The United Health Foundation/NMF Diverse Medical Scholars Program
Click the link “PDF” in the left column to download the research poster.
| Link | Year | Name | Medical School | Project Title | Project Location | Key Outcomes |
| 2019 | Chidimma Acholonu | Morehouse School of Medicine | Shots Fired: Addressing Gun Violence Through the PIVOT Initiative | Grady Memorial Hospital | To reduce the rate of recidivism/re-victimization due to gun violence of patients treated at Grady Memorial Hospital, to identify social service resources in Atlanta that are designed to support individuals most frequently at risk or exposed to gun violence, and to determine if counseling combined with support can impact the rate of re-admission at Grady Memorial Hospital for injury due to gun violence. | |
| 2019 | Matthew Acosta | SUNY Downstate | Downstate Street Medicine: Inception and Growth | Downstate Street Medicine Outreach Association | To identify, assess, and address the needs of the unsheltered homeless population within a 1.5-mile radius surrounding the Downstate campus. | |
| 2019 | Ayomide | Loyola Stritch School of Medicine | A.C.Tivate Health – Active Creative Teamwork | Quinn Center of St. Eulalia | To inform children in grades 1 – 8 about obesity and how to prevent it by engaging them in different physical activities and teaching them about healthy foods. | |
| 2019 | Shantrice Appleby | Morehouse School of Medicine | Unintended Pregnancy Project: Establishing Healthy Provider-Patient Relationships | Morehouse School of Medicine, Department of Community Health and Preventative Medicine | To conduct exploratory community engaged research that will inform and contribute to the development of interventions and measures that address the cultural and structural factors that produce high rates of unintended pregnancy in low-income, ethno-racial minority populations through the perspective of future healthcare providers regarding the provider-patient relationship to achieve better health outcomes. | |
| 2019 | Guadalupe Arreola | University of California, Davis, School of Medicine | HealthSteps: Transforming pediatric primary care to support families living in poverty, ensuring children are healthy and prepared to succeed in school and life | Petaluma Health Center | To work with the organization, HealthySteps, which is a national model of enhanced pediatric primary care that integrates a child development specialist into the primary care team, in order to foster positive parenting and strengthen the child’s early social and emotional development, particularly for families living in low-income communities. | |
| 2019 | Kwame Awuku | New Jersey Medical School | Project BEAM: Newark Based Community Centered Educational Intervention Program to Improve Health Literacy | Great Oaks Legacy Charter High School | To engage at-risk youth in Newark, NJ in order to expose them to the different health topics in an interactive and informative way. | |
| 2019 | Anya Bazzell | Morehouse School of Medicine | The Lupus Initiative: Demystifying Systemic Lupus Erythematous | American College of Rheumatology | To train general physicians in identifying the presenting signs and symptoms of lupus, refer a suspected case of lupus to a rheumatologist, and to understand lupus epidemiology, health disparities, disease characteristics, and genetics. | |
| 2019 | Sabrina Billings | Drexel University College of Medicine | Mental Soundness Workshops: Discussion on Mental Health and Smoking Cessation | Women Against Abuse | To provide important information about Mental Health and Smoking Cessation, to increase awareness so informed decisions can be achieved, and to promote a sense of control over thoughts and actions. | |
| 2019 | Yasmin Chin | Meharry Medical College | The #WomensHealthMattersInitiative | Nashville General Hospital at Meharry Medical College | To provide nutrition and exercise educational tools to women in underserved communities to prevent the devastating complications of obesity before it becomes a problem. | |
| 2019 | Aaron Doctor | Morehouse School of Medicine | Healthcare – Home Initiative | Hosea Helps (Hosea Feed the Hungry) | To promote patient centered medical homes for homeless and uninsured residents of Atlanta, GA. | |
| 2019 | Marissa Emadi | University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio | Sexual Education at Lowell Middle School | Estrada Achievement Center | To provide a safe space to discuss sex and relationships. | |
| 2019 | Emmanuel Dimitri Foko Tito | West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine | The Body Screening Project: A Student-Run Rural Community Program Providing Access to Free Health Screening Services | The Body Screening Project in Grant County | To identify non-previously known disease related risk factors in residents of rural areas and provide health maintenance education, to promote health screening in underserved areas to enhance the quality of life and to reduce premature morbidity and mortality. | |
| 2019 | Jada Mone’e Harris | Morehouse School of Medicine | Healthy Us, Healthy Plus; An Initiative to Combat the Disparity of Transmission of Sexually transmitted Disease Among African American Women | Jackson Memorial Baptist Church | To combat two cultural imprints that negatively effect African American Women’s sexual health outcomes the most: Mental Health and Negative Self-Image and Lack of Sex Positive Parental Communication among African American women between the ages of 15-28 living in Atlanta, GA and surrounding cities. | |
| 2019 | Christian Hernandez | Medical College of Wisconsin | PROYECTO A.L.M.A. (Apoyo, Liderazgo, Movimiento, Accion): Engaging Latino Men in Preventative Violence Frameworks | UMOS Latina Resource Center | To develop and evaluate a culturally competent and linguistically appropriate intervention to engage Latino male, primary Spanish speakers, in reframing healthy relationship forming, healthy gender identity construction and ally-ship for gender-based violence victims with goals of preventing future violence. | |
| 2019 | Cassie Hobbs | Duke University School of Medicine | Nothing “TOPS” Our Weight Loss: Establishing a Take off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS) Chapter at Lincoln Community Health Center | Lincoln Community Health Center | To provide resources to help Lincoln Community Center members lose weight, to educate participants on nutrition and the components of a healthy diet and to encourage participants to engage in weekly exercise. | |
