In September, PHS Academic Advisor Cara McNamara presented at this year’s Undergraduate Conference for Education in Public Health, a national meeting held by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) annually. This conference brings together directors, administrators, faculty, and advisors from undergraduate public health degree programs across the country to share challenges and innovations. In her presentation, “Mind-Body Practices in Public Health: An Experiential Course on Evidence-Based Interventions,” Ms. McNamara described the development of her new mind-body practices course (AS.280.330) and the first two offerings of it, spring 2021 and spring 2022.

Ms. McNamara was uniquely qualified to develop this course. She is a certified yoga and mindfulness instructor with a public health background that includes working with the National Registry of Evidence Based Programs and Practices, funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. She developed the course because, in her words, “knowing that students experience distress, anxiety and depression (especially at a high pressure university like ours) AND that there is a relationship between prolonged exposure to stress and public health outcomes AND that there are evidence-based experiential practices that are specifically designed to target stress reduction,” a course like this could fill a gap in our curriculum while directly supporting students’ well-being.

The course delves into such topics as the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences, the neuroscience behind stress, and the foundations of mindfulness practices. Each class meeting typically includes a practice (e.g., meditation, reflective exercise, breathwork) and paper to pencil journaling on the experience, followed by lecture and discussion. As a final project, each student identifies a public health problem of significance to them, finds an evidence-based mind-body intervention that would address the problem, and describes how they would go about implementing the intervention. According to Ms. McNamara, “It’s been rewarding hearing the students apply what they’ve learned to settings and populations they care about. Students also said that hearing their peers present was one of the highlights of the course and left them feeling inspired by their ingenuity and compassion.”

The course has become a permanent PHS elective. For spring 2023, the class meetings will move to the Recreation Center.