CHANGING PUBLIC HEALTH PERCEPTIONS

BW dedicates efforts to educating and creating tomorrow’s leaders.

For much of its history, public health was primarily thought of as a focus on chronic diseases, a way to help people deal with heart disease, obesity or diabetes, says Emilia Lombardi, Ph.D., chair and associate professor in Baldwin Wallace (BW) University’s Department of Public Health and Prevention Science.

But the pandemic changed people’s perception. Public health and infectious diseases suddenly became top-of-thehour news and on everyone’s mind. We needed answers to how we could prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed, how people could avoid exposure to COVID-19, and how to encourage more vaccinations, according to Lombardi, who has been with BW since 2012.

“What we need now is preparedness — how we can best prepare for these kinds of surprises,” says Lombardi, whose own research also involves preparedness among the LGBTQ community and how members can “face marginalization during times of disasters.”

Public health education has broadened to include teaching individuals to deal with a variety of situations and concerns, including gun violence, active shooter scenarios and drug overdoses, according to Lombardi.

“In public health, we want to understand how things such as economic issues, employment, neighborhoods and communities, as well as access to food and medical care, can shape people’s health,” says Lombardi. “Public health is trying to understand how these larger community activities may have a positive or negative effect on people’s health. Then we can try to make decisions and policies that can benefit people.”

BW’s Department of Public Health and Prevention Science is educating and creating leaders in this growing career field who will take their places in many diverse specialties and locations.

The school’s public health major is one of only three undergraduate public health programs in Ohio. Program concentrations are designed for students who plan careers as physicians/nurses, public health educators/administrators and epidemiologists. U.S. News College Compass lists public health as a top 10 college major leading to employment.

This is the third year for BW as an AmeriCorps host institution. The school will train 12 students and community members in its CHANGE, INC. program that supports public health, according to Laura Hopkins, Ph.D., assistant professor, Public Health and Prevention Science.

“We built our AmeriCorps program with students in mind to give them experiential learning opportunities to address a grave need in Cleveland,” says Hopkins.

Recently, BW received additional grant funding from AmeriCorps to expand part of its public health work and partnerships with northeast Ohio communities to tackle food security and health issues. Established partners include: MetroHealth Institute of H.O.P.E., Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation and MetroWest Community Development Organization. New partners for the fourth year of the program include Cleveland Metropolitan School District, OSU Extension Cuyahoga County, the BW Brain Center for Community Engagement and Greater Cleveland Food Bank.

“Our work with the brain center addresses food insecurity on the college campus, which 22% of college students experience,” says Hopkins,

By

Jill

Sell

also a registered and licensed dietitian nutritionist who trained as a public health nutritionist.

But improving access to quality food and the prevention of nutritional-related diseases is not the only focus of students enrolled in BW’s public health education and AmeriCorps.

“All students are charged with addressing food security, but they each bring their own work and passions. There is a flexibility that allows them to follow what interests them,” says Hopkins.

She points to a former public health BW student from a small, southeast Ohio community and who is now in medical school at Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine. The student’s BW AmeriCorps experience in northeast Ohio allowed her to see the differences and similarities of food security in urban versus rural areas.

“The student said she would become a better physician by seeing a variety of situations,” says Hopkins.