Outreach and Engagement Awards
Ohio State University Nominated Programs
In 2008, Ohio State had a pool of 34 outstanding programs from which to choose its nominees for the regional Outreach Scholarship W.K. Kellogg Foundation Engagement Award and the C. Peter Magrath University/Community Engagement Award. The scope and quality of these programs represent the broad spectrum of Ohio State’s partnerships with communities and industry.
Health, Environment, and Safety
The OHIO Project
Partner for Promotion
African American Male Wellness Walk
Emerald Ash Borer Research and Outreach
Model Preschool Vision Screening Program
Campaign to Reduce Colon Cancer
Optometry Outreach Clinic
Natural Products Development
Occupational Medicine Refugee Program
Helping Older Disabled Adults Stay Independent
Investigating Bone Density among Impoverished Central Ohio Hispanic Women
Asian and Latino Free Clinics
Nursing Home and Home-Bound Eye Care
School-Based Screening to Identify Type 2 Diabetes Associated Metabolic Change
Health Care Education for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Patients
Youth Violence Prevention
Personal Health Assessment
Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation
Nursing Home and Home-Bound Eye Care
Ohio State Partner: College of Optometry
Community Partners: Area nursing homes and senior citizen residences
For over 20 years, OSU College of Optometry faculty and students have provided home-bound and nursing home eye and vision care to nonambulatory patients in central Ohio who are unable to travel to one of the campus teaching clinics. Through this unique outreach and engagement activity, patients who need eye and vision care but would not otherwise receive it benefit greatly from a thorough medical history, visual acuity testing and refraction, ocular health examinations for cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy, management of eye diseases, and high-quality prescription eyewear. Using portable vision testing equipment transported in a donated “BuckEYE” van, our third- and fourth-year optometry students learn how to use bedside examination techniques for predominantly elderly and very challenging patients with chronic and debilitating systemic diseases that may have ocular complications. Examples of these systemic diseases include heart attack (MI), stroke (CVA), multiple sclerosis (MS), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease), Alzheimer’s disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and many others. In addition to improving the patients’ quality of vision and life, this program works with visiting physicians, nurses, social workers, government agencies, and family members to provide health education to prevent blindness and to enhancement visual performance for at-risk patients who frequently live in less-than-optimal environments. Since the geographic service area for this much-needed program is limited to patients who reside in Franklin County, the college also maintains a database of OSU optometry alumni who offer this unique service in their own communities throughout the state. When home-bound or nursing home eye and vision care is requested by patients or agencies outside of Franklin County, referrals are made to these community optometrists. Last year, an optometry faculty member (Professor of Clinical Optometry Dr. Robert D. Newcomb) authored a paper on this program in a national optometric publication [“This doctor makes house calls,” Optometric Management, 41(6), pp. 89-90]; and he reports receiving several e-mail and phone contacts from optometrists in other states who have requested additional information on how to begin a similar outreach program in their communities. The OSU College of Optometry»s Home-Bound and Nursing Home Care Service is an important part of our comprehensive clinical curriculum, which prepares OSU optometry graduates for excellence in patient care wherever they may choose to practice. While our clinical faculty members are teaching and our upper-level students are learning, we are also able to help over 200 needy patients in central Ohio through this unique program in AY 2006-2007. Last year, these central Ohio citizens were the direct beneficiaries of Ohio State’s historic roots as a land-grant institution of higher education. This outstanding outreach and engagement program has benefited hundreds of our OSU College of Optometry students as well as over 4,000 central Ohio citizens over the past 20 years.
