Hello! My name is Quintin Van Dyk and I am an MPH student in the Global Health concentration at UNC Gillings. I have been in Tucson, AZ for the last two months completing my practicum with Casa Alitas, a humanitarian aid organization that provides shelter and other resources to asylum seekers after they cross the nearby border.
Since I last wrote, a lot has happened. Casa Alitas has continued to deal with the effects of significant US immigration policy changes that took place in early to mid-May. New policies, such as the Asylum Transit Ban and the end of Title 42 have caused large demographic changes within Casa Alitas. There have been large influxes of arrivals by asylum seekers coming from Asian and African countries like India and Mauritania. This has been a challenge for Casa Alitas, as their staff wasn’t equipped to handle such a large volume of guests that do not speak English or Spanish. Some of these guests also have unique dietary restrictions, which has made it difficult for the organization to quickly adapt and provide food that all guests are able to eat.
I have been spending a lot of my time working with the program director at Casa Alitas on a research project to better understand the impact of immigration policies like Title 42 on asylum seekers attempting to cross the border and enter the United States. I started by cleaning a large set of raw data that the organization has collected over the last few years and am currently working on building data visualizations that show how trends at Casa Alitas have changed in response to new federal policies. We are hopeful that this project will help the organization better prepare for future policy changes and also understand which countries of origin have been most disproportionately impacted by these policies in the form of medical conditions, family separations, and loss of sponsors.
In my free time, I have continued to volunteer with other local humanitarian aid organizations in the Tucson area like Tucson Samaritans and Green Valley Samaritans. I recently went on a backcountry water drop trip with Tucson Samaritans where we hiked through small canyons and arroyos in the desert north of the border to resupply water boxes. I have also spent time going on hikes and enjoying the amazing sunsets that the Sonoran Desert has to offer. I have really enjoyed my summer in Tucson and am very grateful for the opportunity that I have had to work with Casa Alitas. I hope you are all having a great summer as well!
Malaria, a mosquito-borne disease, poses an enormous health burden in Uganda. Severe malaria is a life-threatening form of the disease and one of the top causes of death for children in Uganda. For my practicum, I’m working on an observational study of severe malaria in children at St. Paul’s Level IV Health Center in Kasese, Uganda. The objective of this study is to describe the epidemiology of severe malaria among children in the Kasese district. We are looking at aspects such as incidence of severe malaria, treatments received at St. Paul’s, and patient outcomes 14 days post-discharge. We hope that results may illuminate areas for improvement that will be shared with St. Paul’s and may ultimately lead to better care. The UNC – MUST – PHEALED Consortium, a strong collaborative partnership that has been working and implementing projects in the Bugoye area for several years, leads this study in collaboration with St. Paul’s Health Center.
I am personally interested in this issue due to seeing the effects of malaria in Cameroon, where I was a Peace Corps Volunteer for two years. During my time there, I saw first-hand the challenges with malaria prevention, and the morbidity and mortality caused by malaria in the surrounding communities. In essence, I was exposed to the realities of living in an underserved malaria-endemic region. Gaining an understanding of these challenges has motivated me to continue working on malaria.
I am lucky to be working with other highly motivated partners in Uganda on this study. I am directly working with members of PHEALED, the implementing partner in the UNC-MUST-PHEALED consortium, and two clinician research assistants at St. Paul’s. Despite collecting data every day, including weekends, the team has always stayed positive and remained available. There is an atmosphere of collaboration, combining the medical expertise of the research assistants with the research study expertise of the PHEALED study coordinator, project manager, and UNC team. Working alongside them has been an absolute pleasure.
Views while hiking up a hill near Bugoye.
Outside of work at St. Paul’s, I have the pleasure of staying in Bugoye, a beautiful village located at the foothills of the Rwenzori Mountains. There is superb Arabica coffee grown between 1500m and 2000m of altitude in these hills, and I enjoy amazing Ugandan tea each morning with breakfast. Working in the office with PHEALED staff is filled with relationship-building and laughter that breaks up long days of work. Additionally, the Bugoye community is very friendly and welcoming. When I go hiking or jogging, I usually end up with a trail of 10-20 children who join me for a while, giggling the whole way. While hiking up a local hill, four little girls ran up after me to give me a piece of jackfruit. Living in Bugoye is filled with joyful moments like these.
