CCHER News and Events
May 4, 2022
The Public Health Equity Young Scholars Summer Enrichment Program
CCHER is pleased to announce the second year of our Public Health Equity Young Scholars Summer Enrichment Program, a public health careers exploration program for rising 7th-10th graders from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Scholars learn from SPHHS faculty and graduate students about public health topics, participate in hands-on research activities, discover career choices, and develop leadership skills. Access the application here!
Public Health Equity Research Scholars
With the generous financial support of the Department of Health Promotion and Policy, CCHER is holding our second year of this program that provides undergraduate students from historically underrepresented backgrounds hands-on mentored experience with individual faculty mentors. Research topics include reproductive justice, community mental health and crisis response, refugee and immigrant health, and opioid use disorder.
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January 10, 2022
CCHER Launched Two Pipeline Programs to Diversify the Public Health Workforce in 2021
In the summer of 2021, CCHER launched the Public Health Equity Summer Enrichment Program, a public health careers exploration program for rising 7th – 10th graders from historically underrepresented backgrounds. The program was held at the UMass Amherst Center in Springfield and included thirteen 7th – 10th grade students from Springfield, Mass. Students received stipends for their participation as they discovered the foundations of public health, nutrition, epidemiology, and health promotion and policy. In addition, CCHER launched the Public Health Equity Scholars Program which offered undergraduate public health students from historically underrepresented backgrounds hands-on mentored research experience.
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November 1, 2021
Airín Martínez, Brenda Evans, and former CCHER Steering Committee Member, Ana Jaramillo Co-Author Chapter in Community-Based Service Delivery
CCHER Core faculty member Airín Martínez, CCHER Community Liaison Brenda Evans, and former CCHER Steering Committee member Ana Jaramillo co-authored a chapter titled "Power and positionality in community-based participatory research" which discusses power and positionally between community and academic partnerships and recommends that the future of community-engaged research should include strategies to mitigate inequities in these partnerships.
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October 25, 2021
Airín Martínez Awarded the 2021 Henry Montes President's Award from the Latino Caucus for Public Health
CCHER Core Faculty member, Dr. Airín Martínez is the outgoing Scientific Chair for the Latino Caucus for Public Health (2018-2021) and was awarded the 2021 Henry Montes President's Award in recognition of her outstanding accomplishments and tangible contributions to the Latino Caucus for Public Health's mission, as well as her strong commitment to serving the vulnerable and disadvantaged populations in order to improve their health and well-being. The award is given in recognition of her excellent leadership, service, and practice in public health. Congratulations, Dr. Martínez!
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February 7, 2021
SPHHS/CCHER Resume Mutual Mentoring Program
After a fall hiatus, our spring 2021 kickoff event on January 25th featured Dr. Sofiya Alhassan, Associate Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at UMass Amherst and senior faculty in the Mutual Mentoring program, and Dr. Ndidiamaka Amutah-Onukagha, Associate Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University. Mentors discussed their research and provided small-group mentoring with participants. Stay tuned for our next workshop featuring Dr. Samantha Sabo, Associate Professor with the Center for Health Equity Research at Northern Arizona University. For more information about the CCHER/SPHHS Mutual Mentoring program, see our webpage or email jazminechan@umass.edu.
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June 24, 2020
Airín Martínez Quoted Extensively in Teen Vogue Regarding Latinx and Immigrant Disparities in COVID-19 Infections and Deaths
CCHER Core Faculty member, Airín Martínez recently spoke with Teen Vogue regarding Latinx health disparities and policy and structural interventions to address Latinx and immigrant disparities in COVID-19 infections and deaths. Read the article here.
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June 10, 2020
Dr. Gubrium and Dr. Salerno-Valdez Awarded Multi-year Research Contract to Examine Structural Drivers of Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health Inequities in Massachusetts
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s (DPH) Office of Sexual Health and Youth Development in the Bureau of Community Health and Prevention has awarded a renewable contact to Dr. Aline Gubrium and Dr. Elizabeth Salerno Valdez to deepen the understanding of adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) inequities in Massachusetts. The new funding- anticipated to be up to $900,000 over the course of four years- will enable researchers with the study, based at the UMass Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences, to complete a comprehensive 4-year investigation.
