Expanded Summer Program at BUSPH Gives Upward Bound Students Hands-On Exposure to Public Health
Data can seem distant and impersonal to students until those numbers represent African villagers killed by parasitic worms, or the levels of mercury found in fish bought at a Boston supermarket.
These actual examples helped underscore the vivid reality of public health to students participating in Boston University’s Upward Bound Math Science (UBMS) program. For the third summer, BU School of Public Health faculty and students led Boston-area high-school students on an exploration of critical public health topics.
A session on environmental health included a field trip to the William X. Wall Experiment Station in Lawrence, a Massachusetts Departments of Environmental Protection facility that was founded in 1887 as one of the world’s first laboratories dedicated to environmental research. Students investigated levels of mercury found in supermarket fish on the site where researchers first developed modern methods of drinking water purification and wastewater treatment.
“We try to focus it around something that they’re familiar with, so they see how they can solve public health problems without necessarily being a health care professional,” said Jean van Seventer, an associate professor of environmental health who helped lead the environmental health lab sessions. To prepare for their lab work, students were primed with classroom presentations on heavy metal toxicity by Roberta White, chair and professor of environmental health, and Madeleine Scammell, assistant professor of environmental health.
Some presentations demonstrated why various ailments that are little known in the developed world are all too familiar to researchers. About 20,000 people in undeveloped countries die of schistosomiasis each year, a parasitic disease second only to malaria in its chronic and cumulative destructive effects, which include anemia, fevers, malnutrition, and cognitive delays in children. “We went through a case study of schistosomiasis and looked at what factors would influence health workers when they try to investigate increases in cases,” van Seventer said.
For an international health segment, Associate Professor Chris Gill gave an overview of his work on the Lufwanyama Neonatal Survival Project in Northern Zambia (LUNESP), a study designed to determine whether training traditional birth attendants could help reduce infant mortality. Monica Onyango, a clinical assistant professor of international health, prompted students to think about the status and condition of the millions of refugees around the world, while alumna Maja Niemierko recounted her experiences tracking Chagas disease in Peru.
BU has participated in Upward Bound since 1990, with about 75 students currently in the general Upward Bound program and 50 available slots in the math and science component, said Allison Cox, UBMS program manager. The math and science program at BU started in 2008 as an offshoot of the “classic” program, which was launched nationally as part of the Higher Education Act of 1965. Upward Bound is one of the last surviving education programs funded by President Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society” reforms, Cox said.
Students in the math and science program were selected from Brighton, Charlestown, and Chelsea high schools. “All of our students are low income or potentially first-generation college students,” Cox said. “We expect them to stay with us until they graduate. One day a week is study hall and one day a week is the class.”
The BUSPH involvement began with Saturday morning biostatistics sessions taught by graduate students and faculty, said Lisa Sullivan, associate dean for education, and professor and chair of biostatistics. This is the first year for a full public health track, with international health and environmental health added to the biostatistics component.
“They may not know what biostatistics is but they’re interested in math and science and they’re interested in seeing how they can work on real and important problems in public health,” Sullivan said. The hands-on aspect of using fun lab exercises to yield real data is critical for engaging high-school students, Sullivan said. “It’s a not a lecture-based program. It actually introduces them to the many exciting things that they could do in public health if they continue their work.”
Students will outline their work on this year’s lab topics — nanotechnology, chemistry and public health – at a Wednesday, Aug 3 presentation on the Charles River Campus.
College of Arts and Sciences
685-725 Commonwealth Avenue
1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
Submitted by Mike Saunders