The development and evaluation of community health competencies for family medicine.

Background: There is an increasing emphasis on teaching community-responsive care and population health in medical education. This focus requires a multidimensional perspective on community health that examines the determinants, ranges, and variations of health status and disease in the community as a whole.

Description: The Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin sought to strengthen the community health curriculum in its residency programs by developing a core set of competencies in community health as well as a service-learning model to teach residents about community needs and strengths.

Evaluation: A common core curriculum was developed and evaluated based on these competencies.

Conclusion: Residents who have mastered these competencies will be capable of functioning more effectively as community-responsive physicians.