A Comprehensive Approach to School-Based Screening to Identify Type 2 Diabetes Associated Metabolic Change
Ohio State Partners: Department of Human Nutrition, College of Education and Human Ecology; Health Behavior Health Promotion, College of Public Health
Community Partners: Nationwide Children’s Hospital; Columbus City Schools
Rates of type 2 diabetes mellitus (diabetes) are dramatically increasing among the pediatric population and are ignited by the increases in childhood obesity. Poor, ethnic neighborhoods within the Columbus City School District are experiencing increasing rates of diabetes and overweight. In fact, childhood overweight in Columbus exceeds the national average by 200%! Only a concerted, collaborative effort will give us a fighting chance to reverse the current weight and disease trends in Columbus youth. Therefore, it is necessary to create a sense of urgency and awareness surrounding these health burdens and identify appropriate mechanisms to respond to this epidemic. Success will require partnerships between organizations and academic institutions in Columbus who make it their priority to preserve the health of young children, now and in the future. 2005 was a turning point in the effort to combat childhood overweight. Columbus City Schools began performing body mass index (BMI) calculations on students’ height and weight measurements during routine, state-mandated screenings. This same year marked the opening of the Center for Healthy Weight and Nutrition (Healthy Weight) at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Today, the center continues to expand its scope of practice from the hospital setting to the community, addressing the health needs of young children who face personal and environmental barriers to obtaining appropriate services to achieve a healthy weight. Recognizing the efforts that Columbus City Schools are undertaking to combat childhood overweight has prompted Healthy Weight to respond. Although overweight is a risk factor associated with diabetes, BMI is limited in its ability to quantify the amount of health risk to which young children face. Mobilizing the clinical resources offered by Healthy Weight to elementary and middle schools targeted for this collaborative intervention allow for the quantification of health risk that overweight children experience. The south side of Columbus, specifically zip code 43207, has one of the highest rates of overweight and diabetes in Franklin County. Informal conversations with community members and school personnel from this community have identified barriers families encounter when accessing health care services for their young children. Several individuals mentioned the lack of clinics and hospitals close to their neighborhood, insurance benefits, and single mothers working more than one job. These statements confirmed the need to provide diabetes screening programs in a convenient setting with relatively little or no cost. Focus groups of parents and service providers in the target community were conducted in collaboration with Ohio State University’s College of Public Health and College of Education and Human Ecology to determine the core beliefs and attitudes families have about school-based screening. One primary outcome identified from this formative research was that raising awareness about the importance and purpose of screening is necessary before families will consent to school-based screening. More important, formative research determined that knowing that their child’s health is compromised is the most motivating factor for parents and increases their sense of urgency to take action. The collaboration fostered between Columbus City Schools, Healthy Weight, College of Public Health, and College of Education and Human Ecology addresses the growing need to recognize the health burden of overweight among young children. As a result, the collaborators have developed a comprehensive response mechanism involving educational and school-based screening strategies to raise awareness and urgency surrounding the health burdens in Columbus youth. Using the data collected from this study we hope to establish health screening recommendations for Columbus City Schools and other districts. Our recommendations will address the most effective way to respond to barriers poor, ethnically diverse communities face by communicating health screening information in the most appropriate frame and increasing parental compliancy to screening recommendations made by school health professionals.
Partnership for Health Care Education for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Patients
Ohio State Partners: OSU Medical Center; James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute
Community Partners: Mount Carmel Health; OhioHealth; Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Links: Health Information Translations website
The Partnership for Health Care Education for Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Patients started in 2005 as a proactive, concerted health promotion and education collaboration of the Ohio State University Medical Center, Mount Carmel Health, and OhioHealth to provide clinicians tools to improve safety and the overall health and wellness of LEP populations in the central Ohio community. In May 2007, Nationwide Children’s Hospital joined the partnership. The project involves the development of a unique online inventory of dual language (both English and foreign language), easy-to-read, nontechnical, culturally appropriate health information in numerous languages that is available at no cost, without copyright restrictions, and in printable or downloadable audiovisual format through the Health Information Translations website. There are nearly 2,400 documents in 17 languages to date in the inventory. The immigrant populations in central Ohio have doubled over the past decade and continue to rise. Health care providers across the nation struggle to educate their LEP patients. Although local health care providers use interpreters to communicate with patients at the time of treatment, translated written or audiovisual health education materials are needed to reinforce information discussed by health care providers to improve health care outcomes and improve patient safety. Commercial health education vendors do not provide many foreign language materials, except in Spanish, largely because of translation expense. There are no reliable software programs available to translate medical information. The project team, comprised of three registered nurse patient education specialists, worked with numerous agencies and held focus group discussions with various cultural groups to identify needs and cultural practices and beliefs that affect health care. Materials are developed by the project team; reviewed by clinical staff; translated, proofread, and edited by a translation service; and uploaded to the website. Multimedia titles for those unable to read in their own language, particularly English, Spanish, American Sign, and Somali, are part of the third year of this project. These will initially be related to procedures such as insulin injections, Foley catheter care, and pre- and post-surgery care. With the involvement of local health care professionals, organizations, and community service groups, the reach of this collaborative effort has affected health promotion and education for LEP populations not only in central Ohio but also across the nation and around the world. In the past 3 months, over 500 different web addresses have accessed the Health Information Translations website each day to use the translated materials. Site use has grown steadily with over 8,000 hits per day as clinicians learn about these materials available to assist them in meeting the learning needs of LEP patients in their communities. The project team continues to seek funding support to expand the inventory by topics and languages. Previous grant support has come from the Columbus Medical Association Foundation, Trinity Health, Mount Carmel Foundation, American Medical Association Foundation, OhioHealth, Ohio State University Foundation, and others.