Although working on this study and seeing severely ill children at the health center is very challenging, I’m incredibly grateful to contribute, even in a small way, to hopefully improving care and outcomes for children with severe malaria in the future. These challenges are contrasted with the great privilege of being warmly welcomed in Kasese and Bugoye, providing me with an opportunity to fully immerse myself in the rich culture of Uganda.
Ní slán é seo, feicfidh sé go luath thú! – This is not goodbye, it’s see you soon! The time I’ve spent in Ireland has flown by, yet the memories of the island, the people I’ve met, and the research I conducted will stay with me forever. Despite my brief 8-week stay, Galway has truly become my home more than any other place I’ve lived. In my previous blog post, I spoke of the remarkable luck and wonderful experiences I’ve had on this journey, and the trend continued until the very end. Just look at the double rainbow I caught on my last solo day here!
Marveled at this double rainbow on my last solo day in Galway.
As my fourth week arrived, so did the long-awaited rain and clouds, giving me a taste of a “true Irish summer.” I embarked on some grand adventures, traversing from the Atlantic Ocean to the Connemara mountains via boat, train, bus, and on foot. Moments that will always live with me include learning the traditional Irish sport of Hurling, taking a dip in the Corrib River alongside a family of swans, visiting Europe’s oldest restaurant, and exploring the grounds of Kylemore Abbey and its beautiful and expansive gardens. However, above all, I made it my mission to explore every nook and cranny of Galway, becoming so familiar with its streets that my colleagues jokingly suggested I should lead the walking tours offered for tourists. With daylight extending until 11pm, I had ample time to immerse myself in the city’s charm and find some hidden gems during the evening hours.
On one of my favorite evening walking routes.
Engaging in research here at the Health Promotion Research Centre (HPRC) on a global scale has opened my eyes to crucial aspects of children’s health that matter most to them. Specifically, my focus has centered around a cross-national study called, “The Health Behaviors of School Children,” (HBSC), in collaboration with the World Health Organization’s (WHO), encompassing data collection from 51 different countries. I have primarily learned to analyze the survey responses specific to Irish children ages 10-17, so we could evaluate their priority concerns. I created an infographic to be disseminated to researchers involved in the study on an international scale, participating schools, and policy makers who are interested in the findings. This infographic highlights the top 10 health priorities for Irish children from the HBSC 2022 national report. The infographic describes six engagement workshops with primary and post-primary school children. Through this deliverable, I have learned to turn verbal and written information provided by children into a useful infographic that is easily digestible and visually appealing to a wide range of audiences.
Ranked priority health issues for Irish children.
I also created a report-output and infographic on my own using the 2022 HBSC data to analyze food security and its relationship to wellbeing, with a focus on potential confounding variables such as sex and age group. It has been truly fascinating to observe the association between food insecurity and happiness, perceived health, and quality of life. Additionally, I contributed to a qualitative research study called “Reducing the exposure of children and adolescents to digital marketing of unhealthy foods” (ClickBite), where I learned how to develop interview protocols for children ages 2-17. This aspect of the work is entirely new to me, as my previous experience did not involve protocol development for research studies.
An exciting opportunity during my time here was being accepted to present my poster on the research findings from my Honors Thesis at the annual Health Promotion Research Conference in Galway, Ireland! The conference was hosted in collaboration with the Department of Health, Health Service Executive, and the Association for Health Promotion Ireland. Not only was I able to present research that is extremely important to myself, but I was also able to network with seasoned professionals both internationally and locally. It was a great privilege to learn from distinguished individuals including Ireland’s Minister of Health, Chief Medical Officer, Director of Health Iceland, and many more! The conference’s focus was on strengthening intersectoral health promotion action through building healthy communities. The presentations covered a range of topics including public health and wellbeing, the role of health in all policies, listening to voices of local communities, and building sustainable health communities, to name a few. I hope to continue contributing to impactful research that affects vulnerable populations on a global scale through my public health professional journey!
Presenting my thesis at the Annual Health Promotion Conference!
The best part of my experience by far were the people I was surrounded by and the family I’ve made here. They adopted me without question, taught me the language, traditions, and showed the best parts of Galway: my new favorite place on Earth.
A quote from my close colleague is “The Health Promotion Research Centre and Galway itself is like Hotel California, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.” I believe this represents how I feel about my Galway, I am checking out for the time being, but it will always be with me, and I will most definitely be back! Feicfidh mé go luath thú – See you soon Galway!
