Development, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Course on Chronic Disease to Enhance Critical Thinking in Health Promotion Undergraduate Students

A key component of health promotion is disease prevention. Thus, providing students in a health promotion degree program with a foundation of knowledge on chronic disease is essential. While some health promotion degree programs require a course on chronic disease, this practice is not universal. Delivering a course on chronic disease to health promotion undergraduates presents some challenges. Often, students at this education level are experiencing this material for the first time, and faculty teaching in health promotion may not be “experts” in the pathophysiology of chronic disease. Even more challenging, the exact mechanisms of the major chronic diseases burdening society are not fully known. For these reasons, a course on chronic disease within an undergraduate health promotion program may be most beneficial when focusing on the “big picture” of disease in society while providing a foundation of knowledge of what is currently understood about the etiology and subsequent mechanisms of disease. After taking this type of course, students do not have solid, fixed answers about chronic disease mechanisms but rather, have the skill and motivation to continue seeking out new information and drawing their own conclusions. This article details the development, implementation, and evaluation of a course designed to address these challenges. This course used a “flipped” classroom design where students read recently published, “popular press” books and peer-reviewed, research articles. Class time was used to discuss these readings. Student feedback indicates that this strategy was highly successful in facilitating student engagement, learning, and enjoyment of the course.