Planning and Evaluation

This survey for Tucson Adults will ask questions related to their knowledge, opinions, and beliefs about COVID-19 and seasonal influenza, and preventative measures people take to protect themselves against these diseases. This study will help the Pima County Health Department understand what might be preventing people from getting vaccinated to protect themselves from getting sick with COVID-19 and seasonal influenza. Using the responses, we will be able to focus our vaccine promotion efforts more effectively and reduce the number of respiratory illnesses within the community of Pima County.

The CDC’s Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) framework is broken down into five steps aimed at helping health practitioners develop and plan for climate effects. Through multi-modal (in person and on-line) surveys we are targeting different audiences that interact with the BRACE program. The surveys include 3-5 questions regarding knowledge about actions individuals and organizations can take to address health impacts of climate change. Surveys will be provided on-line and in person at workshops.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of a sexual assault prevention program, Enhanced Assess, Acknowledge, Act (EAAA) program, by replicating a Canadian randomized controlled-trial (RCT) at five U.S. universities. EAAA consists of four 3-hour units that involve education in the form of games, mini-lectures, and facilitated discussion, and application and practice activities.

In the United States, a culture where the elderly are often marginalized, the COVID-19 pandemic has left many older adults feeling further devalued.  The pandemic has heightened its risks not only physically but psychologically.  With quarantines in place, the elderly worry about how they will obtain medications, food, and other daily necessities.  Many older adults will not seek medical care for health concerns for fear of contracting COVID-19. Most people have not experienced a pandemic that caused us to have to stay at home and avoid human contact.

The Title V legislation requires the state, as part of its Application, to carry out a statewide Needs Assessment every five years that identifies the need for preventive and primary care services for pregnant women, mothers and infants up to age one; children and adolescents; and children with special health care needs up to age 26.

Patient navigation programs can serve as a key approach to achieving the triple aim in cancer care by improving patient experience, improving population health, and reducing health care costs. The goal of this project is to develop a model which can be used by various cancer centers to predict costs and outcomes involved in implementing and managing a patient navigation program. Model variables will be derived from literature review and various scenarios will be built into the model for screening, diagnosis, survivorship, and end of life care.

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) are a critical set of actions that public health takes to mitigate the effects of infectious diseases in a population.  These actions can vary widely from isolation and quarantine, closure of public venues, environmental clean-up or decontamination, and hand hygiene.  However, studies have shown that the public’s compliance to NPI recommendations can be limited.

The purpose of this grant was to advance understanding of the chronic burden of foodborne illness, help the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) better estimate the true overall burden of foodborne illness, and act appropriately on food safety priorities.

The goal of the project is to examine the role of women in vector control at three distinct levels of engagement: programmatic, community and household, using case studies in malaria control. This project received support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Ernst's role within this larger project was a Site Principal Investigator. 

 Many communities are not adequately prepared because there are too many information stores in communities and a related lack of essential collaborative preparation. The goal of this project was to improve community preparedness and response activities through sharing lessons learned, identifying and documenting best practices, and fostering national collaboration to strengthen community resiliency to reduce injury-related morbidity and mortality in public health emergencies.