Tips for a Safe and Healthy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving can be a stressful time of year for everyone. Whether you are hosting your first Thanksgiving, coordinating travel plans, interacting with difficult family members, or staying in Atlanta and missing your family, everyone is facing a unique situation this week. Here are some tips to enjoy a safe and healthy Thanksgiving this year no matter where you are.

1. Be public health conscious as you travel. If you are flying this week, make sure to wear a mask at the airport and on your flights, and socially distance where possible! Wash your hands frequently and avoid touching your face or any possibly contaminated objects. Bring hand sanitizer to use throughout the airport where washing your hands is not an option. This is a busy time for travel, especially at the Atlanta airport, and it is our public health duty to do our part in keeping everyone healthy. Now is the time to get your COVID-19 booster and flu shots if you have not already done so! You can schedule both of these through Emory Student Health Services.
2. Try to keep your gatherings as COVID and flu – friendly as possible. Consider adapting your Thanksgiving gathering plans to accommodate for your most vulnerable family members or friends who may be attending. This could mean hosting an outdoor gathering, bringing your own utensils/plates/etc, or setting health and safety expectations with guests ahead of time. Read more tips from the Georgia Department of Health here. 
3. Volunteer in your community. Another way to celebrate Thanksgiving is to volunteer in various ways in the community. If you are staying in Atlanta and are unsure of what your plans might be this year, consider spending your time with one of the dozens of organizations looking for volunteers this week! You can find many of these opportunities here.
4. Have difficult conversations. Public health and epidemiology have become increasingly common topics in the news over the past few years. You may have family members who are suddenly experts in COVID conspiracy theories or share other absurd health-related opinions. Do your best to stay patient when these topics are brought up, and try to understand where their opinions come from. As public health students, this will not be the last time we will have to have these frustrating conversations in our lives, so it is best to be patient and get used to conversations like these. Address any misinformation they have and provide scientific evidence to support your statements. You can find more tips for navigating these difficult conversations here.

Maximizing Your Civic Engagement This Election Season

You have probably been hearing about tomorrow’s upcoming election for months on end from various student organizations, community members, family, and friends. Civic engagement is a very important part of public health, and it is vital that we engage positively with our community here during our time at Emory. The day has finally almost arrived, so here are some resources you can use to maximize your positive impact on the community even if you are not a registered voter here in Atlanta.

1. Learn more about the election here. Make sure you know what issues are on the ballot this year, and become familiar with the candidates that you would like to vote for. It is never too late to start researching these topics so you can make the most informed decisions possible. You can also find your polling place, view a sample ballot, or check the status of a mail-in ballot all in the same portal. Make sure to read through this information ahead of time so everything goes smoothly tomorrow!
2. Make a plan to vote in person. If you haven’t voted yet and you are eligible to vote in Georgia, find a time to get to your polling place tomorrow to cast your vote. If you have already voted or are not eligible to vote in Georgia, help out your friends and neighbors who need a ride to their polling place. Make plans to carpool or walk together, or help them 
3. Volunteer with Rollins-Teer Service Day. Classes will be held asynchronously tomorrow, so you may use your extra free time during the day to volunteer at various organizations around Atlanta. This is a great way to engage with the community, especially if you aren’t eligible to vote. Search your inbox for reminders of these volunteer opportunities! 
4. Register to vote for a potential run-off election. A runoff election may occur if no candidate wins the required majority of votes. This election would take place on December 6 in Georgia. If you missed the registration deadline for tomorrow’s election, it is still not too late to register to vote in the runoff. You have until the end of day today (11/7) to register in person or mail in the registration form found here.

