Funded Projects

Problem:

The BUSPH Leadership Education in MCPH Program seeks to ensure the health of women, children, and families through comprehensive leadership training, advanced MCH research and dissemination, and providing CE/TA to our practice partners, with emphasis on family centered care and cultural competence.

Goals and Objectives:

Goal 1: Continue strengthening our education programs to prepare a diverse cohort for MCH practice and leadership. Objective 1: Recruit, enroll, and graduate at least 140 MPH students, with at least 35-40% of students from underrepresented minority communities. Objective 2: Fully incorporate the life course perspective into the curriculum, as well as an integrated approach to family centeredness and cultural competence. Objective 3: Provide opportunities for students to work closely with faculty on research, policy, and advocacy through MCH Fellowships. Goal 2: Increase the racial and ethnic diversity of our long term trainees prepared to join the MCH workforce. Objective 1: Establish the Diversity Scholars Program (DSP) to increase the number of underrepresented minority graduates prepared for leadership roles among vulnerable communities through support, training, and mentorship. Objective 2: Increase access to BUSPH of qualified applicants from URM communities through dedicated scholarship support. Objective 3: Create a vibrant social networking platform to engage and connect MCH students, alumnae, and prospective students. Goal 3: Develop and implement an integrated approach to family centered practice and cultural competence that enhances the ability of faculty, students, and the workforce to address social inequities. Objective 1: Strengthen program's infrastructure capacity to support this integration through dedicated faculty leadership, structured consultations, and developing a logic model detailing inputs and processes required to accomplish this goal. Objective 2: Provide students with training and practice in the integration of cultural competence and family centeredness through the curriculum and through Fellowship opportunities. Objective 3: Develop and disseminate our model of teaching this integrated approach to policy and practice. Goal 4: Generate, translate, and integrate new knowledge to enhance MCH training, inform policy, and improve health outcomes. Objective 1: Strengthen our capacity and productivity for MCH research based on strategic plan developed in previous 5 years. Objective 2: Continue and develop cutting edge research in areas such as life course health effects for women and their children, utilizing public health approaches in clinical settings to address the needs of vulnerable populations, and community-based participatory research on reducing health disparities. Objective 3: Continue developing cross-disciplinary teams within BUSPH Dept of Community Health Sciences and BU School of Medicine. Goal 5: Strengthen the national MCH workforce through interdisciplinary training, jointly planned and implemented by a broad-based collaborative of HRSA-funded training programs and partners in New England. Objective 1: Establish the New England HRSA Continuing Education Collaborative, which will assess the needs of Title V and PHTC constituencies to establish overlapping and congruent needs Objective 2: Design and produce webinars as part of the CE Collaborative, to address training needs in the field, and to be distributed both regionally and nationally. Objective 3: Continue to provide CE/TA to Region I Title V partners and other MCH professionals in the field.

Methodology:

Education and Diversity (Goals 1,2): Our MCH Fellowship program continues to provide rich and varied opportunities for students to collaborate with faculty on research, policy, and advocacy projects. Our new Diversity Scholars Program (2) supports our mission to increase the capacity of women of color to serve as leaders in the MCH workforce, specializing in the elimination of health disparities. The program combines alumnae mentorship and in depth practice experience for students from minority communities. Family-centered care, cultural competency, and life course (1,3): We will engage community partners in the process of review and enhancement to assure and evaluate the integration of these perspectives across our curriculum. Research (4): MCH faculty have multiple grants and projects underway, including cutting edge work on the life course, women's health, infant and child health, and health disparities. An essential aspect of our research is its interdisciplinary nature, integration of public health within clinical settings, and community partnerships to address health disparities. Technical assistance and community education (5): We are working collaboratively with all MCHB- and BHP/HRSA-funded training programs in New England to create a distance-learning collaborative. The New England HRSA Continuing Education Collaborative will conduct annual webinars to address unmet training needs in the MCH and public health workforce, both regionally and nationally.

Coordination:

Our Advisory Board includes Boston Pub Health Comm (BPHC), Region I Title V and Title X agencies, comm'ty health centers/organizations, university-based practitioners, and private research sector. Training/Research partners include MDPH, BPHC, BU Schools of Med. And of Dental Med., Boston Med. Center, comm'ty health centers/organizations. Family centered/cultural comp partnerships include LEND, Northeastern, BPHC, and representatives of Title V and Title X.

Evaluation:

Formative evaluation will allow for ongoing feedback on program development and improvement; outcome evaluation will help track the targeted outcome measures; ongoing enhancement of data tracking within the department assists in measuring student information, faculty output, fellowships, etc. This allows us to report on performance measures and other requirements.

Experience to Date:

During Year One of our 2010-2015 cycle, the training grant has continued to exert positive impact on the quality of the MCH program at BUSPH. We have pioneered initiatives such as the Diversity Scholars Program. We are conducting curricular review with collaboration from Title V and community partners, with particular attention to health equity and the life course perspective. We've continued offering students mentored research experiences (MCH Fellowships), as well as new practice opportunities that extend from the classroom to the field. We have granted to trainees a total of $149,728 of scholarship monies (including internal funds) to support their MCH/MPH studies. Our research activities have intensified, with 18 collaborative projects underway and multiple grants being prepared for submission. We've made progress in bringing together a workgroup to design and create a web-based interdisciplinary educational series for the public health work force, in collaboration with other HRSA-funded programs and partners in Region I. Our Title V partners, our local, regional, and national colleagues and collaborators rely heavily on our capacity to train a diverse and skilled work force for MCH practice; our production and translation of knowledge to real-world practice; and our training in the life course perspective to achieve our common purpose: health and well-being of women, children, and families over the life course.