Jean Appolon and the Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE) education team leading a Haitian Folkloric dance class at a JAE 2022 partner site, Kalalu-Danza in the Dominican Republic
The HPRC team is excited to share this reflection on all our successes in 2023. From highlighting our research in a poster for APHA’s Annual Meeting to re-releasing the CHOICES National Action Kit 2.0 with a variety of new data and information to collaborating with a local contemporary dance company to enhance their staff’s research skills to hosting the 11th cohort of emerging health leaders, this year was full of accomplishments for our team! Read on to learn more about our 2023 highlights, presented within the four key areas in which our Center is focused. Learn more about our Center aims here.
Collaborate with Partners to Identify Evidence-Based Interventions
APHA Poster Highlights Cost-Effective Solutions to Prevent Chronic Disease in Boston, MA
Mary Bovenzi, Director of the Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Division at the Boston Public Health Commission, presenting a poster at the 2023 American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting in November
At the 2023 American Public Health Association’s Annual Meeting in November, Mary Bovenzi, Director of the Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Division at the Boston Public Health Commission, presented a poster highlighting key findings from the first three years of our partnership through the Massachusetts-CHOICES project.
The poster emphasized the critical role of resource allocation in addressing chronic diseases, a challenge that many health departments face. The BPHC and HPRC CHOICES teams applied a cost-effectiveness analysis framework to model the potential outcomes of various policies and programs to improve child health over a 10-year period. These projections demonstrated significant impact, reaching between 3,320 to 29,400 children per strategy over 10 years, with an average annual cost ranging from $7.60 to $540 per child. Additionally, all projected policies and programs were deemed cost-effective, with a potential to improve health equity by reaching those with the greatest needs for improved nutrition and physical activity.[1],[2],[3],[4],[5]
Through this project, the BPHC team strengthened partnerships with state and local organizations, including early education and care programs, public schools, and afterschool programs. The use of cost-effectiveness analysis allowed the BPHC team to align its goals with available resources, prioritizing strategies that are both effective and equitable. Using cost-effectiveness analysis is crucial for prioritizing prevention policies and programs that offer good value for money, ultimately creating healthier and more equitable communities.
2023 Accomplishments for the Massachusetts-CHOICES Project
This year, the HPRC team completed the fourth year of its core research project, the Massachusetts-CHOICES Project, which collaborates with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC) to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of strategies to promote healthy eating, active living, prevent excess weight gain, and improve health equity. Year 4 focused on disseminating project findings to key audiences to inform future project planning and prioritization.
The HPRC team initiated Year 5 of this project – the final year – which is focused on translation of this work, and also published three briefs from the project this year:
We are looking forward to this final year of collaboration with both the BPHC and MDPH teams!
References
[1] Bovenzi M, Carter S, Sabir M, Bolton A, Barrett J, Reiner J, and Cradock AL. Boston, MA: Reducing Screen Time in Early Child Care Settings {Issue Brief}. Boston Public Health Commission and the CHOICES Learning Collaborative Partnership at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA; October 2023.
[2] Bovenzi M, Carter S, Sabir M, Bolton A, Barrett J, Reiner J, Cradock AL. Boston, MA: More Movement Program in Early Child Care Settings {Issue Brief}. Boston Public Health Commission and the CHOICES Learning Collaborative Partnership at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA; October 2023.
[3] Carter S, Bovenzi M, Sabir M, Bolton AA, Reiner JR, Barrett JL, Cradock AL, Gortmaker SL. Boston, MA: Home Visits to Reduce Screen Time {Issue Brief}. Boston Public Health Commission, Boston, MA, and the CHOICES Learning Collaborative Partnership at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA; February 2023.
[4] Carter J, Greene J, Neeraja S, Bovenzi M, Sabir M, Carter S, Bolton AA, Barrett JL, Reiner JR, Cradock AL. Boston, MA: Movement Breaks in the Classroom {Issue Brief}. Boston Public Schools, Boston Public Health Commission, and the CHOICES Learning Collaborative Partnership at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA; August 2022.
[5] Carter S, Bovenzi M, Clarke J, Bolton AA, Reiner JF, Barrett JL, Cradock AL. Boston, MA: Creating Healthier Afterschool Environments (OSNAP) {Issue Brief}. Boston Public Health Commission, Massachusetts, and the CHOICES Learning Collaborative Partnership at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA; July 2023.
Promote Healthy Weight, Nutrition, Physical Activity, & Health Equity
Guide Planning & Prioritization to Invest Responsibly in Policies & Programs to Improve Child Health Using the CHOICES National Action Kit 2.0 One of our key accomplishments in 2023 was the release of the CHOICES National Action Kit 2.0, a tool for exploring and comparing effective strategies to improve child health.
