Here students will provide monthly updates on their projects and utilize the page as a resource for feedback, guidance, and direction. You can attach documents, images, post links, or use the discussion text box to provide your update.
Student peers and community partners are encouraged to comment, provide suggestions, and ask questions regarding the updates.
Please post all project updates for July under this thread.
I was finally able to meet with my community partner (Equitas) for our initial meeting! Got a sense of what they are looking for me to help with for my project and who my points of contact will be for the year. We also set expectations on what months I would be able to be in clinic, etc based on my rotation schedule.
Overall – I will be partnering with one of their care coordinators to help quantify his role both for improving patient experience and access to care and financially for Equitas, as they look to expand the care coordinator program to other centers across Ohio.
Next step for me is to get going on an IRB and I have what I need to get started on that.
I have met with my community partner twice thus far to plan out the project for the year. Initially, my project was going to be a health needs assessment looking at what conditions the pantry guests were most often struggling with, then proposing changes to the pantry to encourage healthy choices. This was going to build off of the work of a dietetics student who had been at CAIN over the summer. However, my project switched to focus on food sovereignty. Now, I will be conducting a focus group surveying session as well as a quantitative survey on whatever shoppers come through the pantry. This will take place in October, as I will be back from doing three away rotations in a row then.
Our community partner and I have met quite a few times since we last convened. This is why I appreciate CAIN so much; our liaison Laci is approachable, reachable and timely. My arm of the project will be to optimize and establish our clinic referral process to better set-up our patients with longitudinal primary care. This is one step among many to help our clients navigate an extremely complex healthcare system.
At this point, I am expanding upon the Journal of Student Free Clinics Research Library, other UCCOM SRFCs, vast literature and mentors to see what has been done and what has worked. A preliminary literature review, background, study design and survey questions have been drafted and sent to my partner for approval. Once this feedback is obtained, the IRB draft will be next.
I have a few more ideas to “tack-on” to this project also: a survey of how our clinic impacts students who volunteer and lead. Curious how we can use this clinic to help others and enhance our own understanding of how we “give-back.”
I’ve met several times with CAIN leadership, our internal CAIN Clinic group, and subgroups of the group to flesh out our goals for this academic year. Our goals include increasing the number of clinics we host, increasing our interactions with patients, incorporating some kind of “health talks” every month, improving our referral process, and conducting a health needs assessment. My previous project was going to be focused on the bimonthly “health talks,” but in preparation for the project I realized how helpful it would be to have data from a health needs assessment to better fit the topics of the talks to the community. I first thought I could do a quick survey of what CAIN community members would like to learn about, but I quickly realized that a comprehensive health needs assessment might be more helpful not only for my project and the clinic, but also CAIN as they think about future projects. I have a meeting with Laci from CAIN this week to discuss how in-depth she would like the assessment to be and if we can offer any incentive for people to complete the survey, since it will likely be somewhat detailed. After characterizing what would be best for CAIN, I’ll make the survey and complete the IRB.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve made meaningful progress on my advocacy project focused on reforming the guardianship process for families of youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities. I met with Dr. Copeland from the Hopple Street Center, and together we finalized the project scope and refined our proposal.
We’ve also started building important connections by reaching out to individuals working on similar initiatives at the VA, which will help guide our next steps. Our current timeline includes submitting our IRB application by September 1, beginning data collection and intervention work by October 1, and preparing an abstract for submission to the 2026 Pediatric Academic Societies Meeting by early November.
Excited to move into the implementation phase and continue pushing for sustainable, equity-focused systems change.
My community partner is People Working Cooperatively and I’ll be helping facilitate their asthma referral program through Cincinnati Children’s
I have finally been able to secure my Cincinnati Children’s badge and can now reach out to physicians in the asthma clinic. I have met with my community partner once, but we’re getting some more meetings on the books in the next few weeks to discuss IRB.
I was able to meet with the Cincinnati Boy & Girls Club volunteer coordinator and the Taft Clubhouse Director to discuss the scope of the advocacy project. I will be helping enhance the health/fitness aspect of their programming by adding components that address nutrition, dermatology, and the healthcare system. I will be assessing the new effectiveness of the health/fitness programming in increasing the students understanding of the content.
Next steps include volunteering once the clubhouse reopens for the school year and creating new programming. And I plan to meet with the clubhouse director regularly as the project progresses
I was able to meet with the Cincinnati Boy & Girls Club volunteer coordinator and the Taft Clubhouse Director to discuss the scope of the advocacy project. I will be helping enhance the health/fitness aspect of their programming by adding components that address nutrition, dermatology, and the healthcare system. I will be assessing the new effectiveness of the health/fitness programming in increasing the students understanding of the content.
Next steps include volunteering once the clubhouse reopens for the school year and creating new programming. And I plan to meet with the clubhouse director regularly as the project progresses
I met up with my community partner Graceworks to set up a meeting with the coordinator of Tofertavel, but unfortunately due to my schedule, the best time will probably be in September. In the meantime, we have decided which individuals to include in the research study that would benefit the most but also those who can interact with us in Tofertavel activities. Finally, I have also been reviewing the literature on Tofertavel and the effects of this sensory based learning on individuals with IDD and dementia to see what gaps are still to be met.
Late to the party but here to give a short update. I was on an AI in July so I was very limited on time. I was connected with the Department of Public Health thanks to Dr. Kiestler and we, along with my community partner, agreed on a date to meet and discuss a data analysis project that could later be used to drive community interventions. I have done a bit more since then but will provide an update in the August thread after we finally meet. The plan at that point was I would outline the plan I have for the data analysis project and the Department of Health would provide suggestions, connections, and data that could be useful.
The tentative project is as follows: using publicly available data on health outcomes in the city along with data from Walkscore.com on walkability/bikeability/transit access, identify areas of Cincinnati where lower scores in those areas are associated with worse health outcomes. This data would then be used to guide community engagement about potential causes and/or interventions.