Capstone projects (Fall, 2012)
November 07, 2012
Training students, benefiting communities

Phoebe Goldberg, Marcia Perritt, Laura Major, Rebecca Woodruff and Hannah Prentice-Dunn (l-r) won a state planning award for their Capstone work.
“Health Behavior (HB) Capstone projects focus students on achieving real-world changes while taking part in mentored service and learning opportunities,” says Megan Ellenson Landfried, MPH, manager of the department’s Master of Public Health program. “Each project strengthens partnerships between UNC and local communities.”
The projects are as varied and complex as the teams of HB Master of Public Health candidates who apply their education, experience and passion to make the projects happen. For an entire academic year, teams of four or five students develop or improve public health programs, services and resources by collaborating with a dozen community organizations. Competition from nonprofit groups applying to become Capstone partners is fierce, Landfried reports.
Capstone projects in North Carolina have contributed to Orange County’s Master Aging Plan, El Pueblo Inc.’s adolescent reproductive health curriculum, the Northern Orange Partnership for Alcohol and Drug-Free Youth’s Social Norms marketing campaign materials and North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s statewide primary prevention plan for intimate partner violence.
— JB Shelton
Carolina Public Health is a publication of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health. To view previous issues, please visit https://sph.unc.edu/cphm/cph/