Presenter: Claudia Bosques, Public Health Science, Global Public Health Scholars
For my practicum, I worked as an undergraduate research assistant at the UMD School of Public Health Behavioral and Community Health department. I worked for the Woodlawn project as an interviewer. I was responsible for recruiting participants and scheduling interviews with them. Interviews were conducted on the phone and lasted about 90 minutes. The interview asked questions about health, community involvement, aging, and social relationships, among other things. The public health connection for my practicum is that the data I collected through these interviews will be analyzed by the Woodlawn Project researchers to examine protective and risk factors for successful aging among Black Americans. While the data for this round of interviews will not be analyzed until all interviews are completed, the results of our research will ultimately inform public health policy and practice with the development of intervention programs. The ultimate goal of the Woodlawn Project is to improve health and life outcomes for African Americans in the Woodlawn area by conducting longitudinal research on this cohort. In addition, the Woodlawn Project provides data on an underrepresented group of African Americans, thus ensuring that more information about this community is made available for public health officials. This experience allowed me to learn a great deal about how behavioral research is conducted, as well as the difficulties associated with working with human subjects. Most importantly, I learned that I really enjoy engaging in this type of research and have actually decided to continue doing research here at UMD for the next two years. After talking about how public health research works in colloquium for so long, my practicum gave me the opportunity to engage in public health research first-hand. This experience has been very eye opening, as it allowed me to explore new career options and form professional connections with more professors here at UMD.