MCH Student eNewsletter

Congratulate the UMN MCH Class of 2021 with a video hug! Although our graduates will be unable to attend an in-person ceremony, we can still send them off with wise, warm and hope-filled words! To gift a video wish to the UMN MCH Class of 2021, submit here by Saturday, May 1! Your submission will remain a surprise until the video compilation is complete and ready for our graduates. 2021 graduates are welcome and encouraged to submit messages to their cohort, too! Please contact mch@umn.edu for any questions or troubleshooting concerns.

MCH student Aleksey Mason-Bradach had two deployments during her time in the MCH program: one for the Minnesota Department of Health and one for the MN Vision Health Task Force. She focused on improving health inequities for mothers and improving vision health accessibility in the community.

-Read more about Aleksey’s deployments

MCH students Emily Reimer and Delaine Anderson were accepted to present at the MCHB-funded Making Lifelong Connections meeting. Emily’s presentation is on “Implicit Bias and Maternal Outcomes: The Evidence Available for Implicit Bias Training and U.S. Policies that Require Implicit Bias Training.” Delaine’s presentation is “Income Disparities Affect Racial/Ethnic Minority Families in Minnesota.” Congratulations, Emily and Delaine!

Thank you to the MCH students who spent time reviewing, updating data, and making recommendations for our upcoming 2020 Report Card. If you were in the PubH 6630 Foundations of MCH course in Fall 2019 or Fall 2020, and worked on updating these data, please provide us your consent to add your name to our webpage so that we can acknowledge your efforts.

This month’s blog post features Aida Ramon, MPH, and her focus on family-professional relationships in the area of sexual health. Aida researched sexual health practices and policies throughout the US and in her home state of Florida, in order to understand how families can communicate about sexual health. Her goal is to train and empower parents to provide age-appropriate sexual health education at home and empower their children to make healthy choices. The National Blog is co-hosted by the UMN's Center for MCH, and highlights the research and work of trainees affiliated with sister training programs affiliated with the HRSA-funded CoEs or Catalyst programs.

-Read more

If there are any announcements, events or other information that you’d like shared with fellow MCH students, please email mch@umn.edu by Friday, April 23. If time permits, we’ll send out a mid-summer newsletter. Newsletters will otherwise resume in September 2021. Visit eNews archives here.

Are you interested in reading abstracts from previous MCH student’s Masters Projects? You can find them on our website, here!

Thursday, April 15, 2021 | 11:30 AM CST

Online

Join the MCH-LET Mini-Lab in the final event of the Learning Lab Series this year! This event will feature Carol Dreibelbis, a U.S. policy and research analyst, who will help students and professionals to learn about advocacy through storytelling.

-RSVP here

Friday, April 16, 2021 | 9:00 - 10:30 AM CST

Online

The UMN Health Equity Work Group will host Dr. Rachel Hardeman, Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones and Dr. Michael Osterholm for the 2021 Health Disparities Roundtable. This year's roundtable will feature a discussion, moderated by Dr. Jaime Slaughter-Acey, on COVID-19 policy considerations and vaccination strategies through a lens of social justice and structural racism. CE credits are available. Learn more or register directly.

Friday, May 7, 2021 | 7:45 - 9:30 AM CST

Online

The final forum of this series will examine the public health response to environmental health. Participants will ponder together the question, “What can we do better?”

-Register here

Hadija Steen Mills is a MCH student interested in increasing equity in public health resources and education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mills worked to set up a community-focused COVID-19 testing site here in the Twin Cities.

-Learn more about Mills.

Associate Professor Dr. Rachel Hardeman was featured in the New York Times article: “Why Black Women are Rejecting Hospitals in Search of Better Births.” This article highlights the reasons why some mothers are seeking alternative options for birthing in order to experience better birthing outcomes. Dr. Hardeman states, “There’s more of a need for people to be able to cultivate a space that feels good and feels safe for them. There are fewer opportunities to see that happen in a more traditional health care setting, and that’s problematic.”

Dr. Hardeman was also featured in the Star Tribune article: “Finding New Solutions for Racial Health Gaps.” This article focuses on the new Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity and how it will allow researchers to examine health equity in a new way. Instead of working to understand existing barriers and health disparities, the Center will focus on asking, “How do our systems and social structures combine to create the environment for poorer health outcomes?”

Family-professional partnerships at all levels of the system of care ensure the health and wellbeing of children, including those with special health care needs, and their families through respectful family-professional collaboration and shared decision making.

