Field immersions are an integral part of the Harvard DrPH Program. The Program seeks to ensure that students gain practical experience in public health while collaborating with senior public health practitioners and leaders. This complements academic coursework and helps develop and demonstrate advanced foundational knowledge and leadership competencies in a real-world setting. The curriculum includes two periods of field immersion and experiential learning over the course of the Program:

Winter and Spring Year 1: Team-based (3 weeks full time in January, reduced hours in Spring 1)
Summer Year 2: Individual (8-10 weeks)

Team-Based Field Immersion

The purpose of the Team-Based Field Immersion experience is for students to exercise leadership, collective problem solving, systems thinking and teamwork skills toward completion of project deliverables co-developed with staff at the host organization. The immersion takes place in the Boston area over the January and Spring 1 terms in Year 1 of the program. The DrPH program supports transportation costs for this local immersion experience.

Host Organizations and Projects

Institute for Healthcare Improvement, Latin America Region

The DrPH student team worked with IHI’s Latin America Region team to harvest evidence-based practices to be used in the development of a quality improvement change package for diabetes prevention and care. Students developed and deployed a survey and conducted interviews with hospital administrators and providers in Mexico and Ecuador to better understand current diabetes care delivery best practices as well as barriers, challenges and facilitators to diabetes care delivery, with a focus on early identification. Findings and recommendations from the student team were presented to IHI staff for integration into the next innovation cycle and pilot effort.

McLean Hospital, Division of Women's Mental Health

McLean Hospital’s Division of Women’s Mental Health was interested in developing a platform and approach to disseminate information to the public about the symptoms, assessment, and treatment of trauma spectrum and dissociative disorders, which are often misunderstood and undertreated. The DrPH student team worked with Division staff to develop an interview guide and conducted over 20 interviews with stakeholders including clinicians, researchers, administrators as well as individuals living with dissociative disorders. A member of the student team participated alongside McLean staff on a panel discussion at the Infinite Mind Conference in Orlando. FL. Synthesis of interview data and landscape analysis of similar public health education campaigns informed the set of recommendations around messaging and channels for distribution by key stakeholder groups.

Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council

Mental health and substance use challenge disproportionately affect the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. In September 2018, the tribe was awarded a Tribal Opioid Response (TOR) grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to address high rates of substance abuse in the tribal community. The “360 Project” focuses on treatment, prevention, and promotion of tribal culture. In support of the 360 Project, the DrPH student team collaborated with the Tribal Council to develop and implement a community needs assessment to inform program and service efforts. The student team interviewed key stakeholders such as tribal leaders and members and had the opportunity to mentor and train tribal college students in implementing a community survey.

Summer Field Immersion

The purpose of Summer Field Immersion is for students to concentrate on developing new competencies and advancing existing skills while addressing a public health issue or challenge that is of personal interest. This full time, 8-10 week experience between May-August is arranged between the student and their host organization. It can be in the form of a fellowship, internship or consultancy. Summer Immersion takes place in the summer between first and second year of the DrPH Program.

The program shares the responsibility with students for identifying organizational partners interested in hosting doctoral students for summer field immersion. The educational experience requires students to research potential sites, network with public health agencies/organizations, and arrange meetings or calls to design opportunities that advance their own individual learning goals. Students are not funded by the program for this experience but are encouraged to seek compensation from their host organization or funding from other sources.

Host Organizations and Projects

Summer 2020

Organization	Project Title
Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health	World Bank Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility Case
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation	African Health Markets for Equity Project
Rhode Island Health and Human Services	The Rhode Island Health Transformation Project
Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights	Impact of Covid 19 on Homeless and Substance Use Disorder Populations
The Rippel Foundation	Analyzing How to Change Large Institutions and Systems from the Outside Through the Practice of Culture Change
Harvard Ministerial Leadership Program	Generating Actionable Strategies to Improve the Quality of Antenatal Care Service in Public Health Facilities in Zambia
AIDS Healthcare Foundation Global Public Health Institute	A Qualitative Assessment of the Back in Care Program and Retention Strategies across US clinics of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation

Summer 2019

Organization	Location	Project Title
The Birthplace Lab	Vancouver, Canada	Improving Evidence Based Tools for Quality and Safety in Normal Birth: Developing Content Validation for Community-Based Questionnaires
Swasth Foundation	Mumbai, India	Review and Recommendations for the Quality Improvement and Monitoring Systems at Swasth Foundation Clinics in Mumbai and Ahmedabad, India
Centre for Chronic Disease Control	New Delhi, India	Developing Teaching Material on Environmental Health in India
PATH	Seattle, WA	Strengthening Global Human Milk Banking
Livable Streets Alliance (with Environmental Fellows Program at University of MI)	Cambridge, MA	Accountability for Go Boston 2030 and Improving Metro Boston’s Transportation System
Women Lead	Kathmandu, Nepal	Strengthening the Grassroots to National Level Advocacy Pipeline for Improved Women’s Health in Nepal
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation	Seattle, WA	Gender Equality, Family Planning, and Universal Health Care: A Global Synthesis of Linkages to Identify Critical Opportunities for Adolescent Girls and Young Women
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation	Seattle, WA	Polio Eradication Endgame: Surveillance Enhancement and Vaccine Choices
Bush School of Government and Public service, Texas A & M University	Texas, Louisiana, and Alabama	Addressing Neglected Tropical Diseases in the American South

