Nurturing social accountability and community engagement

The need to address the social determinants of health and to promote health equity has become a top priority for various health care organizations (High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth, 2016 ). Part of the solution lies in developing a workforce that understands and has the will to address these issues. Health professionals and health organizations must be socially accountable to the communities they serve. Thus, they need to be people centered and willing to engage in community services (WHO, 2016). Preparing a health workforce that provides holistic or integrated, people-centered care in communities where people live and work demands that educators critically appraise and adjust their educational vision and health care practices. The Training for Health Equity Network (THEnet; Larkins et al., 2013; Palsdottir, Neusy, & Reed, 2008; Ross et al., 2014) is a leading example of how institutions can create socially accountable health workforce education. THEnet’s framework focuses on integrated people-centered services, community health needs and population health. There is an increased emphasis on teaching health promotion, disease prevention, and primary care. Around the world, THEnet partner institutions implement this mandate in locally responsive ways. In this chapter, we discuss four case studies as exemplars of how health education schools have transformed their education practices to nurture people-centered health professionals, social accountability, community engagement, and care for the underserved.