Practicum

This week I started my practicum at Health Iowa at the University of Iowa Student Health Service. My main project is created a series of videos for health behaviors in college students. Since I found other people's proposals extremely helpful in finding a practicum and writing my own proposal I am posting it here. I plan to keep updating through the summer on my progress.

Project Title: Encouraging healthy behaviors in college students through technology

Organization: Health Iowa

                        Student Health Service/University of Iowa

                        Iowa City, IA 52242

Preceptor:      Tanya Villhauer

                        Associate Director for Education

Issue: The 2011 National College Health Assessment Survey found that just over half (55.2%) of University of Iowa undergraduate students meet the physical activity recommendations of the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Heart Association. Additionally, only 3.6% of undergraduate students eat the recommended 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily. ¹

Objectives:

·         Create a series of videos aimed at healthy behaviors in a college setting (i.e. exercises that can be done in a dorm room).

§  Review data on University of Iowa students’ health behaviors and choose topics to create videos on

§  Determine how each topic will be addressed (e.g. physical activity may be addressed by exercises that can be done in a dorm room)

§  Write a script for videos

§  Record and edit videos

§  Publish videos on Health Iowa’s YouTube channel

·         Explore social media and other outlets that college students use to promote and disseminate the videos created.

§  Complete a literature review on how college students social media use and what other student college health services or health education organizations are using for social media

§  Choose a develop a social media presence to promote the videos

·         Assist in Summer Orientation by staffing the Information Fair and talking with parents/incoming students about Student Health/Health Iowa services. Participate in other health promotion activities occurring at Health Iowa.

Public Health Competencies

Social and Behavioral Sciences

College students have a unique set of social and environmental challenges, often due to living situations and student culture. This project is based on health behavior education and the social and environmental factors particular to the college student population.

Health Policy and Management

In creating and promoting these videos I will be using marketing principles to determine how to best reach my audience and which elements of the behavior are pertinent to include in the videos. Additionally, in working with other people at Health Iowa I will be learning about the principles of program planning, development, budgeting, management, and evaluation.

Communication and Informatics

Communication and informatics will be important in creating videos, both for the communication included in them and while creating them and the technology used to create and disseminate them. Also, through working with various professionals at Health Iowa I will need good communication skills.

Leadership

Leadership will be used throughout many aspects of this project. It will be most prominent in working at the Information Fairs for incoming students and working with the other interns at Health Iowa and allow opportunities to engage in public health leadership goals.

Professionalism

Professionalism will be shown through all aspects of this project including while working with other health promotion professionals, interns, and college students.

Program Planning

Program planning skills will be needed to determine which behavioral and social factors to target in the videos. They will also be used to plan and create the videos and how they will be promoted to college students.

IRB Approval

No IRB approval is needed as no human subject research is involved.

Time Frame

This project will take place from May-July 2012

References

Health Iowa. 2011. The National College Health Assessment Survey: Spring 2011. Retrieved from http://www.studenthealth.uiowa.edu/wellness/health-iowa-data

Semester Wrap-up

Another semester in the books. Before I get too deep into my week of celebration I wanted to write a quick post. Don't worry, I took a nap and checked twitter before I came back to work on this.
Honestly, this has been one of the best semesters in my life-grad or undergrad. This semester I really grew into my own as a student and a public health professional. I practice "fake it until you make it." I haven't necessarily been faking it in the sense that I haven't done things, but I have certainly faked my confidence. This semester I finally felt confident in my ability to read, write, synthesize ideas, and work as a professional. It's a great feeling and it has me really excited to get to work on my practicum soon.
I have a couple friends considering the MPH program and my response is that I wouldn't trade these two years for anything. I realize that it's probably not the right program for everyone, but it was a perfect fit for me. I love the subject, I loved my classes, and I love the people in the department. I have said that I will never look at people the same way again. I will never look at a "frequent-flier" on the psych unit and blame them for not understanding that taking meds is a necessity to staying healthy. I now look at all the other factors involved--can they afford their prescriptions, do they have the ability to go to follow-up appointments, do they know how to take all their meds?
Technically, I'm here for another semester as I will be doing my practicum this summer, but I still wanted to show some appreciation to the program that has helped me grow so much.