Healthy Generations eNewsletter

This eNewsletter is brought to you by the Center for Leadership Education in Maternal and Child Public Health.

Grace Armon (she/her) is the newest Mini-Lab and Women's Health Report Card Research Assistant (RA) and serves as the MCH Student Group’s outreach coordinator. She is a first-year UMN MCH MPH student and holds a BA in Geography with concentrations in Urban Studies and Community and Global Health from Macalester College. After finishing her undergraduate degree, Grace spent 11 months living in Germany through the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange for Young Professionals program, where she volunteered with a local cancer society and interned with a rural telehealth agency in Jena, Thuringia. Her broad area of interest is place effects on health, especially as it relates to maternal and reproductive health disparities.

Diana Augustin (they/them, she/hers) is a first-year MPH student in the UMN MCH Program, and the Center's newest Reproductive Justice RA. Before attending the UMN, Diana worked as a post-baccalaureate research fellow at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) studying the associations between racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in maternal inflammation and risks of adverse birth outcomes. Diana thoroughly enjoyed the two years spent at the NICHD and was afforded valuable mentorship and training experiences. Diana also has a B.A. in Africana Studies and a minor in Cognitive Science from Carleton College, a beautifully small and quirky school located in Northfield, Minnesota. While at the UMN, Diana hopes to build a stronger skillset in spatial epidemiology and various other methodologies of the population health sciences. Diana's research interests include structural determinants of maternal and child health, early stages of human development, adverse childhood experiences, and geospatial determinants of MCH.

Sarah Vandenbergen (she/her) is the Center's newest Student Liaison RA. She will be organizing and implementing the MCH Skills Leadership Institute Workshops, developing Center student and alumni spotlights, crafting and distributing our monthly MCH Student eNewsletter, and facilitating the work of the MCH Student Interest Group's (MCHIG) Executive Committee by serving as its President. Sarah, a first-year MCH student, obtained her undergraduate degree in Cognitive Behavioral Neuroscience from the College of Wooster. Her academic interests include but are not limited to societal factors that influence stress biology and cause long-term health effects. Outside of class, she can be found playing music - primarily flute, knitting, reading, and spending time outside.

#UMNMCH student Kailee Elizabeth Schaberg (she/her, they/them) (MPH 2024) shares a personal reflection on their experience as a Center-funded Domestic Violence Prevention intern (DVPi) at the Indian Health Board of Minneapolis. “With the current literature, we know AI/AN women disproportionately experience intersectional forms of violence (specifically domestic violence and intimate partner violence) more than any other identity/racial group…” Learn more about how Kailee’s work at the Indian Health Board informed a community-coordinated response to domestic violence.

Madeline Frank (UNC Center of Excellence in MCH Education, Science, and Practice) is the newest author for the Health Equity Edition of MCH Leads, the student-led national MCH trainee blog. In her blog post, Madeline applies MCH Competencies #2 (Self-Reflection) and #12 (Policy) to her work on an environmental scan of substance use-related pre and post-arrest diversion programs in North Carolina. “In reflecting upon my work with family drug treatment courts and diversion programs more broadly, I learned that interdisciplinary collaboration and grounding programs within community context and voices are not just best practice for public health work, but crucial to its success.” Continue reading more about Madeline’s health equity efforts here.

The Center is proud to co-sponsor the following events:

October 12, 2023 | 11:30 AM 1:00 PM CDT

The Bright Spots Mini-Lab supports the growing interest in qualitative and mixed methods research among public health practitioners, students, and researchers. "Learning Lab" sessions provide attendees with an opportunity to learn from and consult with experts on activities that build on the qualitative research skills they’ve learned in classrooms or while at work in their agencies.

Template analysis is a structured approach in which researchers identify major domains covered in a data collection and provide summaries of participant responses for each domain. They then place each summary in a matrix to identify recurring themes under each domain. Here is a list of resources on template analysis that would be worthwhile to explore prior to the event.

In this workshop, attendees will build their understanding of:

1. Recognizing when rapid qualitative methods would be most appropriate

2. Describing the steps of template analysis as a rapid qualitative method

3. Proposing how to use template analysis in one’s own research program

Recent data have revealed dramatic and troubling declines in the mental well-being of children and adolescents over the past decade. However, social indicators of well-being—including housing, income, and food stability; access to education and health care; and high-quality relationships—have improved over the same period. Authors argue that policies that focus on improving these social indicators, while important, may not be as effective as previously thought at directly addressing young people’s mental health needs.