Reorganizing your life during the busy semester

Do you feel overwhelmed with schoolwork and other responsibilities right now? For many students, balancing midterms, work, volunteering, and personal responsibilities can be incredibly overwhelming at times.  It can be hard to balance everything you have to do during this busy time of year. However, developing a few key strategies to manage your time can significantly reduce this stress, leading to better academic outcomes and personal health and wellness. Here are a few tips to help you manage your time this week:

1. Plan ahead and stay organized. Create a schedule for yourself and stick to it. This can be a rough weekly schedule, or a detailed and specific daily routine written each day. Establishing these patterns in our work can help us be more productive in the long run.
2. Know your strengths. If you know that you do not perform well under pressure, make sure to schedule enough time to work on something before a deadline. Leave yourself enough time to ask for help or work with others. If you know that you do perform well under pressure, you can take advantage of this while still giving yourself enough time to produce your best work. Not everyone has the same strengths, so don’t feel bad if your work habits don’t match up to your peers! Establishing your own checkpoints with hard deadlines within a task can help you play to your own strengths.
3. Take advantage of short periods of free time. You don’t always have to accomplish large tasks every day. Using five minutes of time each day to complete small parts of a large project will still help you reach your goal, and you will appreciate the time you save in the long run when you are finally able to sit down and focus on the large task at hand. 
4. Make to-do lists. It is important to have a visual reminder of the work you need to do. In addition to this, checking off boxes on a to-do list is always satisfying and can provide you the sense of accomplishment you need to keep going.
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. No matter how well you manage your time, there will always only be 24 hours in a day. Sometimes you will have to prioritize the most important tasks in your routine and delegate the rest to others. It is important to set boundaries and let people know when they are taking advantage of your time or overburdening you with responsibilities. 
6. Take care of yourself. There is nothing better you can do for yourself than making sure you stay safe and healthy while working on a task. This can mean taking breaks to go on refreshing walks or getting coffee, or even doing your remote work in natural spaces like a park or your backyard. Remember, it doesn’t do you any good to overwork yourself, and you are capable of accomplishing everything you need to do this week!

Reaching Your Goals: A Mid-Semester Check-In

By: Veronika Laird

As the hot summer finally begins to transition to a cooler fall, many of us start to feel the weight of the semester on our shoulders. We’ve taken midterms, some of us are digging deep into our theses, finally getting used to a new job, or just trying to make it to Thanksgiving break. While midsemester can be stressful, it’s also a time to think about how strong you want to finish the year. It’s a good time to check-in with yourself and set goals for how you want this chapter of the school year to end.

              We’ll soon be receiving midterm grades and other forms of constructive criticism which can help us set achievable goals for the next two months before winter break. Creating goals for yourself not only helps you measure your progress, but they 1) hold you accountable and 2) provide you a “destination”.

              It’s safe to say that many Rollins students are tenacious and driven, but don’t we all want to do well in our classes and jobs? Maybe even exceed expectations? Who is in control of that? YOU.  But first, we have to set realistic, short-term goals and keep ourselves accountable for trying to achieve them. I think this happens easily when we think about the “final destination”.  This semester a goal I set for myself is to finish writing components of my thesis manuscript. In the beginning this seemed daunting. I would often and still do close my eyes when I think about this goal, and I imagine the final product or “final destination”. For me I see a word document filled with citations, tables and figures, and my name at the very top. This strategy is very helpful to mentally think about your end goal and then start taking steps to achieving it.

              To start taking steps toward achieving your goal, you must make a plan. First, you want to do small tasks that lead up to achieving your short-term goal–accomplishments don’t happen overnight. Second, you must make time to work on these tasks and create time in your calendar for them. Thirdly, we touched on how important accountability is and it’s important to check-in with yourself or a friend who also knows the goal you are working towards. This creates time to celebrate your achievement or reflect on why you may not have reached your end goal. Finally, it’s okay if you didn’t complete your goal–we can all grow from our disappointments. What is important is to find where you may have let yourself down and understand how that can be remedied for next time.

              Lastly, a key component to following-through on your goals is knowing yourself. What motivates you to get out of bed every morning and come to class or work? Remember that you didn’t have to choose this career. You didn’t have to come to graduate school. Why did you? If you remind yourself of your “why” each time you are working towards your dreams and goals, it can help you push through the hard times. Don’t forget that there’s always support along the way from your peers and faculty. You have nothing to lose, so reach for the stars.

Veronika is a Second-Year MPH student in the Global Epidemiology Program interested in researching zoonotic diseases. She studied integrative biology with a minor in chemistry and global health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in their honors program.

Featured Image by Ronnie Overgoor on Unsplash

This post was originally published on October 17, 2021. 