-Learn more

Batey Relief Alliance, an agency serving rural communities known as bateyes in the Dominican Republic, is looking for two students to assist with a formative and process evaluation of a MCH and Women Empowerment Program. Applicants must be Spanish-speaking and fully bilingual, have basic knowledge of survey design and implementation, have knowledge of program evaluation, and implement surveys via online platforms. Please submit your resume and a brief email to Zobeida Bonilla expressing your interest, zbonilla@umn.edu

In collaboration with Assistant Professor Dr. Rebecca Shlafer, this position will direct a 5-year, NICHD-funded, multi-site study of prison-based pregnancy programs. The candidate will have excellent skills in project management, qualitative data collection, written communication skills, health equity, and MCH.

-To apply

CCPH is looking to provide internship opportunities for exceptional students to gain wealthy experience through their efforts to advance work in health disparities and social justice. CCPH is seeking to immediately fill several low to no-pay internship positions. Due to COVID-19, all positions are currently remote. If you are interested in being considered for one of their internship positions please complete the CCPH Consultancy Network Survey. All interested individuals must be current students.

MN Doctors for Health Equity is recruiting a Community Health Initiative (CHI) Intern. Interested interns must be a full-time UMN SPH, School of Social Work, School of Medicine or Nursing student. Students may use these internships to fulfill field and applied learning experience degree requirements. Any interested applicants can email info@mdheq.org to assist with the matching process.

Thursday, April 15, 2021 | 9:10 - 10:00 AM CST

Dr. Jaime Slaughter-Acey and others will give five-minute presentations to highlight their innovative thinking and concrete action to tackle some of the world’s most emerging and persistent public health challenges.

–View the full program

Monday, April 19, 2021 | 8:25 - 10:00 AM CST

Online

As part of the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Conference, this presentation will explore research on the adverse effects of racism on children and persistent racial/ethnic inequities that impact child well-being, including both mental and physical health. Presented by David Williams, PhD, MPH, MA from Harvard University.

Tuesday, May 4, 2021 | 6:00 - 8:00 PM CST

Online

Be recognized for your hard work at this year's virtual Lavender Celebration, the Gender and Sexuality Center (GSC) for Queer and Trans Life annual celebration of all LGBTQIA+ graduates at the UMN-Twin Cities. The GSC also honors outstanding community members through their three awards. Submit your application by April 23, 2021 and check Facebook for more details on the celebration.

Recent acts of terrorism in America have underscored the importance of addressing racism again Asian and Asian-American populations. Consider reading some of these articles and becoming an active member of the community working to fight against Asian-American racism in all forms.

-Stop AAPI Hate National Report

-Racism is Behind anti-Asian American Violence

-Asian Pacific Institute on Gender Based Violence: Trafficking

The Office for Public Engagement has a list of UMN-affiliated resources for students, faculty, staff and community partners to connect with, learn about and build upon collective efforts during and after the Chauvin trial.

The Aurora Center for Advocacy and Education is a free and confidential space for students who are victims/survivors/concerned people of sexual assault, relationship violence, stalking and sexual harassment. The Aurora Center provides support groups, problem-solving options, reporting help, men’s engagement, and prevention engagement among other resources.

-Learn more about Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Find out what’s happening nationally during the week of April 5-11, 2021.

April is National Minority Health Month. Communities can create easy and safe options for physical activity that can help every American be more active where they live, learn, work, and play. The Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH) program is one of the only CDC programs that focuses on reducing chronic disease for specific racial and ethnic groups in urban, rural, and tribal communities with high disease burden across the United States.

April is National SAAM. Everyone has a right to safety in their daily lives–to have their digital and in-person boundaries respected and make choices about what happens to their bodies –at (remote or in-person) home, school, the workplace, and in public places. That sense of well-being and safety can be taken away by knowing that sexual assault, harassment and abuse are common and not always taken seriously. Consider visiting the National Sexual Violence Resource Center for online community prevention, digital consent, boundaries and everyday consent online.

April is recognized as Autism Acceptance Month. In 1970, the Autism Society launched an ongoing nationwide effort to promote autism awareness and assure that all affected by autism are able to achieve the highest quality of life possible. As of 2021, the Autism Awareness Month has changed to Autism Acceptance Month. The Autism Society has a variety of resources designed to inform and encourage communities to celebrate differences, and become more inclusive of individuals with autism. Want to spread the word about Autism Acceptance Month? Check out our updated Autism Acceptance Month QuickGuide.

The aims of the Center include providing continuing professional education in maternal and child health (MCH) and support for students in online and in-person MCH graduate programs at the University of Minnesota. Center and MCH Program faculty are involved in research and training in infant and child health, adolescent health, family health, health disparities, reproductive health, and women's health.

The Center for Leadership Education in Maternal and Child Public Health is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number T76MC00005 for Leadership Education in Maternal and Child Public Health in the amount of $1,725,000. This information or content and conclusions of our outreach products are those of the authors and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.

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