Curriculum Mapping and Needs Assessment to Inform the Training of Health Policy Leaders

Purpose: To identify synergies and gaps in knowledge, skills, and attributes identi­fied by health policy leaders and create a summary measure of congruence with the Health Policy Leadership Fellowship Program curriculum. Methods: We mapped the Health Policy Leadership Fellowship Program curriculum to the most highly ranked knowledge, skills, and attributes identified through the Health Policy Leaders’ Training Needs Assessment survey. Results: Overall, the Health Policy cur­ricular elements had the highest percentage of congruence with the needs assessment Knowledge elements (>60%). The lowest levels of congruence (<30%) occurred most frequently within the Attribute elements. Conclusions: Mapping an existing pro­gram’s content and elements to needs perceptions from professionals practicing in the field may help to both inform and evaluate an existing program’s ability to at­tract and meet the needs of target learners. While needs assessments have traditionally been used to help develop programs, this study also demonstrates their application as a process evaluation tool when mapped to existing programs’ curricular elements. Ethn Dis. 2019;29(Suppl 2):413-420. doi:10.18865/ed.29.S2.413