Civic Engagement Resources and Tips from REDI

Written by: Rollins Election Day Initiative (REDI) student representatives 

One reason that many voters, especially young voters, list for not turning out to vote is a feeling like “their vote doesn’t matter.” After all, when races are determined by tens of thousands of votes, why would one vote make a difference? While that may feel like the case in non-swing states and less competitive elections, Georgia is currently in two of the closest and most competitive federal election races nation-wide and has been a major player in federal and state politics for the past several races. The last midterm season, 2018, saw the closest gubernatorial election in Georgia in sixty years and those same two candidates are facing off again this midterm season (Brian Kemp (R), Stacy Abrams (D)). Moreover, we are also hosting the nail-biting senate race against incumbent Raphael Warnock (D) and challenger Herschel Walker (R). There’s a lot going on!

Voting is an integral step in the epidemiology cycle. The incredible evidence that our community contributes to understanding the determinants of health can be actioned by voting for state and local candidates that will fight for policies that we hope will better the health of our community. 

The reality is that it is not easy to vote, especially in Georgia, so REDI is determined to help make the process as easy as possible for our community. If you would like easy access to ballot information as well as information on your polling place or voter registration, swing by one of the Rolins Election Day Initiative (REDI) tables in the next couple of weeks.  Additionally, while voting is definitely the most important way to participate in an election, it is not the only way to be involved in civic engagement. Leading up to November 8th, we will be posting volunteer opportunities on how you can be more involved during this election cycle and during Rollins Day On, so follow us on Instagram at @emory.REDI !

Here are some resources: 

Q) When is the deadline to register to vote in Georgia? 

October 11th! So swing by a REDI voter drive table over the next few weeks to apply for an absentee or register in GA!

Q) I’m already registered to vote in another state, can I register to vote in Georgia?

Yes! While you may not vote in multiple states, you may be registered to vote in multiple states.

Q) I just moved to Georgia for school- am I eligible to vote in Georgia?

Yes!  If you are an in-person student at Emory, even if you have an out-of-state ID, you are eligible to vote in Georgia (you just have to register). 

If you have a Georgia driver’s license or state ID, you can register online:

Registertovote.sos.ga.gov

If you do not have a Georgia ID, you can use to link below to fill out your information online but you must print the completed registration, sign and date the application and deliver it by mail or in person to your local county registrar’s office.https://registertovote.sos.ga.gov/GAOLVR/welcome.do#no-back-button

Q) How do I check / update my Georgia voter registration? 

• Go to mvp.sos.ga.gov and enter your name, birthdate and county 
•  Make any updates to your info registertovote.sos.ga.gov by October 11 
•  Contact your elections.sos.ga.gov if you have trouble.

Q) What’s on the ballot this year? 

Enter your address and find out what your specific ballot measures are: https://branch.vote/

Good Habits to Develop at the Start of Your Semester

Written by Kaylan Ware

After being away from your studies for the summer, it can be difficult to reestablish a routine that works for you. Incorporating daily practices that boost your mood and productivity early in the semester can increase your chances of developing good habits. Start by considering what’s important to you this school year, then try using these strategies to improve your productivity, balance, and well-being. 

1. Set intentions. Identify your values and goals this year. This does not have to be school related. Let’s say you want to learn a new skill or spend more time with friends. Decide on actionable steps to attain your intentions and reinforce your intentions daily by reflecting on them. It helps to write your intentions down and place them somewhere you’re likely to look. 

Here’s an example of an intention: “This school year, I want to engage in at least three co- curricular activities.”

