019). The integration of Design Thinking in public health education may equip public health leaders with essential skills necessary to overcome historically intractable challenges, improving lives for populations. The objective of this capstone endeavor was to develop and pilot an evidence-backed Design Thinking workshop for use in the Master of Public Health (MPH) curriculum at Thomas Jefferson University. Workshop development process included a pilot with current students, which demonstrated efficacy related to student acquisition of key concepts and application to public health challenges