Our analysis of the three Precision Medicine and Public Health course components resembles a “nested case-control design”, which situates a case-control study in the context of a cohort study [28 ]. Here, we nest a brief qualitative study of the student responses in the Precision Medicine and Public Health case study and class exercise between the above narrative description of previous course elements touching on precision health, and an examination of the precision medicine and public health topics covered and student comments rendered in the Precision Medicine Initiative didactic session. The two aims of this analysis are the following: (1) show how precision health, the PMI in particular, can be incorporated into a public health genetics policy course; and (2) assess the extent to which this inclusion has allowed our students to formulate policy in the precision public health area.
Knowing that precision public health was a new area with lasting implications, the course instructors took extensive notes on student–instructor and student–student dialogue during the three course components. Verbatim records of student presentations are kept during class exercises to enable accurated grading. The instructors have inspected and analyzed for issues and policy content relevant data for the three Precision Medicine Initiative-related sessions: (1) class notes containing what each participant said—for all three sessions; (2) student hand-ins for the class exercise; and (3) the topical areas covered in the class materials of the didactic session. The didactic session topical areas were inspected, following analysis of the case study and class exercise, for content that reinforces and extends the themes elicited by the case study and class exercise, and illustrative student comments.
In the analysis, student responses for the case study and class exercise, both oral and written, were categorized into thematic areas. The pre-categories were formed by assorting themes in the ten shared case study/class exercise questions (page 3 of the case study and class exercise hand-outs) into issue and policy areas. The post-categories were formed by manually labeling sentences in the case study and class exercise student responses for major themes. Categories were cross-checked by the three authors. The authors recorded frequency of mentions in the pre-and post-categories for the following: (1) case study student responses; (2) in-class exercise student responses; and (3) class exercise hand-ins, which were used to select exemplary quotations within the major categories. In keeping with the course policy orientation, we have analyzed student responses to determine our students’ ability to formulate issue areas into policy, that is, to satisfy aim 2, rather than to systematically explore the various categories of responses. We also include student comments on the Precision Medicine and Public Health class exercise, collected as part of the overall end-of-semester course evaluation, to show whether students felt the class exercise was useful and what changes could be made in the future. The evaluation did not include questions on the case study and didactic session.
In writing this piece, the authors have inspected the precision medicine and precision public health technical, program-related, and socio-ethical literature we collected at the time of the 2015/2016 classes, and supplemented this inspection with additional current PubMed and NIH website searches. The PMI has evolved into the NIH All of Us Research Program, which began beta testing in June 2017 and had a full national roll-out of the cohort-based program and extensive provider network in Spring 2018. This article is written from the standpoint of what has taken place in the national program as of June 2018.
Knowing that precision public health was a new area with lasting implications, the course instructors took extensive notes on student–instructor and student–student dialogue during the three course components. Verbatim records of student presentations are kept during class exercises to enable accurated grading. The instructors have inspected and analyzed for issues and policy content relevant data for the three Precision Medicine Initiative-related sessions: (1) class notes containing what each participant said—for all three sessions; (2) student hand-ins for the class exercise; and (3) the topical areas covered in the class materials of the didactic session. The didactic session topical areas were inspected, following analysis of the case study and class exercise, for content that reinforces and extends the themes elicited by the case study and class exercise, and illustrative student comments.
In the analysis, student responses for the case study and class exercise, both oral and written, were categorized into thematic areas. The pre-categories were formed by assorting themes in the ten shared case study/class exercise questions (page 3 of the case study and class exercise hand-outs) into issue and policy areas. The post-categories were formed by manually labeling sentences in the case study and class exercise student responses for major themes. Categories were cross-checked by the three authors. The authors recorded frequency of mentions in the pre-and post-categories for the following: (1) case study student responses; (2) in-class exercise student responses; and (3) class exercise hand-ins, which were used to select exemplary quotations within the major categories. In keeping with the course policy orientation, we have analyzed student responses to determine our students’ ability to formulate issue areas into policy, that is, to satisfy aim 2, rather than to systematically explore the various categories of responses. We also include student comments on the Precision Medicine and Public Health class exercise, collected as part of the overall end-of-semester course evaluation, to show whether students felt the class exercise was useful and what changes could be made in the future. The evaluation did not include questions on the case study and didactic session.
In writing this piece, the authors have inspected the precision medicine and precision public health technical, program-related, and socio-ethical literature we collected at the time of the 2015/2016 classes, and supplemented this inspection with additional current PubMed and NIH website searches. The PMI has evolved into the NIH All of Us Research Program, which began beta testing in June 2017 and had a full national roll-out of the cohort-based program and extensive provider network in Spring 2018. This article is written from the standpoint of what has taken place in the national program as of June 2018.
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