2. Set daily goals. Either in the morning or the night before, reflect on all you want to get done in your day. Make a list and check items off as you complete them. Include smaller tasks like washing clothes and larger, more time-consuming tasks like finishing a presentation for class. This helps you maintain a realistic schedule for your day, giving you an idea of the amount of time you will dedicate to certain tasks and how much free time you may have.
3. Make sleep a priority. A poor sleep schedule can affect your mood, ability to cope with stress, your ability to concentrate and more. To begin prioritizing sleep, it would help to establish a regular sleep schedule and create a bedtime routine. Consider what your busiest day looks like and think about how many hours of sleep you’d like to get. Aim for 7-9 hours if possible. Having a bedtime routine may include showering, reading a book or meditating. Your routine can help relax your body and mind before bed. Be sure to limit screen time, too!
4. Practice mindfulness. There are so many ways to practice mindfulness. Deep breathing, yoga, coloring, and journaling are all activities where mindful strategies are present. Mindfulness activities can help increase emotional awareness and decrease stress and anxiety. Add mindful moments throughout your week by focusing on your breath, observing your thoughts, listening actively, and observing your surroundings using all five senses. 
5. Take a break. It can be overwhelming to consider pausing when you have assignments piling up and due dates approaching, but it is important to utilize breaks to rest and take care of yourself to enhance focus and performance. Build breaks into your schedule to rest and reset so you can tackle your next tasks reenergized. If you need help deciding what to do during a 30-second break or even an hour-long break, visit Campus Life’s Take a Break webpage for inspiration and resources.

Remember to be intentional about incorporating these strategies and practices into your everyday life. Sometimes it can be difficult to stick with an activity long enough to make it a habit. Try finding an accountability partner – a friend, classmate, or mentor – that will check-in and help motivate you to achieve your goals. 

Also, check out the Office of Health Promotion’s Instagram page (@EmoryOHP) for wellness tips and programs!

Kaylan Ware is a 2^nd year Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences student at Rollins with interests in health communication, health equity, and chronic disease prevention. She works as the Health Communications Graduate Assistant in Emory’s Office of Health Promotion.

How to Find a Mentor

Whether you’re mentoring someone yourself or have found someone to mentor you, there is so much to gain from the mentor-mentee relationship. In the past, we’ve talked about the benefits of mentoring others, and experiences with being a mentee. But oftentimes it can be difficult to find a mentor. In an ideal world finding a mentor is effortless—your professor takes you under their wing and gives you advice and recommendations, or your boss at work takes the time to really invest in your professional development. Unfortunately, this isn’t always how it plays out in real life, especially if, like me, you’re a little less outgoing. Finding a mentor isn’t only a requirement to complete your thesis. Having someone to pose professional questions to or help you get your foot in the door with certain jobs or activities can sometimes make or break how our lives and careers play out. Here are some of the steps you can take to aid in your search for a mentor:

1. Figure out what your goals are. If you’re looking for someone to guide you into the world of biostatistics, having a mentor in the global health department might not be what you need. Getting different perspectives can be beneficial, but its up to you to decide what works for you. You’ll never find the mentor you need if you don’t know what that is. Get clear on what your personal and professional goals are, so you can articulate this to others and identify people who can help you get to where you want to be. Beyond setting professional goals, however, you also need to decide the type of mentoring relationship you want.
2. Find the people who can help. Whether it actually is your boss or professor, or it’s someone you’ve never met, the first step is to identify who has the skills and experience to mentor you in the way you want.
3. Find the people who want to help. Just because you’ve found the perfect person to mentor you, doesn’t mean they have the time or energy to do so. If they aren’t responsive to your interest in connecting, it might be best to move on to someone who reciprocates your energy. The best mentor is a present one.
4. Reach out and establish a relationship. Try sending an email explaining who you are, why you’re interested in connecting with them (their research, career background, similar personal backgrounds), and asking if they would be open to a short meeting with you to ask them questions. Make sure you come prepared to this meeting with a handful of questions to keep the conversation going. Check out this article on informational interviewing if you need a refresher on how to do that. After the meeting send a follow-up message thanking them for their time and asking if they would be open to meetings in the future for you to continue to ask them for advice or questions.
5. Be respectful and responsive. Keep in mind that your mentor has their own life and career. Respect their boundaries. Also do what you can to make mentoring you as easy as possible. Respond to them promptly and keep them in the loop about your life. Make sure to let them know you value their ideas and express gratitude for the time and energy they put into mentoring you. This will help you continue the relationship into the future. Ensuring they feel appreciated will also encourage them to continue helping you whenever they can.

Remember, you deserve a good mentor as much as your mentor deserves a good mentee. Find the people who care about and respect you and do the same for them. Our mentors will likely change throughout our lives and careers, so knowing how to build these connections will be useful both here at Rollins and decades into the future.

Featured Image by Daniel Lerman on Unsplash

This post was originally published on March 27, 2022.

