APE/Thesis Opportunities, Open Hand Atlanta

Our team works closely with Open Hand Atlanta to evaluate their food security and nutrition programs in metro Atlanta and across Georgia.  We are looking for enthusiastic and outgoing Atlanta-based data collectors/evaluators to support in person qualitative and survey data collection, data management and analysis as well as report writing across several of these projects. This opportunity can serve to fulfill practicum requirements or provide data or other activities to fulfill a thesis. There will also be opportunities for abstract/manuscript and conference presentation submissions through these projects with Open Hand support. 

Job Description 

Our team has several paid GRA positions available with our Open Hand Atlanta Evaluation partnership. GRAs can choose from several evaluation projects and be involved in different types of program evaluation activities including M&E plan development, tool development / revision; data management; qualitative data collection and analysis, survey data collection and analysis, support with grant writing, report writing, developing infographics, etc. As students develop a relationship with a particular project, they will be able to take on leadership and management activities as well. This is a great opportunity to develop skills, work with Atlanta communities and a great community partner and get paid! I am prioritizing first year MPH and MSPH  students. Students that succeed in this work have strong interpersonal skills, take initiative, are flexible and able to work independently. Oftentimes there is a need for students to work across projects and assist with data collection, meaning that there is opportunity to be involved in multiple projects even if you are more interested in taking a leadership role for one. 

The different Open Hand projects are detailed below: 

Produce Prescription (PRx) Programs — this program works with healthcare partners in metro Atlanta and hospital systems in south GA to provide fresh produce boxes, interactive cooking and nutrition education, and social support to reduce food insecurity, enhance nutrition and mitigate chronic disease risk over the course of 6-months. Seeking — 1 GRA with reliable access to transportation to support survey and qualitative data collection, data analysis and report writing for ongoing PRx classes. Metro Atlanta travel required; travel to south GA optional. Availability based on class schedule but classes generally take place between 10am-2pm on either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. All other work can be done remotely. This would be an excellent practicum / thesis opportunity!  

Kids and Teens Nutrition Education – our team manages the state-wide data for Open Hand’s children and teen nutrition education programming, which empowers youth with interactive cooking, food literacy and nutrition education. Seeking – 1 GRA to take over from a current second year. GRA manages all data entry, data management, analyses and annual reporting to Open Hand. This student also creates site-specific outcome reports at the end of each fiscal year (September/October) to be shared with community organizations who hosted programming. This work can be done remotely, attending Metro-Atlanta area classes to help with data collection is optional and can be scheduled with Open Hand’s program manager if of interest to student.  

WIC – Cooking Matters + Social Marketing and Policy, Systems, & Environmental Change work – provides interactive cooking and nutrition education sessions in Women, Infants, & Children (WIC) clinics in Georgia’s Public Health District 4. Current nutrition education evaluation activities involve management and analysis of data and report writing. Open Hand also carries out a variety of social marketing campaigns throughout the clinics and this student would assist with rolling these out and helping to plan future work. This position would also entail helping Open Hand SNAP-Ed staff continue a literature review and plan for upcoming policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) change work. There is a lot of opportunity for program design in this role as many new opportunities with the WIC clinics are forthcoming. Seeking – 1 GRA to support data management, analysis and reporting, social marketing design/evaluation, and PSE research/design. All activities are currently remote  

MARTA markets – Market Evaluation + Social Marketing Design/Evaluation – Emory is the evaluator for the MARTA markets program implemented by Open Hand, Common Markets, and MARTA. Seeking: 1 GRA to support tool refinement, data collection, data management, data analysis and report writing from July-October. There is also the opportunity to analyze data from previous years for the purpose of producing a thesis or manuscript. All data collection activities occur at MARTA stations across the city so GRAs must have reliable access to transportation or MARTA.  Other GRAs from the team will likely be trained on the survey and assist with data collection as needed. This opportunity would also involve working closely with Open Hand staff to redesign and evaluate all MARTA Market social marketing materials throughout the summer, which promote the markets and their acceptance of SNAP benefits. 