Summer 2018

Organization	Location	Project Title
UMass Memorial	Worcester, MA	UMass Memorial’s Anchor Mission
Intermountain Healthcare	Salt Lake City, UT	Social Determinants of Health Demonstrations
HSPH and Alfanar	Boston, MA	Social Enterprises in Primary Care
Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA	Boston, MA	Business Consulting Group (projects to be assigned)
PAHO	Washington, DC	Methodology for Measuring Health Systems Resilience
Denver Mayor’s Office	Denver, CO	Increased Wellness for Denver City Employees (Bloomberg Fellowship)
UMass Memorial	Worcester, MA	First Stage Implementation of Anchor Mission
Branchfood	Boston, MA	Boston Food Innovation Ecosystem Report
Pfizer	New York, NY	Assessing Global Barriers to Optimal Prevenar-13 Vaccine Delivery, Access, and Uptake
WHO	Geneva, SUI	Analysis of Health Systems Inefficiencies
Global Fund	Geneva, SUI	Scaling Up Programs to remove human rights-related barriers to health services in 20 countries and beyond.
Gates Foundation	Seattle, WA	Agriculture Development Technology
Harvard China Health Partnership, HSPH	Guiyang, China Boston, MA	The Analysis and Evaluation of an Innovative Management Company that Aims to Increase Public Hospital Efficiency in Southwest China
City of Boston Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics and Office of Food Access	Boston, MA	Weekend Food Access for Youth in Boston (Rappaport Public Policy Summer Fellowship)
World Bank/Center for Global Development	Ghana	Impact of Frontline Health Workers on Health Systems Strengthening in the SDG Era
WHO	Geneva, SUI	The GLOSS Maternal Sepsis Study
Save the Children	Malmo and Lund, Sweden	Save the Children’s Livskonceptet Programs in Two Swedish Cities: A participatory study for program improvement
Harvard China Health Partnership, HSPH	Beijing, China	Developing a case study on China’s cooperation with the World Health Organization

Summer 2017

Organization Name	Location	Project Title
The Analysis Group	Boston, MA	Quantitative Analysis of Clinical Trial Data and Dashboard Development
Ariadne Labs at Harvard T.H. Chan School	Boston, MA	Quality Measurement in Serious Illness Communication
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation	Seattle, WA	Evidence and Innovation for the Family Planning Strategy
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation	Seattle, WA	Telling a Meaningful Story: Developing Evidence-Based Impact Investing
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation	Seattle, WA	Advancing Capacity-Building in Non-Sewered Sanitation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation	Seattle, WA	Pandemics Preparedness Strategy Development
The District Office of Sen. Kamala Harris (CA)	Los Angeles, CA	Fostering constituent and stakeholder engagement in federal and state policy
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy (MIRA) Coalition	Boston, MA	Accessibility and Utilization of Health Care Services by Immigrant Women: A Needs Assessment in Greater Boston
The Global Fund	Geneva, Switzerland	Increasing Investment in and Documenting the Health Impacts of Programs to Reduce Human Rights Barriers to Services.
Harvard T.H. Chan School Department of Health Policy Management	Boston, MA	Engineering High Reliability Learning Lab at Mount Auburn Hospital, Cambridge, MA
Intermountain Healthcare	Salt Lake City, UT	Capacity Building Around a Multi-Sector Public Health Strategy for Adolescent Suicide Prevention in Utah
IZUMI Foundation	Boston, MA	Preparing for IZUMI Foundation’s Funding Strategy Review: Gathering Perspectives from Global Health Funders and Sub-Saharan NGO Partners
The Lancet Commission	Boston, MA	The Lancet Global Health Commission on High Quality Health Systems in the SDG Era
MASS Design Group	Boston, MA	Enterprise Communities: Affordable Housing Design Leadership Institute
Mississippi State Department of Health Office of Health Equity	Jackson, MS	Laying the groundwork for a public health infrastructure for health equity in Mississippi by generating a report and forming a taskforce

For Host Organizations

Hosting Harvard DrPH students is mutually beneficial for the student and organization. The investment in the leadership expansion of the public health workforce not only contributes significantly to the success of the Host Organization but also to the public health arena overall. DrPH students are seasoned professionals who can:

Expand and contribute to the mission of your organization
Lead the measurement of key business outcomes and design strategies for improvement
Assess the impact of health systems on population health outcomes
Develop training tools to meet the specific need of an organization
Develop financial or business plans for a new program or service

We seek long-term collaboration with a broad range of international and domestic organizations and individuals who are leaders in their field and invested in the development of public health professionals. Host organizations can expect DrPH students to contribute to high-impact projects around organizational capacity, service delivery, and consumer and public health outcomes. Organizations can be from the public or private sector, based in the US or abroad.

If you have any questions about the program or a potential partnering opportunity, please contact Jocelyn Chu, Associate Director of the DrPH Program at jcchu@hsph.harvard.edu.