Student Opportunities

Capstone/Practicum

MPH Practicum and/or Capstone Projects: Medication Storage Campaign Formative Work -- July 2019

The current opioid epidemic is exacerbated by a persistent problem: most Americans do not safely store and dispose of their prescription pain medications, as confirmed by our prior survey research. Our team will be completing these activities over the next academic year:

1) review of the peer-reviewed and grey literature to identify existing poison prevention and medication storage and disposal behavior change programs/campaigns, including existing storage solutions and demographic profiles of individuals harmed by unintentional ingestions;
2) talk with representatives of existing or recent programs/campaigns;
3) conduct key informant interviews with parents/caretakers who have had a young person in their family harmed by either intentional or unintentional ingestion of prescription medications;
4) create draft themes, concepts, and messages for a communication campaign; and
5) conduct online focus groups with parents/caretakers of children and teens to critique the themes and concepts. The overall result of this formative work will be a set of 3-4 message themes and concepts, along with draft messages for each.

Have you conducted literature reviews or environmental scans?  Do you have marketing experience or want to gain it?  Have you created ads for Facebook or want to learn how to do so?  Have you run online focus groups or want experience doing so? Have you conducted key informant interviews or want to gain experience doing them? If you have these skills or want to develop them, consider joining our team.  Interested students should send a CV/resume along with a paragraph describing why they are interested in this opportunity to the faculty contact: Eileen McDonald (emcdona1@jhu.edu).

Research Assistant Positions 

Faculty and staff at the Center often have research assistant positions (some of which may be work study positions) available for students. Please contact the faculty or staff member listed with the specific project for more information.

• Road Safety and Injury Prevention Research Assistant
  Assistant will be primarily involved in data management, proposal writing and manuscript preparation for several research projects. Primary duties include literature searches; brief summary reports from the literature with guidance from the investigator; collating and organizing data for research manuscripts; preparing tables, figures and references; formatting research manuscripts for submission to specific journals; performing basic data management and calculations using computerized database and spreadsheet software; reviewing data for accuracy and completeness; and assisting with data cleaning and data quality review and control, as well as maintaining and organizing study files. The pay scale is $16–25 per hour, depending on experience. To apply, contact Johnathon Ehsani and state your interest and qualifications.
• Communications Assistant
  Do you have or want to gain experience with social media postings, media alerts and creating translation and dissemination materials? If so, contact Eileen McDonald to explore this opportunity.
• Child Injury Safety Educator
  Would you like to develop your injury prevention patient education skills? Do you have available time Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m.? If yes, contact Eileen McDonald for more information.

Scholarships and Fellowships

• The Susan P. Baker Scholarship
  Provides support for an outstanding doctoral student at the School who has demonstrated great promise to make significant contributions to the field of injury prevention and control. 

• The Susan and Timothy Baker Fund in Injury Control
  Supports doctoral students interested in studying ways to reduce injuries by focusing on improving safety through designing safer products and environments.

• The William Haddon Jr. Fellowship in Injury Prevention
  Provides tuition and stipend support for an outstanding doctoral student in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

• The Richard E. Hoffman, MD, MPH Endowed Scholarship for Injury Prevention
  Supports students interested in studying injury prevention, epidemiology, control, and policy within the Department of Health Policy and Management.

• The Nancy A. Robertson Scholarship in Injury Prevention 
  Supports exceptional doctoral students specializing in injury prevention in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

For more information on funding opportunities, contact Jon Vernick. 

Training Grants

• Occupational Injury Epidemiology and Prevention
  Students supported by this training grant take courses in injury epidemiology, occupational safety, quantitative and qualitative research methods, prevention policy, and behavioral and social sciences. Funding from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health  (NIOSH) helps support tuition and stipend for eligible doctoral students.
• Interdisciplinary Fellowship in Violence Research
  The goal of this doctoral and postdoctoral fellowship is to train individuals to study the causes and prevention of violence and its physical, reproductive, mental and social health consequences, along with research on preventive interventions. Students can matriculate through multiple departments in the schools of Public Health, Medicine and Nursing.