The HPRC CHOICES team was thrilled to announce the launch of the second iteration of this tool, marking a significant evolution from its original release in 2019. This new version not only includes more policies and programs for comparison, but also offers more detailed projections of national population reach, health impact, implementation costs, and cost-effectiveness. Notably, this updated version provides intricate insights into the costs of individual strategies and offers a deeper understanding of their potential effects on health equity.
As part of this re-release, we’ve now made several reports available that describe the projected national population reach, impact on health and health equity, implementation costs, and cost-effectiveness for each strategy. These reports are accessible both with the Kit itself and via the CHOICES Resource Library. Browse the reports here!
Investing responsibly matters now more than ever – and the CHOICES National Action Kit 2.0 is a timely resource to guide planning and prioritization of cost-effective policies and programs that have strong evidence that they can make a difference in promoting healthy weight, nutrition, physical activity, and health equity. The data and insights available through this tool can equip decision-makers with comprehensive information to ensure judicious investments.
Supporting Jean Appolon Expressions’ Fusion of Dance and Wellbeing
Jean Appolon and the Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE) education team leading a Haitian Folkloric dance class at a JAE 2022 partner site, Kalalu-Danza in the Dominican Republic
The HPRC strives to meet the needs of our community partners and the people they serve. Over the past few years, we’ve been offering one-on-one technical assistance to support planning, evaluation, communications, and grant writing activities focused on nutrition and physical activity topics.
This past spring, the HPRC team began a partnership with staff at Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE), a contemporary dance company that is deeply rooted in Haitian-folkloric culture that celebrates, nurtures, and empowers a global community. Thanks to an introduction through HPRC Community Advisory Board co-chair, Nineequa Blanding, HPRC team members Bekka Lee, Kamini Mallick, Stephanie McCulloch, and Raffi Pontes (SBS MPH ’23) partnered with JAE staff to conduct a literature review to explore evidence demonstrating the health benefits of dance in addition to developing a survey to collect data from dancers on physical and mental impacts they experience from dance.
The partnership also yielded the development of guidance for mapping the relationships between dancers and using Photovoice. Photovoice is a method using images to bring light to a specific issue and empowers participants to be involved in the solution-building process in their own communities. JAE staff fielded the survey, relationship mapping, and Photovoice methods at the JAE Summer Dance Institutes (SDI) in Haiti and the Dominican Republic in Summer 2023. The aim of this process was to amplify the profound impact of the program on students’ mental and physical health. Findings will be included in the organization’s annual report and future fundraising campaigns. This fall, two JAE staff members, Bisi Xotyeni and Tammi Fedestin, joined our 2023 cohort of Leaders in Health where they learned to situate these evaluation methods in the broader context of public health.
We look forward to continuing to support other community organizations in the future!
New Resources This year, we published a variety of new resources, tools, and peer-reviewed publications that align with our Center’s Priority Areas.
Refreshed OSNAP.org Website
The Out-of-School Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative (OSNAP) is an evidence-based initiative that helps out-of-school time programs improve policies and practices to help kids move more and eat healthier snacks. This year, we refreshed the look, feel, and functionality of the OSNAP website to better support afterschool leaders who are looking for resources and training materials to assess and improve the quality of their programs.
The CHOICES Project offers a variety of resources and tools to support planning and prioritization of evidence-based, cost-effective policies and programs to help kids move more and eat healthy. With this new library, users can now search more easily for resources by filtering by resource type, setting, and topic area. You can also login to the CHOICES Community of Practice online portal or register to join to access exclusive Community of Practice resources.
Build Capacity for Conducting Community-Engaged Research
Celebrating the 11th Leaders in Health 2023 Cohort This fall, we held the 11th cohort of participants representing a broad range of organizations from throughout the state of Massachusetts.
This fall, we hosted the 11th cohort of Leaders in Health, our community training program that helps build the capacity of our community partners by providing participants with an introduction to public health, including the fundamentals of community-based participatory research and program design and evaluation. Nine participants from throughout the state of Massachusetts joined, representing organizations that focus on a range of topics, including oral health, mental health, nutrition and physical activity, and others. The program took place from September through November, spanning eight weeks, featuring a hybrid approach of virtual and in-person learning sessions. Learn more about our Leaders in Health program here!
Leaders in Health Alumnus on GBH’s All Things Considered
A member of the 11th cohort of Leaders in Health and founder of PureSpark, Nieisha Deed, recently spoke with GBH’s All Things Considered host Judie Yuill about her personal experiences with mental health care and fostering better care and mental wellness within the Black community.