| 2019 | Andrew Homere | Keck School of Medicine | High School Exposure to Health Professions | Orthopaedic Medical Magnet High School | To expose students to various health professions. | |
| 2019 | Nathanaelle Ibeziako | Tufts University School of Medicine | Wisdom Matters: Enhancing Health Literacy in HIV+ Women using a Community Based Intervention | The Dimock Center | To train HIV+ women in order to move them from lower rates of health literacy to a place of critical health literacy. | |
| 2019 | Ronald Ikechi | Cooper Medical School of Rowan University | Exploring Barriers and Facilitators to Glycemic Control and Shared Medical Appointment Engagement in Underserved Patients with Diabetes | Cooper University Hospital – Urban Health Institute of Camden | To identify and compare facilitators and barriers to glycemic control and SMA engagement in vulnerable patients with type 2 diabetes based on control and engagement status. | |
| 2019 | Ali-Musa Jaffer | University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine | Water Hygiene, Diet & Exercise Education for the Homeless in Downtown Tampa | Tampa Bay Street Medicine | To conduct a series of educational workshops to increase awareness of water hygiene, sanitation, and healthy dietary and exercise habits in the homeless population in downtown Tampa. | |
| 2019 | Evesha Kenlyn | Morehouse School of Medicine | A Pipeline Enrichment Program Using Cascading Mentorship to Increase Diversity in the Medical Professions | Helping Hands Outreach Clinic | To introduce cascading mentorships, which uses a peer-assisted mentorship to effectively make students better learners and teachers. | |
| 2019 | Elijah Kindred | Loyola Stritch School of Medicine | Religious Coping and Diabetes Self-Care in the African American Community | South Side Diabetes Project (SSDP) | To explore thoughts concerning what role, if any, the participants’ religious beliefs played in their diabetes self-care. | |
| 2019 | Ruth Laverde | University of California San Francisco School of Medicine | Opioid Harm Reduction – A Multi-Faceted Approach focused on Hispanic and Spanish-Speaking Families | Pediatric Prepare Clinic (Preoperative Surgery Clinic) and Orthopedic Surgery Clinic | To address the rise in opioid misuse among Hispanic and Spanish-speaking patients of the City of San Francisco. | |
| 2019 | Quentin Loyd | Meharry Medical College | “Get Up Nashville II”: A Community Approach to Heart Disease | Salt Wagon Clinic at Meharry | To help facilitate a shift towards individuals in the Nashville community being more self-aware of their health status and understanding ways to improve it. | |
| 2019 | Ashley Moreno | Rush Medical College | UJIMA – A pilot study of a Mindfulness-Based Intervention for At-Risk, Inner-City Black Youth | Chicago Youth Programs | To improve psychological functioning, lower levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms and hold promise in disrupting intergenerational cycles of ACEs and prevalence of EMBs. | |
| 2019 | Ronke Olowojesiku | Augusta University/University of Georgia Medical Partnership | Community stakeholder evaluation of an extracurricular menstrual education course for adolescent girls in Athens, Georgia | (fem)me | To conduct a series of interviews with eight community stakeholders regarding the creation of a program to help young girls and women with their understanding of their menstrual cycles. | |
| 2019 | Aerial Petty | Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine | Improving the Mental and Nutritional Health of Adolescent Girls in Southeast Alabama | Girls Inc. | To improve the overall quality of life of adolescent girls in the Wiregrass region by providing a holistic 3-pronged healthcare approach that addresses mental, nutritional, and physical health needs of girls enrolled in 4th – 8th grade in the Dothan public school system. | |
| 2019 | Denise Powell | University of Mississippi Medical Center | Making health literacy a priority in Jackson youth | Jackson State University: Kids Kollege | To connect concepts about organs, diseases, and nutrition as the students learn reading comprehension skills and to create a foundation for the students to have an understanding of healthcare literacy before entering adolescence and adulthood. | |
| 2019 | Gianna Ramos | David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA | Social Barriers Preventing Women from Receiving Mammograms at a County Hospital in Los Angeles | Harbor-UCLA Medical Center | To identify women who are due for mammograms within our health system while conducting outreach efforts to determine social barriers experienced by patients preventing them from receiving mammograms. | |
| 2019 | Margie Rayford | Meharry Medical College School of Medicine | Educating Adolescents About Health Through “Health Chats” | Meharry Medical College | To educate the Nashville community about the benefits of healthy eating and regular physical activity. | |
| 2019 | Jesus Salas | DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine | The SAFE Project | LMU-DCOM/CEASE | To provide Sexual Assault Forensic Examination training and sexual assault awareness to medical students and healthcare professionals in rural Appalachia. | |
| 2019 | Alfredo Siller | Medical College of Wisconsin | Academic Support and Attrition of Medical Students | James Madison Academic High School/Milwaukee AHEC | To examine how Medical College of Wisconsin attrition rates compare nationally and determine if underrepresented minority students are disproportionately represented in this data. | |
| 2019 | Janielle Taylor | University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine | Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Update in Western Pennsylvania | University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Hillman Cancer Center | To investigate from a pediatric and family medicine provider perspective the barriers, facilitators, and implementation strategies to promote uptake of the HPV vaccine throughout low uptake areas in our 29-county catchment area (CA). | |
| 2019 | Cyrus Washington | Howard University College of Medicine | Perpetual Tunnel Vision: An Inherent Barrier to STEM Discovery | Howard University Middle School Of Mathematics and Science | To understand the effects that underexposure and resource disparity may have on children’s interest in STEM disciplines. |