The course will take about four hours to complete. Don't try to finish it all at once. Try working on a section or two at a time and returning as often as you wish. When you leave the course, we will remind you to print the work that you've completed so far, so that you can refer to it in later sessions.

The objectives of Arthritis: The Public Health Approach are to (1) understand and (2) apply the principles of public health to a real public health challenge - reducing the burden of arthritis and arthritis-related disability in your local area. The course also provides resources for obtaining public health data and information.

The course encompasses five sections as described below.

• Section I: The Public Health Approach defines the public health approach and provides an overview of the history, impacts, essential services, achievements, future challenges, and major players and roles in public health. The section also introduces the values and tools of the public health approach.
• Section II: The Public Health Approach to Arthritis defines arthritis as a public health issue, presents national approaches for meeting the public health challenges of arthritis, and describes the CDC-State Framework for reducing the burden of arthritis and arthritis-related disability.
• Section III: Program Planning and Evaluation defines planning terminology, presents a seven-step model for program planning and evaluation, and walks participants through a process for applying the model to a specific local public health challenge.
• Section IV: Developing Partnerships provides an overview of public health partnerships, including the benefits of partnerships, success factors for seeking potential partners and implementing partnerships, and overcoming potential pitfalls in partnership development. Participants apply the principles by designing a partnership to address a local public health issue.
• Section V: Public Health Tools covers four significant public health tools - surveillance, epidemiology, health communications, and health education. Participants learn where to find public health surveillance data and how to use the data in answering questions about the epidemiology of a public health challenge. In addition, they learn principles and processes for developing health communications and health education programs.

Each section of the course includes exercises that you must do to earn your certificate of completion. The exercises ask you to apply the principles you're learning to a real public health challenge in your local area. Clearly illustrated examples related to arthritis accompany each exercise. Be sure to print your answers each time you leave the course so that you can refer to them later. Please remember that when you open a pop-up window, after you have completed the exercise or viewed the example, you must close the pop-up window using the icon in the upper right corner, or close it through your browser. If you don't, you will not be able to open other windows.

You will find links throughout the course to other Websites. We've designed the links to help you become familiar with various sources of public health information. Any time that you leave the course to follow a link you can return by clicking your Web browser's "Back" button.

At the end of the course, you will take a brief quiz to test your knowledge of the material. If you don't answer at least 70% of the questions correctly, we'll ask you to review the course materials and take the quiz again before you can obtain your certificate of completion.

When you're finished with the course, including completing the exercises and passing the quiz, you must complete the course evaluation. Then, you can print your certificate of completion.

If you know others who would like to improve their knowledge of the public health approach, send them a notice about the course before you sign-off.

NOTE: If you've already registered and are returning, click here to log in.