For more information on the NIOSH training grant, contact Keshia Pollack Porter.

Internships

• National Center for Injury Prevention and Control - Summer Internship
  The Center will support one or two JHSPH masters or doctoral students to work on one of five injury and violence projects described below. 
  When: Summer (8 weeks)
  Location: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia
  • Division of Violence Prevention 
    • Mentor: Laura M. Kollar (DVP/REB); Collaborators: Megan Kearns ((DVP/REB), Dawn Fowler (DVP/PPTB – pending approval), Jason Hymer (DIP), Delight Satter and Carmen Clelland (OTASA)
      Branch: Research and Evaluation Branch
      Subject Area: Sexual violence/violence against women
      Tentative Project Title: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Research and Evaluation
      Brief Description of the Project: Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) remains a top issue for AI/AN peoples with a recent Executive Order to address this issue. In an effort to build public health capacity, understanding the issue from the public health perspective is critical. This MMIWG project would work with an intern on relevant MMIWG projects which may include: (1) systematic literature review of MMIWG, (2) reviewing RPE state plans for how they may address MMIWG prevention (pending approval from RPE TL Dawn Fowler), and (3) relevant projects and partnerships in collaboration with OTASA to expose the intern to public health networks and different efforts in the field to address MMIWG.
    • Mentor: Aimee Trudeau/Brad Bartholow
      Branch: Research and Evaluation Branch
      Subject Area: Youth Violence Prevention
      Tentative Project Title: Unmasking Dominant Narratives for Youth Violence Prevention
      Brief Description of the Project: The intern will use Gun Violence Archive data to analyze gun violence and crime incident reports to identify dominant media and cultural narratives about youth, youth violence and youth violence prevention. This analysis will help inform the development of a new narrative for youth violence and prevention, including new frames and messages consistent with values and world views that the Division of Violence Prevention promotes.
  • Division of Opioid Prevention 
    • Mentor: Alison McKnight
      Branch: Field Epidemiology and Prevention Branch
      Subject Area: Opioid/drug overdose prevention
      Tentative Project Title: Drug Free Communities program support
      Brief Description of the Project: CDC is in the early stages of planning for administration of the Drug Free Communities program, which will fund community-based coalitions to strengthen collaborations among communities across the nation to prevent and reduce substance use among youth. The intern will provide assistance in standing up the grant program (new to CDC), such as message framing, strategic planning for coalition activities, and identification of grantee needs for technical assistance.
  • Division of Injury Prevention
    • Mentor: Dionne Williams
      Branch: Data Analytics Branch
      Subject Area: Web-based Injury surveillance system evaluation
      Tentative Project Title: Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS) Modernization User Acceptance Testing Prioritization Project
      Brief Description of the Project: Candidate would lead (under mentor supervision) the User Acceptance Testing (UAT) and backlog analysis of the modernization of the WISQARS platform. Candidate would not only get hands on with the UAT process of the modernized WISQARS platform but provide leadership and guidance in summarizing and prioritizing issues and defects not resolved prior to system go-live.
    • Co-Mentors:  Enjoli Willis and Sally Thigpen
      Branch: Program Implementation and Evaluation Branch
      Subject Area: Program evaluation
      Tentative Project Title: Cross Site Analysis of implementation of the Injury Free Academies
      Brief Description of the Project: Three Core SVIPP states are at varying stages of implementing the Injury Free Academy.  The Academy was developed by the Core SVIPP program in North Carolina in partnership with the ICRC at UNC.  Since its inception, the Academy has been replicated by the Core SVIPP program in LA and is planned for implementation by the Core SVIPP program in CO.  The cross-site study will compare implementation factors, adaptations, and process outcomes across these three states.

For more information, contact Jon Vernick.