Community Outreach Activities

The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston fulfills its community service mission in many diverse ways. Through a variety of institutional and school-driven programs, the university provides much needed health care and health education services to members of our community who might otherwise not have these benefits.

We also seek to fulfill our service mission through informational outreach to the larger community with innovative programs and services designed to educate and enrich the lives of community members in Houston, the state and the nation. Spots such as those on KUHF radio promote preventive health care and lifestyle management techniques in urban and rural areas throughout Harris County.

Dental Branch
Dental Branch community outreach efforts are extensive and are part of the educational programs offered in the school. The Dental Branch has affiliations with 48 HISD schools and over 30 clinics, community agencies and long-term health care centers where students provide oral health education and clinical care. The Dental Branch is one of the primary sources of charity care in the Greater Houston Area – providing over $1,270,226 of free or discounted dental care in FY 2004.

The Dental Branch’s School of Dental Hygiene also has active outreach programs with off-site activities that include both educational projects and clinical care. These include the Fort Bend Family Health Center, Harris County Health Department, The University Dental Center at Memorial Hermann, Houston Medical Center, Rusk Elementary School, San Jose Clinic, The Star of Hope, and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Source: John Valenza, Dental Branch

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
The Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (GSBS) outreach program continued its now 12-year alliance with HISD’s Brookline Elementary School by interacting with students in the third, fourth and fifth grades as well as their teachers. This school serves a predominantly disadvantaged community. In the reporting year, the GSBS outreach program served 291 students and through these partnerships, GSBS graduate students and faculty raised the understanding and enthusiasm for science through numerous initiatives. The projects included coaching teams of students in scientific methods and giving class demonstrations to supplement science teachers’ lectures. The Benny Garcia Young Scientist Award was presented by GSBS for the fifth year at Brookline Elementary.

In 2003-2004, the GSBS outreach program provided judges for eight local school science fairs plus the regional science fair; hosted two visits of 80 students participating in the annual National Youth Leadership Forum as well as the Regional Science Fair for 100 individuals; provided lectures for 41 science teachers at UT Pan American; hosted a total of 56 elementary and high school students for five tours of research labs; provided round table discussions of science careers and graduate education; and provided guest speakers for 300 students from the University of Houston-Downtown. Participation in the Houston Hispanic Forum Career and Education Day continued to expand. Hispanic graduate students served as panelists for discussion of the topic Why I Chose Graduate School, as well as were featured panel speakers who discussed careers in biomedical research. GSBS hosted a booth with nearly 1,000 direct visitors.

The GSBS Alumni Association provided hands on programs in biomedical sciences education to over 300 5th graders at Sylvan Rodriguez Elementary School focusing on cell reproduction and a hands-on experiment on the states of matter. Additional GSBS community service efforts included the following: provided science experiments and career programs for students and faculty at Northbrook Middle School for Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society and Briscoe Elementary School 5th graders; provided keynote speakers for UT-Pan American-NASA Science Conference for 6th through College students; and provided a speaker for UT-Brownsville, UT-Pan American, and several school districts in the Valley. Source: Linda Carter, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

School of Health Information Sciences
The School of Health Information Sciences is committed to improving care and access to care using information technology.  During 2003-2004 school faculty and staff:

• Coordinated a joint Summer Outreach Program with UT Physicians for minority students to improve their knowledge and skills and foster consideration of graduate study in Health Information Sciences.
• Participated in Gateway to Care to develop information system requirements for Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers.
• Participated in the Greater Houston Partnership’s Public Health Task Force Sub-committee on Technology to define current systems in place in Houston’s Safety Network Providers as a stepping stone to developing an integrated informa- tion system for Houston/Harris County.
• Led The Schull Institute’s Informatics efforts domestically in Houston by developing prototypes for use in a demonstra- tion program with Good Neighbor Healthcare Center, an FQHC look-alike center, and partnering with the City of Houston and Gateway to Care to improve information systems to improve access and accountability for patients and to provide an annual community input to improving care.
• Partnered with the Center for Health Outcomes Research and Development in Japan to introduce informatics into Japan and develop demonstration projects to showcase the effectiveness of information technology to improve care.

