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From principle to practice: designing a Public Health curriculum with co-design Neetu George (13070919) Jane Elissa Kiddell (25135704) Elyse Warner (14797888) Grant Wells (25135707) Tom Coverdale (25135710) Nasim Yazdani (25135713) Claire Henderson-Wilson (13385628) Uncategorised value Co-design is an established practice for working collaboratively with communities and consumers in public health service design. While co-design has been championed as a tool for public health research and is building momentum in the design of general health curriculum, co-design of public health curricula is relatively new. Challenges for first year public health education include diverse student backgrounds, the need to connect theory to specific examples in practice and working with large cohorts. To address these challenges, we undertook a collaborative and co-design informed approach to redevelop a large firstyear undergraduate Public Health unit. While ‘third space’ [academic support] teams have long been part of the sector, workload demands, disciplinary identity and perceived hierarchy often limit opportunities for genuine collaboration with academics. In this project we used McKercher’s (2020) principles of co-design; sharing power, prioritising relationships, using participatory means and building capability, throughout as a foundation for respectful, values-led collaboration. By adopting an iterative, dialogic approach, the process created collaborative spaces with a third space team, comprising of teaching and learning staff, learning designers, librarians and an academic skills advisor for shared interpretation, meaningful dialogue and rapid prototyping. Informal student input was also incorporated. Curriculum materials were refined collaboratively, drawing on learning designers’ pedagogical and design insights and academics’ disciplinary and practice-based expertise. This approach enabled embedding of inclusive and accessibility principles informed by Universal Design for Learning and tailored learning supports for the diverse cohort. These processes directly addressed challenges of scale, variable student preparedness, and the need for clearer scaffolding, with impacts evident in shifts in teaching approach, improved student navigation of unit site, stronger engagement with learning and improved performance across assessment tasks. Reference McKercher, K. A. (2020). Beyond sticky notes: co-design for real: mindsets, methods and movements, Sydney, Australia: Beyond Sticky Notes 2026-09-15T00:00:00Z Text Conference contribution 10.26187/deakin.34021614 https://figshare.com/articles/conference_contribution/From_principle_to_practice_designing_a_Public_Health_curriculum_with_co-design/34021614 All Rights Reserved Restricted Access