The College has a long history of community engagement with partners and communities throughout the State of Arizona, the Southwest, nationally and globally. Highlighted here are a few of our more recent and exciting Outreach efforts. To learn more about the broad range of community-based activity our faculty, appointed professionals, staff and students are involved in, please visit the Outreach page on this website.
Skin Cancer Awareness: Melanoma Walk 2014
The Skin Cancer Institute at the University of Arizona Cancer Center will be hosting the 5th annual Melanoma Walk. Please click here for the event flyer, and join us on November 1st! In 2013 we had over 400 walkers participate, and raised almost $55,000 for the cause! In addition, our wonderful community doctors screened 75 individuals for skin cancer. We hope to make the 2014 event an even greater success! Our numbers continue to grow every year. To learn more about our outreach and education efforts, visit azskincancerinstitute.org.
Border Health Service Learning, August 2014
Douglas, Arizona/Agua Prieta Mexico
During the third week of August, fifteen students and three faculty spent a week together participating in the Border Health Service Learning Institute in the communities of Douglas, Arizona and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico. Together with community partners the group worked to connect the dots between migration, health, and economic development and identify opportunities for advocacy to improve the quality of life in border communities. They participated in extensive activities with many community partners including the Cochise County Health and Social Services Department, the Secretaria de Salud in Agua Prieta, Chiracahua Community Health Center, Cochise Regional Hospital, Douglas Border Patrol Station, Frontera de Cristo, DouglaPrieta Works, CRREDA, Casa del Migrante, Migrant Resource Center, Café Justo, SEAHEC Healthy Farms Program and the Mexican Consulate. To learn more, please visit the Service Learning Course Offerings page.
Inter-Professional Service Learning Experience in Ambos Nogales - Building Healthy Communities: Alternatives to Migration
A group of ten students from the Colleges of Public Health, Medicine, Pharmacy and Nursing engaged in a two-day service learning experience as part of the Rural Health Professions Program. Partnering with Tracy Carroll’s Global Health course, the South East Arizona Area Health Education Center (SEAHEC), the Arizona Sonora Border (ARSOBO) project, the Kino Border Initiative and En Comun, students worked in teams in Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora. One student observed that, “being introduced to concepts of public health/global health/community development – this has been my first in person example of a successful program with community support and initiative to make it sustainable over the long term. It has been a wonderful thing to see.” Activities included a scenario exercise addressing healthy living and chronic illness, sharing a meal prepared by a micro credit participant, lectures and panel presentations from practitioners and service providers, and a day-long clinic and first anniversary celebration for the ARSOBO prosthetic clinic with Hanger, and wheelchair clients.
Southern Arizona Community Integrated Paramedicine
The Rio Rico Fire Department has convened fire department chiefs in southern Arizona and joined with the Arizona Center for Rural Hualth, the Arizona Emergency Medicine Research Center, the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center and others to lay the foundations for a community integrated paramedicine project. This project will focus on an evidence-based chronic disease model (diabetes, congestive heart failure, COPD and asthma), medication reconciliation, and home environmental safety.
Interdisciplinary "One Health" Approaches to Safety, the Environment, and Health
A visit to the KCCL Cobalt mine in Uganda provided an opportunity for interdisciplinary training towards more robust "One Health" approaches. Dr. Eric Lutz partnered with this project which involves veterinarians, environmental health scientists, and mining health and safety experts working together to evaluate the health impacts of extractive growth and development throughtout the Albertine Rift Valley of Uganda on wildlife, ecosystems, and neighboring communities.
Workforce: Community Health Workers in Action
The Arizona Prevention Research Center has been working closely with the Arizona Community Health Worker Workforce Coalition towards its goal of sustainability of the community health worker (CHW) workforce. The coalition has developed a policy brief to be used in presentations to obtain endorsements of the definition, core competencies and scope of practice of community health workers/promotoras in Arizona, as well as supporting a leadership role for the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) in the credentialing process. The coalition met in December to finalize the policy brief, hosted by the Arizona Community Health Outreach Workers Network (AZCHOW). Click here to view the Community Health Worker Policy Brief. Promotoras/CHWs are also key to outreach for enrollment for health insurance. Pictured here, a promotora works to enroll a community member for health services.