-Read

September 15, 2023 | 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM CDT | Virtual
​​A suicide death can impact individuals, families, and whole communities. Supporting someone who has lost a loved one to suicide can feel challenging, complex, and uncomfortable. It can be hard to know what to say or do. Friends, families, and communities are an important source of safe support and healing after a suicide loss. This panel discussion, provided by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), will cover best practices for supporting someone after a suicide loss and perspectives from a suicide loss survivor.

-Register

September 18, 2023 | 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM CDT | Virtual

At this Health Equity Networks gathering, participants will strengthen their capacity for health equity work by engaging in a process to assess policies and practices using a health equity lens as a way to build more equitable organizational policies and culture. They will also hear how organizations are amplifying health equity efforts while learning from one another.

-Register

September 19, 2023 | 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM CDT | Virtual

United Way of Central Minnesota created the “Navigator” role to establish relationships with providers to connect and provide timely and efficient mental health and suicide care. This event provides participants with the opportunity to learn about what this community approach could look like and hear how this Central Minnesota community brought their local groups together to identify barriers to access to mental health care and what they did to expedite access for those in need of mental health services.

-Register

September 20, 2023 | 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM CDT | Wilder Center and Virtual

In May, the Census Bureau released the second batch of data from the 2020 Census. Now there is data on homeownership rates, age distributions, and household types, including information on same-sex couples. In this session, Matt Schroeder from the Metropolitan Council will give an overview of those characteristics of the region and its communities, with attention to change over time and variation by race and Hispanic/Latino origin.

-Register

September 26, 2023 | 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM CDT | Virtual

Natural Helpers act as “listeners” to their peers through building listening skills and confidence so that they may connect vulnerable peers to trusted adults, or other appropriate resources. With an increased need for mental health services, natural helpers can provide support and skill-building for at-risk groups and enhance accessible crisis services and referral sources. This session, hosted by MDH, will expand on different levels of support, processing, constructive distraction, and problem-solving. It will provide examples of skills in active listening and motivational interviewing to build confidence in connecting individuals at risk to the appropriate resources.

-Register

October 5, 2023 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT | Northeast

October 11, 2023 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT | Metro
October 19, 2023 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT | Northwest
October 31, 2023 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT | Southeast
November 7, 2023 | 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM CDT | Southwest

TBD Central

Achieving health equity is important for all people and requires a systemic approach to making sure that people and communities have access to what they need to be healthy and well. Often people and communities are prevented from being as healthy as they can be by unjust or unfair barriers, and these are called health inequities. Join MDH’s Minnesota Health Equity Networks Regional Gatherings to learn more about what is happening to advance health equity work in communities.

November 8-11, 2023 | In-Person and Virtual | $157 - $325

The 2023 NCFR annual conference will highlight and critically examine the ways in which the current syndemic has and continues to change the lives of families across the globe. In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, communities and nations are also struggling with a variety of social injustices (e.g., racism, gun violence, homophobia, climate change). Together these constitute a syndemic. The conference theme is meant to adopt the forward-looking theme from 1944, and call attention to how families and communities have been and continue to be impacted by what has become a syndemic.

-Register

Heard of MCHB’s Title V MCH Block Grant? Want to learn more? MCHB’s Division of State and Community Health released a video explaining the history, purpose, and administration of the Title V MCH Block Grant. Watch this 7 ½ minute video to understand how this federal-state partnership functions.

Only ~5% of LGBTQIA+ students saw any LGBTQIA+ representation in health classes. This guide from Our Bodies Ourselves Today is for the 95% of students whose many sexual health questions went unanswered in school.

-Read

Presentations should feature community or research projects that use creative strategies, facilitate the collaboration between rural and public health entities, can be replicated, and have an emphasis on educating and developing partnerships. Applications are due by October 10, 2023, at 5:00 PM CDT.

-Apply

September is Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. While suicide prevention is important to address year-round, Suicide Prevention Awareness Month provides a dedicated time for people, organizations, and communities to raise their voices to broadcast the message that suicide can be prevented and healing is possible. This year’s toolkit includes key messages and resources, social media posts, learning opportunities, and ideas for action.

• Folic Acid Awareness Week (September 10-16, 2023)
  

• Infant Mortality Awareness Week in Minnesota (September 10-16, 2023)

• Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs) Awareness Month

• Sickle Cell Disease Awareness Month

• Suicide Prevention Awareness Month

You received this message because you have subscribed to the Healthy Generations listserv. This newsletter is produced monthly by the Center for Leadership Education in Maternal and Child Public Health at the University of Minnesota. Email mch@umn.edu to have your event, resource, or publication included in our eNewsletter.

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