PureSpark is committed to tackling disparities in mental health care within the Greater Boston area and pioneered the state’s inaugural wellness directory tailored for Black individuals. Through this week, Nieisha’s mission is to reduce stigma around seeking mental health support and empower individuals to develop coping mechanisms.
Five Questions with Leaders in Health Alumni We’re excited to regularly feature Leaders in Health alumni both in our quarterly updates and on the Leaders in Health page to highlight the successes that they accomplished in their cohort and beyond in their daily work.
Adriana Tejada
Health Communications Manager at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health | MPH Candidate at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health
Adriana participated in the 2021 Leaders in Health Cohort and answered five questions about her experience and what she’s up to now.
Five Questions with Adriana Tejada
1. What drew you to participate in the Leaders in Health program?
“I was at the very beginning of my career in Public Health when a colleague of mine reposted a LinkedIn post made by Dr. Lee regarding the Leaders in Health program. I was looking for ways to expand my knowledge in public health and apply what I was doing in my current role (at that time I was a communications coordinator) to some critical public health frameworks. LIH fit the bill entirely! Not only was it being run by fantastic staff within the prestigious Harvard University, but it also had a wonderful curriculum and a great sense of community. The alumni network of previous LIH scholars sealed the deal for me as I understood that many of them were in successful roles in public health that I deeply admired.”
2. What was your Leaders in Health project about?
“My Leaders in Health project was about increasing school breakfast participation in middle school settings. It was titled ‘Feeding the Future’ and I had applied my experiences working with NH Hunger Solutions, a nonprofit with the mission to end hunger in New Hampshire. I focused on a lot of evidence-based practice when it came to choosing an intervention for the project. Breakfast beyond the bell is an evidence-based practice known to increase school breakfast participation, which has many cognitive benefits for school age children in learning. The completion of my LIH project helped me strategize for projects I was dealing with at work regarding free and reduced meal applications and increasing SNAP enrollment in low-income communities in the Granite state.”
3. What was your favorite part of participating in Leaders in Health?
“My favorite part was re-learning about the Community Based Participatory Research approach. Although I had learned it in undergrad, being able to apply it was a whole different ball game. I understood it in a way that allowed me to recognize the importance of community engagement. Additionally, I really enjoyed interacting with my peers in the LIH program. They all brought such different breadths of knowledge that allowed me to feel like I was a part of something larger than just LIH. The last session involved us piecing together what we had learned on the Harvard Public Health framework and do a virtual presentation on our projects to the cohort. It was so fun to finally be able to visualize everything my peers were working on and I was truly blown away!”
4. What are you up to now? Any plans for the future?
“Currently, I am a Health Communications Manager at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, specifically the Bureau of Health Care Safety and Quality. I work with many media outlets daily to ensure that the correct information about long-term care facilities is shared with the public. I also help maintain the Mass.gov web pages that belong to our bureau and update them on a weekly basis. Additionally, I do various administrative tasks, including making PowerPoint for our monthly bureau all-staff meeting, editing data briefs from our quality improvement team, and writing talking points for the Commissioner’s office. In my one year in this position, I have learned so much, but I yearn for that sense of community once again. That feeling got me into public health in the first place. I am also halfway through my online Master of Public Health program at the University of Michigan. I chose the concentration on health behavior and health education because I wanted to learn about how the promotion of health can provoke behavior change. I am passionate about nutrition, health communications, minority health, and maternal and child health. Upon graduating in 2024, I hope to start branching out and looking for more growth opportunities, whether a new role, fellowship, or joining a new service-oriented group.
In the coming years, I see myself with a more public-facing job that allows me to interact with members of the community I am trying to serve. That could be within DPH or outside of DPH, but I am always on the lookout for opportunities to enhance my skill set that aligns with my career goals. In October, I was one of the David A. Winston Health Policy Scholarship recipients. I got the chance to fly out to Washington, D.C., and chat with some key players in health policy on the Hill. I left that experience excited for the future of health policy and health communications. I can see myself in D.C. one day, but I love my life in Massachusetts, so it would be a difficult decision!”
5. What advice would you share to those who might be interested in applying for a future Leaders in Health cohort?
“I would say my biggest advice would be to ‘just do it’! I’m taking the Nike brand’s slogan for my advice, because honestly it was exactly what I needed to hear when I was thinking of applying. Public health careers are built on learning, networking, and connection. That is what LIH is all about! Leaders in Health is something that almost all of my interviewers asked me about when I was looking for work, and I was always so stoked to talk about my wonderful experience. Lastly, I would say that it is important not to let your imposter syndrome keep you from applying or engaging in the program. Your experience is valuable and your voice needs to be heard!”
