Summer Practica Spotlight: India

April 25, 2016

This summer, UNC Gillings students will travel throughout North Carolina and across the world to gain practical experience in their areas of study. Three students will be traveling to India this summer to complete their summer practica, taking their learning to the field.

Aditi Senthilnathan, a junior undergraduate in biostatistics and a Burch fellow, will be interning with Aravind Eye Care System in Maurai, Tamil Nadu. Senthilnathan will conduct a study of young rural women who are hired as eye-care technicians at Aravind and the impact the hirings have upon the women, their families and communities, and the hospital.

To measure the impact, she will observe Aravind’s recruitment process, interview patients and physicians to determine the impact on care quality, and interview the women technicians and their families to understand whether and how they are being empowered by this process. Senthilnathan will gain experience in study design, sampling techniques and data analysis, all of which are skills he has acquired at the Gillings School.

“The experiences I [will] gain through this project will inform my future career and highlight the significance of biostatistics in public health and medicine,” Senthilnathan says.

First-year health behavior master’s student Alexis Hoyt received the Mahatma Gandhi Fellowship to help finance her practica in Bangalore this summer, working with the American Cancer Society and RTI. During her practicum, she will collaborate with clinicians in the Tamil Nadu and Karnataka states of southern India to strengthen stakeholder buy-in for the initiation of an HPV vaccination program in the region. Hoyt will be helping create an educational tool for physicians, which includes facts on HPV vaccination and cervical cancer; an intervention tool for the initiation of an HPV vaccination program at the clinic level; and a process map outlining the steps needed to adapt U.S. tools for use in other countries, based on local needs.

“I hope to gain confidence in implementing the skills I’ve learned in the classroom into real public health settings,” says Hoyt. “Most significantly, I recognize how important it is to have a community-driven approach to public health that engages communities in the shaping and evaluation of these programs.”

Claire Bailey, a second-year master’s and registered dietician student in nutrition, found her practicum through Dr. Peggy Bentley, the Gillings School’s associate dean for global health. Bentley, who is also the Carla Smith Chamblee Distinguished Professor of Global Nutrition,  knew Bailey wanted to work in India for an organization that addresses nutrition and diabetes.

“Dr. Bentley responded to me and copied five other people  on the email for me to contact,” Bailey said. “A UNC Gillings alumna connected me to the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and the Centre for Chronic Disease Control.”

Bailey’s work will help determine the stage of the ‘nutrition transition’ in New Delhi. The nutrition transition is a shift toward a Westernized diet (high in saturated fat and processed sugar and low in fruits, vegetables and fiber) and low physical activity, a transition that ultimately contributes to the global rise in chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular problems. Bailey will validate and administer a questionnaire about food intake to adults living in Delhi and will score the resulting data.

“Not all developing countries have completed the nutrition transition, and it is important to understand how far along the country is before appropriate public health programs can be developed,” Bailey says. “I am looking forward to finally witnessing the public health phenomenon I have been studying in the classroom for two years.”