Year- End Community Partner Impact Reports – Open Hand believes in giving data classes back to community members and community-based organizational partners that they work with throughout the state of Georgia. To do this, partner-specific outcome reports and/or infographics are created at the end of each fiscal year (October) to give back to partner organizations and demonstrate program impact within their populations throughout the year. Seeking: 1 GRA to complete these reports, beginning in September 2024 and ending in December ‘24/January ’25. This is an excellent APE for anyone looking to complete their practicum during the beginning of their second year instead of over the summer. There is also an opportunity to gain experience working directly with community-based organizations and potentially presenting data to them if interested.  

Public Health Competencies: 2. Select quantitative and qualitative data collection methods appropriate for a given public health context, 3. Analyze quantitative and qualitative data using biostatistics, informatics, computer-based programming and software as appropriate, 4. Interpret results of data analysis for public health research, policy or practice, 7. Assess population needs, assets and capacities that affect communities’ health, 9. Design a population-based policy, program, project or intervention, 11. Select methods to evaluate public health programs, 18. Select communication strategies for different audiences and sectors, 19. Communicate audience-appropriate public health content, both in writing and through oral presentation, 21. Perform effectively on interprofessional teams 

If interested, please send your CV to both of the following individuals:

Julie Gazmararian, PhD, MPH – jagazma [at] emory [dot] edu

Katie Leite, MPH, Cooking Matters Program Manager – kleite [at] openhandatlanta [dot] org

Summer Research Assistant Position in Environmental & Chronic Disease Epidemiology

Dr. Christine Ekenga is looking to hire a Research Assistant for projects at the intersection of environmental justice and chronic disease prevention and control. These projects capitalize on the resources of large public-use and clinical datasets that include risk-factor data on nearly 1,000,000 individuals. Other studies include community-engaged environmental epidemiology projects.

Tasks: Tasks will include analyzing a variety of research data using statistical methods, advising on study design, statistical interpretation, data management and analysis using Microsoft Excel, SAS, SPSS, or R. Students may also participate in patient enrollment and recruiting for clinical studies and assist with the development of presentations, abstracts, and peer-reviewed manuscripts and grants. 

Start date: June 2024

Hours per week: 20-40 hours/week

How to apply: Please send resume and cover letter by email to cekenga [at] emory [dot] edu. Position is open until filled.

Scholarship Opportunity, Sisters in Public Health

Sisters in Public Health is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a vision to connect all women in public health. Their mission is to create a safe space to empower, educate, and evolve the next generation of women in public health.  The Sisters in Public Health scholarship application opens on March 4, 2024 and closes on June 23, 2024 at 11:59pm PST. To learn more and apply, please click here. 

MCH Hogue/Hargraves Practicum Award

The Hogue/Hargraves MCH Internship is named for Drs. Carol J. Rowland Hogue and Martha H. Hargraves whose bi-racial partnership spanning more than three decades revealed racial/ethnic disparities in women’s and children’s health and influenced health policy development aimed at eliminating those health disparities. Beginning at the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and continuing throughout Dr. Hogue’s tenure as the first Terry Professor of MCH at Emory, the two developed and tested frameworks to understand the embodiment of racism in reproductive health and its consequences for both mothers and their offspring.¹ Their collaboration inspired applied research, not only in Dr. Hogue’s home Reproductive Health Division at CDC and home RSPH Department of Epidemiology, but also across CDC and Emory’s Health Sciences Center.²

The Hogue/Hargraves MCH Internship will help fund an Applied Practice Experience (APE) in Maternal and Child Health. The APE must be housed in a domestic agency or organization and be focused on applied work aimed at reducing racial/ethnic disparities among women, infants, or children. Preference for this internship will be given to current MCH Certificate students.

