Abstract The Institute of Medicine concluded that
keeping the public healthy required a well-educated public
health workforce, thus leading to its recommendation that
‘‘all undergraduates should have access to education in
public health’’ [2]. In response to this call, the authors
examined the current practice, feasibility, and value in
strengthening (or building) a functional collaborative model
between academic institutions and practitioners from local
health departments to educate tomorrow’s public health
workforce. Local and regional health departments in New
England were surveyed to: (1) establish a baseline of
existing working relationships between them and nearby
academic institutions; (2) examine the barriers that inhibit
the development of collaborations with academic partners;
(3) assess how they jointly promote public health workforce
development; and (4) analyze which essential public health
services their partnership addresses. Despite the lack of
financial resources often cited for the absence of academiclocal
health department collaborations, some New England
states reported that their academic institution and local
public health department partnerships were valued and
productive. The authors discuss how effective academiccommunity
collaborations have the potential to facilitate a
broad-based appreciation of public health among students
via a wide array of public health curricula and applied