OSU Youth Violence Prevention Advisory Group
Ohio State Partner: Department of Human Development and Family Science, College of Education and Human Ecology
Community Partners: Columbus Police Department (-Homicide, gangs, crime prevention, missing & exploited children, robbery units), Ohio Youth Services, Franklin county courts, Franklin county juvenile court, Columbus Health Department, Community Properties of Ohio, Weinland Park Civic Association, Communities in schools, Afrocentric Personal Development Shop, Columbus Legal Aid Society, Huckleberry House, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, Ohio Adult Parole Authority, Ohio Criminal Justice Services, Near East Pride Center, YMCA/PALS
Links: Related research story
The OSU Youth Violence Prevention Advisory Board was formed in Spring 2007 with the following mission: to foster practical solutions from research and build bridges for collaborative change. The process to achieve this mission is through engaging practitioners in collaborative discussions of emerging findings from Dr. Deanna Wilkinson’s National Institute of Justice-funded study on youth violence. This engagement partnership approaches the issue of translating findings from basic research into practical strategies for criminal justice and community actors who are most likely to bring about change. The collaborative group functions as a think tank on data, theory utility, interpretations, and implications for policy and practice. The initial meeting was held to “sell” the engagement endeavor. Most of the members work across the criminal and juvenile justice systems in different capacities but rarely get together. This forum provided a space for thinking outside of the box, outside of current cases and local problem, and instead to focus on larger issues, which set the context for addressing chronic serious youth violence in urban neighborhoods. The group was asked to analyze each case to understand the web of potential influence: Who exists in the lives of the youth involved in and affected by particular violent incidents? Notice the aftermath in the violent event: What mechanisms are in place to define violence as problematic, traumatic, preventable, and not inevitable? Identify potential ways toward changing the script: What are the scripts of youth violence? and finally, to consider how Situational Crime Prevention (SCP) Strategies might apply for youth violence. The group expressed the following reactions:
- Surprised by youths’ reading of cues
- Surprised by the frequency of seemingly petty concerns leading to very serious outcomes including death
- Noted how important it was that identity/status issues sparked the most violence
- Surprised by youths’ attributions & justifications for action
- Surprised by lack of connection-making between factors (e.g., drug use & event)
- Surprised by self-centeredness & disregard for others
- Noted influence of boys’ gun use as justifying for own gun use
- Frame of reference varied for practitioners by how Òin touchÓ they were with youth involved in violence
- Noted similarities between the cases (now ~12 years old, from NYC) and local experiences in Columbus, Ohio in 2007
- Focus on events and actors affected by events
- Advisory board push for discussion of comprehensive strategies and multiple facets of the youth violence problem
- Creating structures for alternatives, opportunities, and meaningful connections with adults (mainstream) was identified as key
- Early discussion of SCP lead back to larger issues and comprehensive approaches
- Plan to come back to and push SCP framework
- SCP seemed reactive instead of proactive to advisory group
The process has stimulated several new relationships and will continue to evolve. The group is currently working on a journal article written to the academic audience which focuses specifically on improving communication between academic researchers, policy makers, and practitioners. This effort attempts to build a bridge between the knowledge base housed in the university with the knowledge base in the real world toward findings new solutions to complex problems.
