Training Sites

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School Of Public Health

Contact Information

School of Public Health, CB# 7440
Voice: 919-966-3909
Fax: 919-966-2921
Dept. of Health Behavior & Health Education
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
Director: Eugenia Eng

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Director: Eugenia Eng, Dr.PH

Eugenia Eng, Dr.P.H. is the director of the training site at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. A full professor, Dr.Eng received her Dr.P.H. in 1983 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Eng is interested in the integration of community development and health education interventions in the rural United States and developing countries. Her research currently focuses on the design and evaluation of lay health advisor interventions and the influence of sociocultural factors on reducing exposure to pesticides and STDs and early detection of breast cancer. Dr. Eng teaches community organization; cross-cultural aspects of health education practices; and health issues relevant to women, ethnic minorities, and developing nations. She has established academic partnerships with communities that have historically been denied resources with which to discover new knowledge about their strengths and assets; her goal has been to use these partnerships to further the development of interventions that promote individual wellness, community competence, and social change. These interventions have addressed specific public health problems by increasing breast cancer screening, reducing the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases, and curtailing pesticide exposure for vulnerable farmworkers.

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Academic Resources

Scholars will find at North Carolina an intellectual climate that nurtures collaboration in community-based participatory research (CBPR), public health practice, and teaching with faculty mentors from the UNC School of Public Health's academic departments of Epidemiology, Health Behavior and Health Education, Health Policy and Administration, Nutrition, Maternal and Child Health, and the Public Health Leadership Program. The community-based work of faculty is shared and coordinated through their research partnerships with four community-based public health (CBPH) coalitions. Scholars will join with the CBPH faculty to gain an "inside view" of academic public health as well as to negotiate a range of opportunities that meet Scholars' interests through: (1) research clerkships with a community-based participatory intervention study; (2) teaching clerkships in service learning; (3) co-authoring grants, scientific papers, and publications for peer-reviewed journals; and (4) attending CBPR seminar series and graduate level courses ranging from participatory action research and social epidemiology to community assessment and a Latino health course taught in Spanish.

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Current Projects

The CBPH coalitions have been working on a variety of ongoing community-based partnership projects including:

  • Carolina-Shaw University Partnership for the Elimination of Health Disparities, an NIH-funded Center of Excellence for innovation in health disparities research, offers supportive services in community-based participatory research for faculty and community partners from both universities for networking and research skills building, while offering small incentives through peer consultation, seminars, and workshops.
  • Program on Ethnicity, Culture and Health Outcomes is funded by the Glaxo Smith Kline Foundation to establish and support research partnerships with community-based organizations, including regional workshops, throughout NC.
  • Community Health Effects of Industrial Hog Operations is a series of NIEHS-funded, community-driven studies to provide new scientific data on environmental exposures and increase capacity of participating communities to improve public health conditions.
  • Center for Excellence on Overcoming Racial Health Disparity is an AHRQ-funded program-project grant to measure interagency service coordination and examine its effect on racial disparities in STD rates.
  • Project SELF Improvement, funded by Kate B Reynolds Trust, is a partnership with three African American community-based organizations to develop and evaluate a multigenerational intervention to increase physical activity, improve nutrition, and prevent use of tobacco products.
  • Men as Navigators for Health is funded by CDC to investigate the impact of a multi-level intervention on male gender socialization and institutional racism on African American and Latino men's preventive health behaviors.
  • Dismantling Racism Initiative is funded by the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation to implement and evaluate an action plan to address institutional racism by the Chatham County Health Department.
  • The BEAUTY Health Project is funded by the American Cancer Society to develop a cancer prevention intervention in African American beauty salons throughout North Carolina.
  • HOPEWORKS, funded by the CDC, is an obesity intervention for rural, low-income women in North Carolina that aims to improve the health at the individual and community levels.
  • The Greensboro CCARES Initiative, funded by the Moses Cone Wesley Long Foundation, is led by the Greensboro Health Disparities Collaborative to understand and address the institutional factors that contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in cancer care outcomes in Greensboro, NC.
  • Community Cancer Network is an NCI-funded initiative to reduce disparities in prostate, breast, and colorectal cancer among African Americans in two regions of NC.
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Partners

The North Carolina Kellogg Health Scholars Program - Community Track partners with the following organizations:

  • Strengthening the Black Family Inc., is an urban, non-profit community-based networking organization incorporated in 1985 with the purpose of improving the quality of life of African-American families in Southeast Raleigh. STBF is a coalition of more than 30 community groups & numerous individuals each sharing in the common goal.
  • Las Mujeres Mejorando el Futuro is an organization of Latina women working toward social change that envisions building capacity among community-dwelling Latina women in Chatham County by developing leadership and advocacy skills through educational opportunities and research.
  • Chatham Social Health Council, founded in 1991, is a community-based nonprofit organization in the large rural North Carolina County of Chatham striving to prevent HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases (STD).
  • United Voices of Efland-Cheeks, Inc. is a rural non-profit community-based organization, incorporated in 1997 and located in northern Orange County. The group consists of 80% community residents with 20% agency participation. United Voices has been instrumental in the design of the Efland Cheeks Community School park and has worked with the Orange Co. Sheriff's department to develop a community police substation at the Efland Cheeks Community Center.
  • The Partnership Project is an urban, non-profit community-based organization that offers training, provides consultation, and organizes in the Greensboro area in the following arenas: undoing racism, anti-racist organizational development, internalized oppression, and White organizational culture.
  • Concerned Citizens of Tillery is a social and environmental justice organization located in rural Eastern North Carolina, made up of residents and several community organizations, including Black Workers for Justice and the NC Student Rural Health Coalition.
  • Chatham, Orange, and Wake County Health Departments carry out the core functions of public health in their respective counties.
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Community Resources

Collaboration in public health practice and research can be found not only through the interdisciplinary work of faculty, but also through the long-standing partnerships we have established with health agencies and community-based organizations. The Scholars are guaranteed ample opportunity to engage and be engaged by a wide range of collaborators, who will become the Scholars' network of colleagues. The four CBPH coalitions, for example, each includes 12-year partnerships between the School, community-based organizations and local health agencies. Their mission is to address the needs of underserved, African American and Latino communities residing in four (one urban and three rural) contiguous counties of central North Carolina. In addition to working with the four CBPH coalitions, opportunities are available to work on environmental and social justice issues with other community-based organizations.

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 Kellogg Health Scholars Program
Supported by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation
©The University of Michigan School of Public Health