Dear Colleagues:

In a previous Dean’s Note, Dean Galea and I suggested that our school can contribute meaningfully to the efforts of those whose core work involves improving the health of the public. We outlined the components of an activist practice agenda and put forward a charge, a call to action. The Activist Lab is the result of that directive and challenge; it represents a dynamic way to operationalize public health practice. Our collective task, as public health professionals, is to use our knowledge, skills, and passion to ensure that all people have the potential to live healthy and productive lives.

The Activist Lab plays a lead role in that task, serving as a catalyst between the school and the community. The Activist Lab engages with partners in model programs; drives policy and system improvements that lead to positive changes in the conditions for health; and inspires public health leadership within the school and community. The Activist Lab is at the forefront of our “Do” part of our core purpose: Think. Teach. Do. For the Health of all.

As such, the three main objectives of the Activist Lab are to Educate by creating university learning and workforce training programs to develop and maintain a skilled public health workforce, Innovate by engaging local partners to find effective solutions to challenging urban public health issues, and Advocate by championing smart, enduring policies that improve public health.

During the past year, the Activist Lab worked to execute these three main objectives within three principal areas: the reduction of gun violence; the improvement of the health of people living in urban centers; and support of workforce infrastructure, including providing training for public health practitioners and efforts to regionalize the provision of public health services in Massachusetts.

We are not just about thinking about issues; we are about taking a stand and acting. Here is just a small sample of the programming that has taken place in the last year:

EDUCATE

Gun Violence 101: MPH student and Activist Fellow Oscar Garduno facilitated a conversation on guns and gun violence among faculty and students. He invited the three panelists from the Activist Lab Gun Violence Collaborative—Professor Michael Siegel, Associate Professor Ziming Xuan, and Senior Program Manager for Urban Action Initiatives Kerry Dunnell—to share their thoughts and research projects on the issue. These presentations were followed by a group discussion of the following two questions: What do you need to know about the growing gun violence crisis in America, and what should we as a school do to address this issue?

SHIELD: The Activist Lab has been home to two major state and federally funded training centers to develop and deliver training programs to governmental public health practitioners. This year, we also received funding from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to direct the School Health Institute for Education and Leadership Development (SHIELD), which is responsible for the development and delivery of high-quality continuing education programs to approximately 2,400 school nurses throughout the Commonwealth. We will help this important group to learn not only basic skills needed by school nurses, but also leadership skills to allow them to develop team approaches to addressing the health of schoolchildren across Massachusetts.

INNOVATE

Water Squad: We know that people challenged with addiction, mental health concerns, and homelessness have great need for programs and activities that will provide long-term solutions for their problems. We also know that they should be treated with dignity and respect as human beings with basic needs and concerns. As we work with partners to find ways to improve their situations and their health, we chose to provide a small service last summer. Five days a week from June through September, teams of SPH students, staff, and faculty volunteered to distribute two cases of water each day to those who spend their time on the corner of Albany Street and Massachusetts Avenue. This activity afforded members of the SPH community an opportunity to talk with and listen to people they usually walk by while going from one building to another. Debriefs held with volunteers at the end of the summer revealed that the experience had a profound effect on many, making their commitment to public health even stronger and more personal.

Blackstone Community Center Spring Break Challenge: Students from SPH, Social Work, Dental Medicine, and Sargent College worked as a team and competed to build a prize-winning, community-based assessment project in one week. The objective of the challenge is to give public health students the opportunity to work as a professional public health consultant with the Blackstone Community Center and Lenox-Camden Housing Development. To achieve this, each team sought input from public housing residents and other community members on the best ways to remove barriers to using the services at the Blackstone Community Center. The final product of the challenge included recommendations to increase engagement in neighborhood health and wellness programs. Student participants presented their reports to a panel of BU deans and community leaders. The directors of Blackstone Community Center intend to address the recommendations made by our students as they plan for the future.

ADVOCATE

Advocacy Boot Camp: Each semester, the Activist Lab hosts a day-long interactive workshop for students to learn the purpose and skills of advocacy. In the past, we have used a policy to reduce gun violence as a case study. This April, students learned and applied the skills of advocacy, focusing on a policy to urge Congress to continue global health funding for AIDS relief. Students learn the fundamentals of building and sustaining partnerships and coalitions, how to frame an issue, to develop and implement a strategic action plan, and how to communicate effectively with decision-makers. As with previous boot camps, students express deep appreciation for the opportunity to learn important skills they will need to be effective public health change agents.

Regionalization: Faculty and staff in the Activist Lab have been actively working with public health partners for many years through the “MA Public Health Regionalization Project” to strengthen the Massachusetts public health system by creating a sustainable, regional system for equitable delivery of local public health services across the Commonwealth. Thanks to those efforts, in August 2016, the Massachusetts Legislature established the Special Commission on Local and Regional Public Health. The commission’s charge is to assess the effectiveness and efficiency of municipal and regional public health systems and to make recommendations regarding how to strengthen the delivery of public health services and preventive measures. The Activist Lab, including one of our activist fellows, MPH student Elizabeth Doyle, is providing assistance to the Office of Local and Regional Health (OLRH), Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), which is charged with overseeing the commission.

The response to our many specific events and activities has been overwhelmingly supportive and encouraging from both members of the SPH community and the larger community which we aim to serve. As we reflect on our past year and plan for the future, we have learned three primary lessons:

  1. As important as our specific activities have been, it is essential that we integrate the goals and actions of the Activist Lab into the work of the School—the interests and activities of the faculty and staff, as well as the required curriculum of the students.
  2. We believe that it is imperative that all MPH graduates have working knowledge and skills allowing them to be effective advocates for public health change. Advocacy skills must be incorporated into the education of all our students. The Activist Lab is working with the Education Office to identify ways that this can best be accomplished.
  3. Members of our SPH community have passion! We recognize that there is already much advocacy work being accomplished by faculty, staff, and students across the School. We celebrate that. The lab is committed to providing an outlet and an avenue to harness and focus that passion.

Next year, the Activist Lab will further our efforts to educate, innovate, and advocate about gun violence, urban life, and workforce infrastructure. We are planning new and exciting structured events (“hack-a-thons”) for students to explore these major issues that have a profound impact on the health of communities. We have just scratched the surface of the limitless capacity of our school community, the local Boston community, and beyond to step up and act for those who need it most—the overlooked and vulnerable.

I will be presenting on the work of the Activist Lab at this week’s School Assembly. I look forward to engaging our entire school community in our work going forward.

Warm regards,

Harold Cox
Associate Dean for Public Health Practice
Twitter: @haroldcoxsph

 

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