Personal Health Assessment
Ohio State Partners: OSU Medical Center; Med Center Information Systems; OSU Health Plan; Human Resources; College of Medicine; College of Public Health; Human Cancer Genetics Program
Community Partners: Pfizer; American Diabetes Association; National Cancer Institute; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) Health Information Center
Links: PHA website
The OSU Medical Center (OSUMC), in conjunction with OSU Med Center Information Systems, OSU Health Plan, and OSU Human Resources, developed a Personal Health Assessment (PHA) to be used within the Academic Medical Center to aid in patient care delivery. The mission of the project was to develop an evidence-based online tool to help individuals assess their current health status, give them recommendations to improve their health, and assist them in discussions with their care providers about their health status. In addition, the tool was developed to assist with research, clinical analysis, reduction in health care costs, and strategic planning. The PHA was launched in January 2006, which included an employee incentive program to encourage proactive health care. Beginning in January 2006, all employees in the Health Plan have been encouraged to complete the Personal Health Risk Assessment annually. Since its inception, over 20,000 PHAs have been completed. There are numerous testimonials from individuals who completed the PHA, who were identified at high risk for a specific disease, and subsequently were able to address these risks proactively with the assistance of the PHA and their physician. The development of the question set was based upon the OSUMC Clinical Practice Guideline: “Preventive Health Services in Adults” authored by OSU Family Medicine and approved through clinical leadership at the medical center. In addition to the practice guideline, other organizational PHAs were evaluated in order to understand the breadth of content that is necessary in an online assessment tool and to identify the types of health risk stratification that were built in the respective applications. Very few online tools provided an actual risk score for specific diseases. This led to a comprehensive search for evidence-based algorithms, available through the public domain, to stratify individuals at risk for developing a specific disease. Overall, the PHA has incorporated risk stratification tools for activity/exercise, diabetes, heart disease, depression, breast cancer, body mass index, osteoporosis, and alcohol abuse. Subsequently, the methodology, content, and application design were reviewed and approved by numerous OSU Medical Center, Health Plan, and Human Resource committees. The PHA is available online using the OSU Medical Center PatientLink website. A health plan member is encouraged to complete it annually but can complete it more frequently if desired. In conjunction with the PHA, the Health Plan has established biometric screening sites where an individual can obtain specific clinical indicators and enter their results into the application with the help of a Health Plan employee. The program is designed to benefit OSU faculty, staff, and their adult dependents by providing risk stratification for key health indicators through the online tool. The primary emphasis is on disease prevention, but it also gives the university health plan a profile of its population in terms of risk factors, which is effective in planning resources and designing prevention tools. The PHA is expected to become available to all OSUMC patients in conjunction with the 2008 implementation of an electronic medical record through an online patient portal.
Saving Lives: Establishing the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation
Ohio State Partner: Counselor Education, School of Physical Activity and Educational Services, College of Education and Human Ecology
Community Partners: Ohio Department of Mental Health, Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services
Links: OSPF website
The Ohio State University is forging meaningful and creative collaborations to establish The Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation. These partnerships will make Ohio State the first university in the nation to establish a public/private partnership model supporting suicide prevention. OSU collaborated in the development of the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation (OSPF) over the past 2 years with the Ohio Department of Mental Health and the Ohio Department of Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services. OSPF has as its mission to provide programs for our communities that will lessen the number and impacts of Ohio’s 1,300 annual suicides. Less than a year after the opening, OSPF was awarded a national Garrett Lee Smith Suicide Prevention Grant totalling $1.2 million over 3 years to conduct the Ohio Youth Suicide Screening Project. This is now the largest youth suicide screening project in the nation, offering screening to approximately 10,000 Ohio adolescents in its first year of operation. Additionally, the OSPF has established local grassroots suicide prevention coalitions covering some 66 of Ohio’s counties with the goal of covering all 88 by 2010. The OSPF has provided grant funding, technical assistance, and training throughout the state. Examples include the training of Ohio Supreme Court jail and probation staff, over 400 police officers, 300 mental health clinicians, and many members of the public in suicide prevention and assessment. Recently partnering with the Ohio Department of Education, OSPF has helped to create the first Ohio Violence and Suicide Prevention Curriculum that will provide training on these important issues to school teachers and other school personnel statewide. The Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation is truly a unique collaborative project between OSU, state government agencies, and private donors with the goal of addressing a significant public health problem in our state.
2008 O&E Awards: Health, Environment, and Safety page 1
2008 O&E Awards: Health, Environment, and Safety page 2
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