Empowering Future Public Health Leaders: How Student Evaluators Gain Unmatched Experience Addressing Community Needs in North Texas

UTHealth Houston School of Public Health offers career-development opportunities, giving students the tools to lead and make a difference in public health. In collaboration with Texas Health Resources, researchers at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health in Dallas support graduate research assistants to engage with communities across North Texas to evaluate the effectiveness of Texas Health Community Impact grants awarded by the health system. Project ENHANCE (Enhancing North Texas Health through Action, Innovation, and Community Evaluation), is the UTHealth Houston evaluation team that positions students at the forefront of community change.

Catherine Oliveros, DrPH, Texas Health’s vice president of community health improvement, believes these students are integral to the program’s success. “Under the program, the Project ENHANCE team assigns graduate students to work with specific Texas Health grantees across North Texas, conducting interviews, collecting information and data, and evaluating each program. Their work allows Texas Health to identify the effectiveness of each grant and whether additional support and resources are needed to improve the grant’s efficiency and outcomes,” Oliveros said. “Having a reputable, third-party evaluator like the School of Public Health provides us with the credible, trusted data that we rely on to help us make the most of our investments in the community.”

In the ENHANCE program, students are given the opportunity to gain real-world applications from their studies, applying what they’ve learned in classrooms to real community impact.

“Our students are involved with every step of the process, beginning with developing the data collection plans. That alone is priceless, but I think what’s also valuable is the real-world application of what they learn in their MPH and doctoral programs. Our students are the individuals the grantees contact if there is a question or issue,” said Rikki Ward, ENHANCE senior program manager. “They’re very connected to the organizations they serve. They’re not just getting data sets and analyzing them. They’re doing everything in between.”

Since 2019, Texas Health has invested over $23 million in Texas Health Community Impact grants, supporting local organizations in developing innovative solutions to foster good health and well-being in underserved and under-resourced communities. The School of Public Health in Dallas has served as the evaluation partner for three grant cycles and is now in its fifth year of collaboration with Texas Health on this initiative.

Graduate students work under the guidance of the school’s ENHANCE Co-Principal Investigators Marlyn Allicock, PhD, MPH, associate professor of health promotion and behavioral sciences, and Bijal Balasubramanian, MBBS, PhD, professor and Rockwell Distinguished Chair in Society and Health in the Department of Epidemiology.

"I see a tremendous opportunity for leadership development,” Balasubramanian said. “Through this project, students are learning key aspects of leadership by serving as the primary point of contact for the community organizations they support. This includes taking initiative and acting as a vital link between the evaluation team and the organizations they assist."

“I believe ENHANCE provides an opportunity to see the complexities of impacting health behaviors, the efforts involved in engaging with communities for health transformations,” said Allicock on the benefits for students in the program. “And importantly, addressing real-world problems isn’t always simple, but requires problem-solving at many levels.”

Crystal Costa, a doctoral graduate research assistant at the school, exemplifies Balasubramanian’s perspective. “Working on this project has enabled me to gain new skills related to project management,” Costa said. “I learned how to delegate team tasks effectively and appropriately, improve stakeholder engagement by opening channels of communication, and I learned how to integrate stakeholder feedback in the evaluation process.” 

Carolina Salmeron, MPH, is a qualitative research assistant for ENHANCE and says her growth through the program is attributed to the hands-on training she received. “I was fortunate to work with Dr. Allicock and Dr. Balasubramanian, who provided ample training to help me prepare for my role. Our biweekly meetings focused on reviewing the interview process, roleplaying scenarios, and debriefing. This kind of support made a tremendous difference in my development and my confidence to perform. I couldn’t get this anywhere else.”

Lauren Malthaner, PhD, MPH, senior research scientist, began working on ENHANCE while pursuing her PhD in public health. “This experience has been a great networking opportunity, enabling me to meet so many people who work in public health in the DFW area, and while that has been a great benefit, working on ENHANCE, helping communities, has strengthened my love for public health,” Malthaner said.

“Texas Health is proud that the investments we’ve made through the years are truly transforming lives, communities, and organizations. Through the ENHANCE program, UTHealth Houston School of Public Health in Dallas and Texas Health are helping to train, prepare, and develop the next generation of public health experts,” said Marsha Ingle, senior director of Community Health Improvement.