Medical School
The Medical School’s Office of Community Affairs and Public Education is involved in a variety of community outreach functions. It works with and supports the Office of Public Affairs and UT Physicians. The staff also works with the Medical School’s Office of Continuing Medical Education to coordinate fliers, public relations and written material for publications.

The office organizes and participates in community presentations featuring Medical School faculty and health promotion topics. Additionally, community affairs staff participate in the health science center’s Speakers Bureau. Source: Darla Brown, Medical School

School of Nursing
Maintaining strong ties with area health providers, agencies and community leaders is an important part of the educational outreach efforts at the School of Nursing (SON). The school offers an innovative and collaborative work/study/scholarship program with seven local hospitals. Through employment as patient care assistants, students receive valuable clinical experience and, after completing one successful semester, they receive a scholarship for their remaining semesters of full-time undergraduate study. The program has expanded involving over 40 percent of the entering class.

SON faculty and students provide outreach service to families and individuals in several affiliated clinics throughout the Houston area and selected schools in the Houston Independent School District. Source: Gwen Sherwood, School of Nursing

School of Public Health
Faculty and students of the School of Public Health (SPH) in Houston and at the school’s regional campuses in Brownsville, Dallas, El Paso and San Antonio are actively involved in a large number of community outreach projects and activities.

Students in the MPH and DrPH degree programs complete an internship or practicum as part of their curriculum. This is an assignment to a community agency or organization where the student has the opportunity to learn about community health practice in a real world setting. Students work in a wide range of public and private sector settings. Special extended internship programs include: Health Policy Fellowships wherein fellows serve as full-time staff to members of the Texas Legislature; and Industrial Hygiene and Dietetic internships with various industries and organizations. Students complete tasks jointly assigned by an agency preceptor and a faculty sponsor. Currently there are over 400 assignments available to students. Since 1995, 1124 students have participated in the internship program.

The Texas Public Health Training Center is an initiative funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration. This is a collaborative project which includes the Texas A&M University School of Rural Public Health and the University of North Texas School of Public Health. The Texas Department of Health, local health departments, state public health associations and community members participate as members of an Advisory Council to the Training Center. The Training Center provides a wide range of training services to the staff and board members of local health departments and the state health department as well as to local and state elected officials and is a major force in leadership training for the state’s public health workforce.

Community-based projects currently underway in the regional campuses include:
Brownsville Regional Campus

• Working with local school districts to bring awareness of and assistance in implementing health-related curriculum, including training teachers at local school districts on an environmental health program for high school students.
• Working with local health departments and Texas Department of Health Region 11 to enhance bioterrorism preparedness.
• Conducting a teen pregnancy prevention project jointly with Cameron County Health Department and Brownsville Healthy Communities to identify risk factors and provide training.
• Administering a newly formed bi-national tuberculosis consortium to address the problems of multi-drug resistant tuber culosis. Members, in addition to the Brownsville Regional Campus, include the Cameron County Health Department, Hidalgo County Health Department, Webb County Health Department, the Regional Office of the Texas Department of Health, and Mexican tuberculosis authorities in Reynosa, Matamoros and Monterrey.

Dallas Regional Campus

• Consulting to a community HIV prevention project training center.
• Developing a broadly representative community coalition to promote and support community medicine and public health planning and interventions in the Dallas area.
• Developing a network of practicum internships for students at local, state, and national levels.
  

El Paso Regional Campus

• Assisting the American Cancer Society Project Amigas to produce a bilingual video promoting cervical cancer intervention.
• Assisting the El Paso Diabetes Association to develop evaluation and assessment methods for diabetes in the local population.
• Conducting a National Institute of Health funded assessment of the extent of H pylori infection in the El Paso-Juarez communities.
• Working with Safe Communities, a local non-governmental organization, to develop a surveillance system for detection of risk behavior associated with substance abuse in the local community.
• Working with students to compile and summarize available health-related statistics for El Paso County, to serve as a resource for continuing planning and evaluation of public health programs (El Paso County Health Fact Book).

