Training and Education Update 2020-2021 Academic Year

The Center for Health Equity’s (CHE) Training and Education Core provides educational programs to educate researchers, health professionals and the public about health equity challenges. These programs help highlight the causes of health inequities and how they can be overcome.

“At the health care system level, there is still a lot of work to be done to improve relationship-centered care… things like whether or not people actually take the time to listen to our patients, engage them in decision making and treat them respectfully”- Dr. Lisa Cooper


HEALTH EQUITY JAM SESSIONS

The monthly Health Equity JAM sessions continued to provide faculty and trainees working on health equity research with a supportive forum to discuss new research ideas and proposals, research-in-progress, and available opportunities for collaboration.

  • The February 24th session featured a virtual Wellness Workshop. The speakers included Dr. Anika L. Hines, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and Vernon Ware, LGPC, NCC, a Professional Counselor. They shared expertise on, “Self-Care Versus Self-Repair: Helping Health Equity Champions ‘Weather’ the Pandemic(s).” The presentation by Dr. Hines highlighted the reductions in life expectancy due to COVID-19 and the disproportionate impact on the Black and Latino populations. In addition, Vernon Ware talked about the importance of ensuring self-care and overcoming barriers to self-care was discussed.

  • Dr. Monique Jindal who was an Internal Medicine and Pediatrics General Academic Fellow was our featured speaker for the March 24th session. She spoke on "The Impact of Policing on Health and Well-being for Black Youth". A total of 46 participants attended this session.

  • For our April 28th Jam session, Dr. Samuel Kelton Roberts, Columbia Mailman School of Public Health gave a key presentation on "Drugs, Politics, and Pariahs or How to Think Historically About Race and Harm Reduction During (and after) the War on Drugs". Dr. Roberts shared about drug use and drug politics, and the role of stigma in structural racism. We had a total of 65 people attend this session.

  • Our Center Director, Dr. Lisa Cooper and one of our core faculty Dr. Nakiya Showell were the speakers for the May 19th session titled "The Impact of COVID-19 on the Health and Well-Being of Families in At-Risk Communities: What Roles can Public Health Practice and Policy Play?" Dr. Showell talked on some of the challenges magnified for vulnerable populations during the COVID-19 outbreak such as suboptimal housing conditions and lack of access to healthcare services. Dr. Cooper also shared some data on psychosocial factors in relation to COVID-19 and its implications for Public Health practice and policy recommendations. Our collaborators from the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the funders of this study, Johnson & Johnson attended the session. A total of 54 participants were present, and this was the last JAM session for the academic year.

 In light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, we had to transition our JAM sessions to be held virtually since March 2020. However, this has been a very positive experience so far as we have our faculty, trainees and partners still very engaged in these sessions.

“One of the things that we often do is that we really beat ourselves up mentally, so, being kind to yourself in your thoughts with positive affirmations…..in the middle of a busy day, stop and read those affirmations”- Vernon Ware, LGPC, NCC

We were excited to see that our Training and Education Core Research Assistant Chioma Onuoha, was accepted into medical school at the University of California, San Francisco and will be matriculating there this summer.


COURSES & RESEARCH MENTORING

  • The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health courses, “Applications of Innovative Methods in Health Equity” and “Local and Global Best Practices in Health Equity Research” were taught during the 3rd and 4th terms by Dr. Lisa Cooper and Dr. Tanjala Purnell. Students learned how to conduct edge-cutting and innovative health equity research, collaborate with stakeholders, and so much more.

  • Our Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) continue to run on Coursera. The first course is "Foundations of Health Equity Research" and the second is "Application of Health Equity Research Methods for Practice and Policy".

The JAM sessions have now resumed and our next event will be held on Wednesday, November 17th. The Training and Education Core will continue to run the Trainee Program and connect interested trainees with Center faculty and ongoing projects/workgroups.

RESOURCES

CHE Team