Read more here
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February 14, 2020
CCHER Hosts Workshop on Cultural Humility
Following on last year's community-engaged research training, the Center for Community Health Equity Research offered a free one-day training on cultural humility, a critical component of successful community-engaged research practice, on February 14, 2019.
Read more here
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In Memoriam Louis Graham | June 12, 1982- December 29, 2019
Louis Graham, DrPH, assistant professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Policy at UMass Amherst from 2013-2018, passed away suddenly on December 29, 2019. Dr. Graham received his BA from Carleton College, his MPH from Morehouse School of Medicine, and his DrPH from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. His loss is a tremendous blow to the fields of community health education, community-based participatory research, and to research on structurally-rooted health inequity.
Read more here
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October 29, 2029
CCHER Co-Hosts Franklin County Community Research Forum
CCHER collaborated with Franklin Regional Council of Governments to hold the Franklin County Community Forum on October 29, 2019, to present findings from food access and opioid research projects in Franklin County.
Read more here
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October 1, 2020
SPHHS/CCHER Launch New Mutual Mentoring Program
The Center for Community Health Equity Research (CCHER) and the School of Public Health and Health Sciences (SPHHS) Diversity Committee are pleased to announce our 2019-2020 Mutual Mentoring Program, funded by the UMass Office of Faculty Development. This program will support the development of independent research programs for junior faculty with research interests in health equity.
Read more here
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September 25, 2020
Airín Martínez Co-Authors New Book on Latinx Health
Airín Martínez, CCHER Core Faculty Member and Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Policy and an expert in the social determinants of chronic disease disparities among Latinx immigrants and their children, has co-edited a new book with Scott D. Rhodes, Professor at the Wake Forest School of Medicine, New and Emerging Issues in Latinx Health (Springer).
Read more here
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Jin Kim-Mozeleski Publishes Findings on Food-Pantry Preferences in Franklin County
Jin Kim-Mozelski, CCHER Core Faculty Member and assistant professor in the Department of Health Promotion and Policy recently published the findings from her 2018-2019 UMass Public Service Endowment Grant (PSEG), along with community partner, Community Action Pioneer Valley. The report, "Frank Voices for Food Security: Client Choice Food Pantry in a Rural Community," outlines the findings of the year-long community based participatory research project that sought to promote food security among low-income persons living in Franklin County by better understanding and addressing needs around nutrition and health. Read the report here.
Read more here
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CCHER Co-Hosts Springfield Community Research Forum
On April 30th, 2019 to celebrate Public Health month, CCHER along with the Springfield Department of Health and Human Services, the Healthy Development Initiative, and the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences held a community forum on health equity and human development research projects.
Read more here
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Dr. Luis A. Valdez Awarded NIMHD Administrative Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research
Dr. Luis A. Valdez, CCHER Core Faculty and assistant professor in Community Health Education, has been awarded an NIMHD Administrative Supplement to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research. This diversity supplement is attached to the parent R01 - MOCHA Moving Forward: A CBPR Investigation of Chronic Disease Prevention in Older, Low-Income African-American Men.
Read more here
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Community-engaged Research Training, January 2019
In partnership with UMass co-sponsors including the Center for Research on Families, Healthy Development Initiative, Institute of Diversity Sciences, Institute for Social Science Research, Public Engagement Project, and the Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Research and Engagement, on January 17, 2019, CCHER offered a free one-day training on the principles and ethics of community-engaged research to 40 faculty members and advanced graduate students at UMass Springfield.
Read more here
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CCHER affiliate Elizabeth Evans’s research on racial health disparities among women veterans highlighted
Dr. Elizabeth Evans, Assistant Professor of Health Promotion and Policy, and her colleagues examined the medical records of 468,806 veterans ages 18-54 who were living with chronic pain and who received care from the Veterans Health Administration (VA) between 2010 and 2013. Evans and her colleagues found that women veterans were more likely than men to use complementary and integrative therapies such as meditation, yoga, acupuncture, or chiropractic care to treat chronic pain, but patterns differed by race/ethnicity.
Read more here
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Center Launch, April 2018
On April 26th, 2018 we celebrated the campus launch of the Center for Community Health Equity Research with a keynote address from Dr. David Williams, Professor of Public Health at Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Over one hundred people attended his talk, “Racial and Socioeconomic Disparities in Health: Present Realities and Future Directions,” which showed how tackling the social determinants of health can improve population health and reduce health inequities.