Gillings students build local public health connections through new Partnership Hubs

August 23, 2024

By Ethan Chupp, UNC Gillings School Communications Fellow  

The UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health’s new Public Health Partnership Hubs allow students to turn their classwork into real-world change.  

Beginning in 2023, the Partnership Hubs represent a model for long-term collaborative partnership with local North Carolina communities. Located in Cumberland, Durham, Halifax and Jackson Counties, the hubs span the state’s diverse geography. Through these Hubs, the Gillings School aims to embed students, faculty and staff to work alongside community members to achieve their desired community outcomes. This summer, four Master of Public Health (MPH) students completed their practicums through three of the hubs at county public health departments. Their projects are wide-ranging, from tracking opioid overdose reversals to creating data briefs for community health improvement plans. 

Ryan Bostic, right, works on his laptop.

Ryan Bostic worked with the Jackson County Department of Public Health, consolidating Narcan opioid reversal data into an innovative mapping tool that tracks overdoses and successful reversals. The hubs allow students to link their public health interests with professional experience. 

“It was my background in statistics and my interest in substance use that brought me to public health,” said Bostic, an MPH student from the Gillings/UNC-Asheville Place-Based Health concentration. “And here, I’m not just an intern, I’m kind of treated as a peer.” 

The opioid crisis has strained the resources of rural counties like Jackson. One overdose call may require as many as 10 responders from the police department, fire department and emergency medical services. Bostic is hopeful that this project can show that the availability of Narcan has driven down the number of overdose calls in Jackson County and the number of personnel needed to respond.  

“If Narcan is saving the county money, that can help even more people get behind it,” said Ryan.  

Albert Chow also worked with the public health department in Jackson County, on a communications campaign focused on suicide prevention. Like Bostic, the practice hub helped him bring his public health interests into practice. The first part of this campaign was a survey of first responders in the county to gauge interest in local suicide prevention training.

Albert Chow restocks the Sylva Support Stop.

“This project came from my experience training as an EMT, seeing how mental health emergencies get treated. Some calls required more debriefing than others and would benefit from a more cohesive, integrated response across the department,” said Chow, an MPH student from the Gillings/UNC-Asheville Place-Based Health concentration.  

Chow also developed communication materials for county residents influenced by the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. The campaign hopes to inform the public about mental health resources available in Jackson County. Chow discussed drawing on the experience of other counties, including neighboring Haywood County. Through the practice hub, Chow has been impressed with the collaborations central to public health.  

“Nobody operates on their own, because together we’re much more successful in the outcomes that we hope to achieve,” said Chow. 

Amber Helton

Amber Helton worked with the Cumberland-Fayetteville Opioid Response Team (C-FORT) adapting a guide on resources and services for adolescents. Minors can sometimes have trouble accessing treatment options, including medication-assisted treatment. Helton’s work will help the adolescents and their families understand what resources are available for opioid treatment.  

“The opioid epidemic is one of my main public health interests, along with child health work,” said Helton, an MPH student in maternal and child health. “This has been a great mix between those two areas.” 

While at the Cumberland County Department of Public Health, Helton was involved with other projects supporting maternal and child health. The department has set up a store where parents can earn “baby bucks” by attending outreach events and educational programs. These “baby bucks” can then be spent on baby items in the store. This approach incentivizes participation in health education and outreach events, provides necessary supplies to new parents, and fosters community engagement. 

Cumberland County currently partners with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for lab testing. The hub builds on that partnership to help bring faculty expertise to strengthen the health department’s initiatives. Practicum students bring valuable perspectives and expertise. 

“It’s not just sitting there and listening all the time, I’m able to contribute and provide input. I think being able to bring a fresh perspective into the health department is definitely helpful,” said Helton.

Kevin Yu

Kevin Yu worked at the Durham County Department of Public Health (DCoDPH), with the Partnership for Healthy Durham. One of Yu’s project was to create data briefs for each health priority identified from the 2023 community health assessment (CHA) to help guide the committees and strategize for the 2024 community health improvement plan (CHIP). The hubs allow students to work deeply in the community, and these data briefs draw on data from community outreach.

“It has surprised me how much value they put on community input and getting Durham residents to come out and be a part of the collaboration. The committee chairs are people who live in Durham and want to help make their county better. All our listening sessions are in mom-and-pop shops and little cafes around the city,” said Yu.

Participants share ideas during a DCoDPH Listening Session.

At the practice hubs, students can find real-world applications for their interests that began in the classroom. Yu, an MPH student in the nutrition concentration, joined projects in the DCoDPH’s nutrition department to work on outreach for food recovery efforts in Chapel Hill and Durham, and grant funding for food access programs, like Double Bucks. Yu hopes to carry this experience forward to a public health career in food recovery or food waste, interested in both policy and interventions. 

The Durham County Department of Public Health will see another Gillings School student begin working in the fall. Asher Zhang will join the Durham Master Aging Plan, drawing on his practicum work this summer at the Tsao Foundation in Singapore.  

“I took a global-to-local seminar my first semester, and I grew really infatuated with the idea of learning from public health systems in other countries and then applying their ideas to a completely different cultural context to build over gaps in the American system.” 

Aging and demographic change will be major public health issues over the next several decades. Singapore has more robust planning than many American cities like Durham. These plans range from healthcare access, and the caregiving workforce to transportation, housing, and natural disaster planning. Zhang plans to draw on existing systems in Durham and use information from Singapore’s efforts to build up systems of care that work for Durham. 

For example, the Tsao Foundation’s work is focused on social and psychological well-being, a domain that is mostly absent from the Durham Master Aging Plan for 2025. Zhang’s project hopes to learn from Singapore to broaden Durham’s assessment strategy. This approach will help translate local needs into multifaceted public health programs. 

Zhang is also working on the Health Caregiver Project at the Tsao Foundation. Singapore relies on more familial caregivers than the US, and he is conducting qualitative interviews with current caregivers to understand their experiences, relationships, and needs. 

This planned project represents the potential versatility of the hubs. The hubs offer opportunities not just to students, but to the communities themselves. Durham County is drawing on the resources of the Gillings School and its students to expand and improve its services. The partnership hubs plan to build on the summer practicums throughout the school year. The school hopes to grow the hubs to work directly with community organizations in each county.  

The Gillings School is making a five-to-ten-year commitment to each of these hub locations to help them make the sustainable changes they care about. With this ongoing commitment, the School can help communities take something from concept to implementation to evaluation and to improvement with sequential student practicum projects and faculty technical assistance.

Dr. John Wiesman

“Being the number one public school of public health in a state that ranks 32nd in terms of health makes this initiative particularly important. Gillings School students, faculty and staff can be a helpful resource in our own backyard. Improving community health and giving our students hands-on experience is a win-win, and we hope these experiences will entice our students to work here long-term,” said John Wiesman, associate dean for practice at the Gillings School, whose team spearheaded the creation of the partnership hubs.

The partnership hubs are relatively new. As these partnerships build, more students will explore their interests and test out future careers. The hubs will continue to build long-standing relationships between the Gillings School and health departments statewide, driving positive change in public health practice. 

Contact the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health communications team at sphcomm@unc.edu.