Sarah Han: Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies/Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health
This summer, Sarah Han worked at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies (IHPS) and the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California, San Francisco. Her main project was a study that examined adolescents' experiences with COVID-19 and how the pandemic and shelter-in-place restrictions impacted their intimate relationships, sexual and reproductive health, and access to services. She took on a wide range of tasks, including survey development, survey distribution and tracking, data analysis in Stata, literature review, and writing for a peer-reviewed journal.
IHPS and Bixby researchers hope that this study will help inform the efforts of policymakers, healthcare workers, and advocates in addressing the impacts of COVID-19, specifically for underserved adolescents and young adults. Sarah will be presenting the results of this work at the next quarterly meeting of the Adolescent Sexual Health Working Group.
In addition to this research, she supported an evaluation of community engagement efforts for the California Preterm Birth Initiative. She also helped to redesign of a comprehensive sex education program for digital delivery in response COVID-19.
Grace Krueger: Tulane/Mississippi Department of Health
Over the summer, Grace worked remotely with a co-intern from the Tulane Center of Excellence in MCH at the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) in Jackson, MS . The goal of their project was to craft a social media strategy for the MCH division of MSDH and design social media content that promoted MCH programs and services and provided health education. They conducted a literature review that examined the use of social media by public health departments and summarized these findings, and relevant recommendations for MSDH, in a written document. They then collaborated with MSDH MCH staff to understand the health priorities of MCH populations in Mississippi and what services the MSDH staff wanted to highlight.
In total, 11 fact sheets and 20 social media posts were created that covered prioritized topics from all five MCH population domains and highlighted MSDH programs and services, as well as general MCH health promotion. Grace and her co-intern also had the opportunity to create social media content aimed at lessening the impact of COVID-19 on MCH populations. The MSDH Communications Department will publish the fact sheets on the MSDH website and disseminate the social media posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Through this internship, Grace was able to develop her communication skills by creating public health messaging aimed at broad audiences. She also continued to develop her cultural competency skills by ensuring the literacy level of the documents and social media posts were appropriate, and by using images, illustrations and language that were inclusive and representative. Grace enjoyed learning about the Mississippi Title V program, networking with Title V interns at other state health departments and attending trainings and webinars hosted by the National MCH Workforce Development Center.
Erin Hubbard: First 5 Alameda County
Over the summer, Erin worked as a policy intern at First 5 Alameda County, an organization that funds innovative programs and advocates for policies that improve the lives of children under the age of five and their families. Given the realities of the COVID-19 pandemic, the primary objective of her internship was to track related local, state, and federal policy affecting children and their families and advocate for this population through outreach to representatives. She wrote to state legislators asking them to prioritize families after proposed budget cuts threatened child care facility closures, and also composed multiple letters to federal representatives advocating for additional COVID-19 relief funding to support young children and families, paying special attention to historically and structurally marginalized communities.
Additionally, she assisted in on-the-ground supply distribution of essential supplies to family-serving shelters in Alameda County. Erin also distributed one-time grants to local shelters to help fill gaps in essential needs for families with young children. This internship allowed Erin to understand what policy work looks like at an organizational level, and how it shapes data collection and programs to promote equity in MCAH populations.
Daniel Salas: Public Health COVID-19 Mitigation Strategies
Over the summer, Daniel Salas worked as a research fellow with Berkeley professor of Community Health Sciences Dr. Lia Fernald and Nutrition Policy Institute policy advisor Dr. Wendi Gosliner. The project is focused on working to understand how public health COVID-19 mitigation strategies impact disadvantaged families and the reasons for disparities in access to income support, particularly among urban Latinx and African American populations and among rural white populations in California. They are working to understand and evaluate levels of awareness, barriers to uptake, and the benefits of participation in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) among families with children ages 0-5 years old in three California counties - Los Angeles, Alameda, and Merced.
The specific aim of this study is to capture the lived experiences of vulnerable families in California through in-depth qualitative interviews with vulnerable families and key stakeholders who work in these communities, with the goal of informing the development of relevant statewide program and policy responses and building the foundation for a large-scale, national survey so that we can ultimately understand effects of mitigation efforts at a broader scale. Daniel helped to assist and manage data collection for a larger survey, engage community advisory boards to support data collection, and conduct interviews and questionnaires with participants. The two-year project will be completed in November 2021.