San Antonio Regional Campus

• Providing leadership for the Health Education Training Center Alliance of Texas, a federally funded technical assistance and training support project for communities that coordinates the efforts of multiple health care and educational institutions.
• Conducting a recent Bexar County community based environmental health assessment and a comprehensive community health assessment; the latter now available on the Internet.
• Providing technical assistance to San Fernando Cathedral annual Health Fair.
  Source: Hardy Loe, School of Public Health

Coordinated Approach To Child Health (CATCH) Program is an elementary school nutrition and physical activity program designed to prevent chronic disease, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The mission of the CATCH Program is to create healthy children and healthy school environments throughout Texas. CATCH is designed to help schools, children and their families adopt healthy eating and physical activity behaviors through changes at the elementary school level. The four CATCH components are: (1) Classroom Curriculum (Go for Health), (2) Physical Education curriculum (CATCH PE), (3) Food Service Program (Eat Smart), and (4) Family Involvement (Home Team). More than 1,200 schools have adopted the program and over 5,000 teachers and staff have been trained. For further information contact Steve Kelder, 713 500 9636. Source: Steven Kelder, School of Public Health

Since 1987, the school has had funding through the Texas-Mexico Border Project to provide chronic disease screening in Starr County, Texas. Starr County has been the center of a series of genetic and epidemiologic studies of type 2 diabetes, its complications and related conditions. This testing has been invaluable for detecting and monitoring diabetes and its complications in Starr County, which is 98 percent Mexican-American and suffers from the highest diabetes-specific mortality of any county in Texas. Source: Craig Hanis, School of Public Health

The Rusk School Health Promotion Project is a model school-linked primary care clinic. Using an interdisciplinary model, health science center faculty and students provide preventive and curative care, health assessments and dental care to the predominantly poor Hispanic students. Colleagues from the University of Houston also provide help with curricula development, optometry services, as well as social support to the students and their families. Health science center and project staffers continue to work with the faculty of the school to integrate health promotion and wellness concepts into the elementary school curriculum. Source: Mark Hormann, Medical School

UT Harris County Psychiatric Center
The University of Texas Harris County Psychiatric Center (UTHCPC) provides leadership in the area of community outreach through participation in a variety of community activities. UTHCPC develops and disseminates mental health information to the community and acts as a catalyst in creating an environment that promotes the exchange of ideas in topics of high priority and relevancy to the public mental health system of Harris County. During FY 2004, UTHCPC participated in a number of health and community education fairs providing mental health information to more than 50,000 people.

UTHCPC works in cooperation with mental health consumer groups, such as the Alliance for the Mentally Ill, the Depressive and Manic Depressive Association, the Mental Health Association and service providers such as the Harris County Mental Health Mental Retardation Authority. The center provides printed materials, plans community education symposia and seminars, conducts hospital tours and coordinates a Speakers Bureau, thus making UTHCPC’s professional staff available to Houston area community and school groups.
UTHCPC’s service outreach programs include the following:

• Head Start
• Wesley Community Center
• Children’s Assessment Center Program
• After – School Program for Children and Adolescents with Emotional Problems (PASS: Partners in After School Services
• Sub-Acute Program for Juvenile Offenders
• Partial Hospitalization Program
• Intensive Outpatient Program/Outpatient Program
• Neighborhood Centers

In addition to the programs listed above, UTHCPC is actively seeking collaborative service agreements for grant and other funded programs aimed at early intervention, provision of services to the elderly and underserved populations. To this end, UTHCPC is a member of a broad collaborative of agencies, including UTH, Baylor and the Harris County Community Access Collaborative, designed to assist in collaborative efforts to obtain grants for the local community. Source: Geri Konigsberg, UT Harris County Psychiatric Center