“An Applied Practice Experience (APE) is a unique opportunity that enables students to apply practical skills and knowledge learned through coursework to a professional public health setting that complements the student’s interests and career goals. The APE must be supervised by a Field Supervisor and requires approval from an APE Advisor designated by the student’s academic department at RSPH. To successfully fulfill the APE requirement, students must a) complete a minimum of 200 clock hours in one or two public health agencies, institutions or communities; b) meet student-selected MPH foundational competencies and concentration competencies; c) produce at least 2 deliverables that benefit the APE agency; d) enter and track all APE-related information, deliverables and required approvals in the RSPH APE Portal; and e) registration in the student’s Department 595 course (i.e. BSHE 595, BIOS 595, etc.) is required in the student’s final semester of enrollment. Prior to the start of a student’s APE, the student must receive departmental approval from the designated APE Advisor in their department.”³

Award Timeline

The 2024 MCH Hogue-Hargraves Financial Award Application will open: on Friday, February 16th

The application will close on Monday April 1, 2024.

APE Opportunity: Psychosocial Factors related to Cardiovascular Disease Risk and Resilience in African-American Women

If you are interested, please send a resume to Lakeia Culler (lculler [at] emory [dot] edu) no later than 3/29/24.  Please use subject: Practicum/AAWH.  You may include what would be the cover letter in the body of the email.  Please make sure to include your last name and first name in the title of the resume.

Practicum Opportunity: Psychosocial Factors related to Cardiovascular Disease Risk and Resilience in African-American Women

Our research group, led by Dr. Tené T. Lewis, is seeking an enthusiastic and team-oriented MPH/MSPH student to join our dynamic team for a practicum experience with two on-going NIH-funded research studies focused on African-American women’s health. 

The goal of the studies is to determine whether psychosocial factors (e.g., racism-related stress, resilience, etc.) are related to early cardiovascular disease (CVD) in healthy African-American women and African-American women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Recent research suggests that African-American women aged 35-44 have rates of CVD that are higher than those of African-American men, White men, and White women; and that African-American women with SLE die from cardiovascular disease 20 years earlier than women without SLE. Identifying the determinants of early CVD in these understudied, at-risk groups will be key to designing preventive interventions to ultimately reduce their excess burden of disease.

The students will work closely with Dr. Lewis’ study team over the duration of the year and can expect to gain experience in one or more of the following areas:

• Participant recruitment
• Participant onboarding 
• Participant retention
• Creating study infographics and newsletters for participants using study data and literature review

More specifically, students will gain experience working with study participants by:

• Onboarding participants for the Daily Diaries ancillary study. This includes scheduling zoom meetings with participants where you will present the consent form and assist them in downloading the RealLife Experience app.
• Contacting participants via telephone and text message to remind them of their scheduled appointments.
• Sending weekly emails to participants with the details for their upcoming visit the following week
• Using excel to create weekly spreadsheets of the upcoming participants’ visits that will be sent out to the team weekly.
• Rescheduling appointments when needed while keeping the outlook calendar up to date and organized.
• Working with biostaticians on the team to clean participant data such as the ambulatory blood pressure rates after the participants wear the ambulatory blood pressure cuff/monitor.

Students will also be able to participate in weekly team meetings which provide an opportunity to learn about the day-to-day tasks of running two large studies.

Thesis Opportunities, MCH Students

First year MPH students interested in endocrine, cardiometabolic or mental health and gender minority research, as well as those interested in cancer epidemiology are encouraged to reach out to Dr. Goodman.  Dr. Goodman’s group has a large amount of data that can be used for MPH thesis.  Examples of broad research questions include: 

• Comparison of mental health morbidity in transgender people and individuals diagnosed with disorders (differences) of sex development (a.k.a. intersex).
• Health status of males with congenital anomalies of external genitalia
• Cancer incidence in transgender persons compared to cisgender male and female reference groups.
• Changes in blood lipid concentrations among transgender persons receiving hormone therapy.
• Incidence and determinants of self-inflicted injuries and poisonings in transgender and cisgender youth.

In addition, there is an opportunity to work with colleagues at the Winship Cancer Institute on a project evaluating use of radiation therapy in pediatric cancer patients. 

If any of those topics are of interest to you, please contact Dr. Goodman directly at mgoodm2 [at] emory [dot] edu.