The Loyola I-PATH web-based project promotes awareness and provides opportunities to move public health forward by providing three distinct web-based educational components. The first component is a student program that promotes inter-disciplinary collaboration pertinent to public health. This team collaboration generates broader understanding, and greater creativity in tackling the myriad of chal
lenges public health professionals face today. Our student web portal offers a dynamic platform in which graduate students can share, collaborate, learn and continue to move public health forward. The second component of the I-PATH project provides assistance to non-profit hospitals by offering information and toolkits, which help these organizations complete mandatory Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNA). The Affordable Care Act (ACA), mandates that non-profit hospitals must conduct a community health needs assessment (CHNA) and adopt an implementation strategy at least once every three years. The Loyola I-PATH offers information helpful in fulfilling these requirements. Loyola faculty will work with Loyola students in building comprehensive planning, and evaluation components, which will be helpful to those needing to do CHNAs. The students will build these toolkit information packets as part of their graduate curriculum. The third component is an open public health portal that provides general information about ongoing and current research about public health issues, such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity. Students and faculty will generate informational packets relevant to these and other topics with healthy living guidelines and suggestions. Approved projects constructed within the Student I-PATH will also be available for public viewing.
