Community Health Initiatives and Health Outreach

Barbara Clinton, MSW	Area Leader
	barbara.m.clinton@vanderbilt.edu (615) 322-4176 Office Hours: TBA

Description

This area embraces health issues that disproportionately affect specific populations, especially but not exclusively under-served populations of all ages. Projects and study in this area will link academic medical education with community needs. The student projects will address one of the following six targeted areas of study:

• Health risks/diseases - entities that disproportionately affect under-served populations
• Obstacles to health and healthcare for the under served
• Socio-cultural, historical and medical aspects of caring for an under-served population.
• The principles, approaches and skills needed by successful medical provider in an under-served community.
• Skills and strategies that motivate patients to practice positive health behaviors.
• Diagnosis of healthcare needs of a community and development of plans to meet those needs.

Nature of the Student Experience

Students will gain basic knowledge of the six targeted areas via class presentations, discussion and field work during the second semester of VMS I. They will build skills in setting goals, writing objectives and project planning. They will learn to design projects of appropriate scale and scope as they begin to understand Vanderbilt’s role and impact in local, national and international communities. Under the guidance of their mentor, they will begin to develop a draft proposal for their project to be implemented in the summer. They will be expected to participate in monthly meetings of all scholars in this portion of the program and will meet to discuss their project with the other students, their mentors and the area director. During the summer between VMS 1and 2 they will develop and complete their project. During the fall and spring semesters of VMS II the students will participate in regular seminars to present and discuss project results. During this time, manuscripts will be written and critiqued by mentors and colleagues.

Students’ final product will include the following:

• Portfolio, including screening tools developed, focus groups and interview reports, annotated bibliography, draft grant proposals, recommendations, presentations, baseline and outcome data.
• Presentation to community partners, peers or faculty

And may also include:

• Published articles
• Presentation at national meetings, or to relevant professional audiences