Category: Sam

It has been only five weeks since my last blog post, but it feels like it’s been months. To recap: my practicum project involves interviews in rural China with community health workers, supervisors (for the community health workers), and caregivers (who are either pregnant or caring for a baby 0-18 months old) who receive home-based educational lessons on topics like breastfeeding, maternal and baby nutrition, injury prevention, maternal mental health, and hygiene. When I last wrote, I was working on the interview guides. Since then, I have recruited interviewers, held an interview training session, managed the interviewers as they conducted my interviews, transcribed the recordings, and translated the transcripts.

In many ways, this practicum has felt like my own mini research project (a project within a project, if you will) – mine to manage and lead to the charge on, with mentors to offer guidance when needed. The first thing I have learned so far is that my expectations regarding timing were unrealistic: The interview guides were an iterative process, but that also meant that they took nearly twice as long to complete. I still am translating transcripts and haven’t gotten to coding or analyzing anything yet, even though I should be in my last week. The second thing I have learned is that logistical problems are impossible to predict. For example, I never suspected the difficulties that would come with using a Chinese transcription service when you don’t have a Chinese cell phone number or a Chinese bank account. I’ve also discovered the difficulties in managing a team of people in a different time zone, and the importance of clear, written communication. Through reading the interviews, I have learned about Chinese culture like newborn practices and childrearing customs.

My next step for this practicum is to finally (after almost two weeks!) finish translating the interviews and begin coding. I suspect that coding will be easier since I feel as if I know all the transcripts by heart after double checking the transcription and translations line by line. Once the analysis is complete, I will compile it all into a report, which I will present to Stanford’s Rural Action Education Program (REAP). I hope that my findings will help inform future steps in this program, which nearly every interviewee enjoys immensely and finds extremely helpful with childrearing. Though the intervention is scheduled to end soon, I think the findings from both this small project and the larger intervention could have larger impacts on rural families all throughout China.

-Sam

It was my first time travelling since the pandemic and of course I didn’t need to bring a coat. I had been diligently watching the forecast for San Francisco for a week, and I was certain that I could weather 68°F and sunny with only a light cardigan and short sleeves. Yet as I watched the sun set on Crissy Field (a beach on the northern tip of San Fran) and took pictures of the Golden Gate bridge, I was nearly blown over by the staggering wind. I really wish I had brought a jacket.

I spent the weekend in San Francisco before taking the BART (a subway system that was delayed several times), waiting for the Caltrain (which was also delayed), and then booking an Uber to Palo Alto for my summer practicum. In Palo Alto, I spent the week with Stanford’s Rural Education Action Program (REAP), which works with rural, low-income populations in China. As a (now) second year MPH student with a Global Health concentration, I was excited to find an opportunity to work with populations in China, which is my area of interest. I began learning Chinese during undergrad at UNC, and the various study abroad trips and classes since then have been equal parts fun, academic, and a way to learn about my own heritage. Within public health, I also have interests in maternal child health and health policy, as well as digital health.

REAP’s research utilizes new technology to target children’s health, nutrition, and education, which is a perfect fit for my interests. Specifically, I will be working on the Healthy Future project, which uses an app to provide modular education sessions for new mothers and caregivers, delivered by community health workers. These home visits cover everything from breastfeeding, maternal nutrition, prenatal care, and preventative health and daily care, all depending on the age of the fetus/baby. The Healthy Future app itself is directly utilized by community health workers, who book, manage, and conduct these home visits.

Currently, Healthy Future is at a midpoint in their intervention: the home-visits have been ongoing for almost a year now and midline surveys are complete. A good next step is to update the app; a particularly interesting update that is being considered is “adaptable” home-visits. This is where I come in: my role is to conduct interviews with community health workers, caregivers, and supervisors to identify ways to improve the app and its adaptability. Adaptability, or the ability for the app to tailor itself to every family’s differing needs (i.e. more/fewer visits, different content, and different content for different caregivers), will inform the next step of the project. I am excited to draw upon my language skills, cultural knowledge, and Gillings coursework for this summer practicum. This will be my first qualitative experience outside of Gillings and I am eager for hands on experience with NVivo. I am excited to work with the team at REAP and their partners in China and learn how to run my own (mini) project across countries. I hope to build connections within organization and I am interested to learn more about how Healthy Future is changing the landscape in rural China. At the very least, I’ve learned that I should always bring a jacket.

-Sam