MPH Field Experience Symposium

On August 11, the Department of Population Health held its Master of Public Health Field Experience Symposium. Four students gave presentations that afternoon in a session moderated by Alex Adams, MD, PhD who worked over the past year with Department of Family Medicine mentors. Students and their projects with DFM mentors include:

• Elizabeth Oftedahl conducted a project collecting Maternal and Child Health Indicators for the Great Lakes Intertribal Council. She drafted a report that included national and state data and information collected directly from the Tribes in the Bemidji Indian Health Service (HIS) area of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin. The information will be used as a baseline for MCH indicators and for future policy and planning. Her Department of Family Medicine mentor was Alex Adams MD, PhD.
  
  
• Suzanne Gaulocher worked with a multidisciplinary network of researchers and clinicians using participatory strategies for addressing health disparities between and within communities. The study worked to better understand the South Madison neighborhood in relation to health issues through the eyes of young people living there using:
  • Participatory observations
  • Walk-along interviews and geographic information systems technology (GIS)
  • Maps
  • Aerial photographs
  • GIS software
  • Youth photography in conjunction with interview data

  These results will be shared with the community. Suzanne worked with David Brown, PhD and Alex Adams, MD, PhD of the Department of Family Medicine.

• Mala Mathur's project involved the promotion of developmental screening within a patient's medical home for the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Her Department of Family Medicine mentor was Bill Schwab, MD.
  
  
• Nancy Pandhi, MD worked with a core University of Wisconsin Medical Foundation workgroup which applied for a Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services demonstration project to improve the quality and efficiency of the health care system. Nancy studied the individual, organizational and system factors that resulted in this major health care system's decision to participate in the CMS 646 demonstration project. She worked with Maureen Smith, MD and John Frey, MD.