How to Introduce Yourself

Welcome to the Department of Epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health! To returning students, we are delighted to have you back! Returning MPH and MSPH students have a busy and exciting year ahead, culminating with commencement only nine months from now. Entering MPH and MSPH students also have a busy year, as you begin to gain the knowledge, skills, and philosophy needed to be influential public health practitioners. Our department staff and faculty welcome you all and look forward to doing all we can to make the year a success!

For new students, this might be your first introduction to the PROspective column. This short column appears each week and provides some sort of tip or encouragement on honing your career skills. According to this site: 

“career skills are the abilities that enable you to do your job and to manage your career. These are over and above the skills and technical knowledge you need to perform the tasks that are part of your job.”

The site categorizes career skills into three groups: communication, operating style, and career development. The University of Colorado provides a nice summary of 10 essential career skills needed for career success.

Career skills are as important a determinant of your career success as the knowledge, skills and philosophy that you learn in the classroom, but career skills are seldom included in the formal curriculum. To meet this gap, our department provides this column as a weekly reminder of their importance and to help students prepare for their careers after Rollins. Take some time over the coming months to browse the PROspective archive.

Since we are in the midst of meeting one another, today’s career skill focuses on the task of introducing yourself. You will be doing a lot of this over the next weeks, as new students meet one another and meet their course instructors. This Harvard Business Review article suggests a three-step process. Say something about your present self, your past, and your future aspirations. None of the three parts needs to be long, but this simple formula gives the person you are meeting a good idea about who you are, why you are here, and what you aspire to do. Like every career skill, practice is the key. Try out introducing yourself at home to a mirror; you’ll be ready the next time you are asked to introduce yourself in person.

4 Skills I’ve Learned at RSPH

Now that I’m (finally!) almost done with my MPH, I’ve been reflecting on some of the skills and knowledge I’ve gained since starting the program. When I first got to Rollins a year and a half ago, I had no idea what to expect from this program. I chose public health, and epidemiology, for a reason, but I still didn’t know what concrete skills I would gain that I didn’t already have or couldn’t get from a job. I guess that goes to show that we really don’t know what we don’t know. I was blown away by how much we learned in the first semester alone. I started to recognize just how crucial this knowledge is for a competent public health worker to have. As we begin to start our careers, and perhaps face a bit of imposter syndrome, I thought I’d share some of the most useful skills I’ve learned here at Rollins, as a reminder of how far we’ve come.

1. How to critically analyze and understand scientific research. Despite studying STEM in undergrad, I could not have told you what a p-value was two years ago. That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised at how thoroughly we were taught how to interpret research findings. Regardless of if we conduct our own research studies or not, understanding how to interpret the results of research and what a well-conducted research study consists of are incredibly important for us to make informed decisions regarding the public’s health, or provide relevant advice to the general public.
2. How to write at an academic level. Contrary to my role of running this blog, I’ve always considered writing to be one of my weakest points. The numerous papers, critiques, and peer reviews we’ve done in our classes have helped me significantly improve my academic writing. I’ve sadly found that despite my intentions of pursuing science to avoid writing, this is a necessary skill I’ll need for almost any career I pursue in the future. If all of the tools you’ve gained from your classes still don’t feel enough, writing a thesis or capstone will definitely make you more confident in your own writing abilities.
3. How to code in SAS and R. I still need my notes every time I use one of these programs, but this is something I almost certainly could not have taught myself. Even when faced with coding we haven’t learned in our classes, I feel more confident that I will be able to grasp new concepts, having mastered the basics already. I don’t know about you, but I’m planning to keep those EPI 534 notes for life.
4. How to utilize science to effect social and political change. Learning about some of the logistics of how policy change happens has made it clearer how research can be translated into actual improvements in public health.

There are countless many other things that RSPH has taught me, both hard and soft skills, but these are a handful that make me feel most confident in my abilities. Whether you’re about to start your public health career, preparing for graduate or professional school, or are only just beginning your journey at RSPH, remember that you are here for a reason! Rollins has given us the tools we need to succeed, now it’s up to us to use them!

Featured Image by Christin Hume on Unsplash

This post was originally published on March 20, 2022 by Alex Whicker