Presenter: Christine Kim, Public Health Science, Global Public Health Scholars
For my Scholars practicum, I interned at Public Health Beyond Borders Inc, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that aims to address health needs in their partnering communities. As a health communications intern, I largely worked on developing educational health toolkits to deliver to our partner communities. My other responsibilities also included conducting informational interviews and creating weekly global health news posts. Most notably, my work focused on evaluating past and current health toolkits for efficient, quality program interventions. In public health, interventions are the most effective when they are aligned with the values and health goals of the specific target community and directly involve community members as key stakeholders. Evaluating and adjusting toolkits to be more culturally sensitive and applicable to our partner communities increases the likelihood of an effective and sustainable health program. Ultimately, my greatest takeaway was the need to emphasize the importance of evaluations in future programs. Evaluations are often overlooked but they are truly one of the greatest ways to ensure interventions are able to fully serve the demonstrated needs of a community for years to come.