Research & Partnerships

In collaboration with Solano County Public Health, this community intervention aims to reduce use of sugar- sweetened beverages by youth-serving organizations in Vallejo. It involves training of high school health promoters to be part of action teams. Through her partnership with Vallejo High School educators, Principal Investigator Dr. Aalborg recruited three Vallejo High School students to receive training on data collection and evaluation. These students received stipends for their contributions to the project. The project is also supported by a team of TUC MPH student researchers. Funding is provided by the Solano County Public Health Community Transformation Initiative Grant through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Eating Nutritiously Exercising Regularly and Growing Wisely (ENERGY) Project is made possible through a formal agreement with the Vallejo City Unified School District and provides an eight-week family intervention led by MPH students and Parent Health Promoters at Elsa Widenmann Elementary School in north Vallejo, California. Its focus is on implementation and evaluation of peer-led family-based obesity prevention intervention. Funding and collaboration for this project are provided by the Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit Program. The project is also funded through a TUC intramural research grant awarded to Dr. Annette Aalborg who heads the TUC MPH student research team. A proposal for expanded funding has been submitted to Kaiser Permanente Napa-Solano Community Benefit Program to expand implementation of the program to additional school sites in Vallejo City Unified School District.

This project operates through a formal agreement with the Vallejo City Unified School District. The study measures student and family health attitudes and behaviors (healthy eating, active living) and student BMI and involves collaboration with the school to assess needs, changes and successes of school-wide effort to improve health behaviors and outcomes for students and families. This non-funded study is headed by Dr. Annette Aalborg and assisted by TUC MPH student researchers.

This intramural grant was funded as an addendum to the Children's Oral Healthcare Access Program in 2012. The aim was to demonstrate efficiency in bolstering the capacity of current school-based health care delivery programs to meet the oral health needs of children and allow greater access to dental health education and services for underserved, high-risk populations. These include young people covered under Medi-Cal (Medicaid in California) and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Project goals have been accomplished through the enhancement of a current school-based health care delivery system that integrates cultural competence into a focused comprehensive set of quality oral health care and education services.

Funded by the Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit Program, this is an ongoing study on Healthy Eating and Physical Activity. The aim of this project is to develop and test CHP training in North Vallejo and Fairfield, through which parents are recruited as community health promoters to teach and help evaluate the project curriculum. The program is a collaboration between TUC, the Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit Program, the VCUSD, and The Leaven, a community organization located in Fairfield, California (northeast Solano County). In 2012-2013 the training project recruited local parents of children enrolled at Elsa Widenmann Elementary School in Vallejo through an MOU with the VCUSD. In 2013-2014, the project recruited parents from The Leaven. This project is led by Dr. Annette Aalborg and is supported by a team of TUC MPH student researchers.

Led by PI, Associate Professor & Assistant Program Director, Gayle Cummings, and Project Manager, Assistant Professor, Deirdra Wilson, this study was conducted in collaboration with local community partner, Sisters Network Solano County, Inc. The purpose was to explore and describe African American women’s knowledge and attitudes about breast cancer. Data from this study contributes to the current understanding of the knowledge, attitudes and barriers to seeking health care services as experienced by African American women in Solano County. Results will provide current information for health and community educators and health care providers to more accurately and adequately address the breast cancer needs of this community. The results of this study also has the potential to influence community health practitioners to make recommendations on public health policy that can reduce the breast cancer disparities in this county, and focus on providing equal treatment to produce equal outcomes. The study provided research opportunities for TUC MPH students over a three-year period from 2010-2013.

In collaboration with the Solano County’s” First 5 Solano” the Maternal and Child Health Branch of the Solano Health Department, and the Solano County Coalition for Better Health, a four-year, School-Based Comprehensive Oral Health Services (SBCOHS) grant was funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Led by PI, Professor & Assistant Program Director, Gayle Cummings, this intervention grant is being evaluated by the PH Program over a four-year period. According to the grantor organization, the purpose of the grant program is to “demonstrate the successful integration of comprehensive oral health care into an existing SBHC, focused primarily on early childhood and elementary/middle-school aged children of greatest need to assure the delivery of quality oral health education and preventive and restorative services.” The aim of the project is to demonstrate efficiency in bolstering the capacity of current school-based health care delivery to meet the oral health needs of children and allow greater access to dental health education and services for underserved, high-risk populations. This includes young people covered under Medi-Cal ( Medicaid in California) and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP).This will be accomplished through the enhancement of a current school-based health care delivery system that integrates cultural competence into focused comprehensive set of quality oral health care and education services (United States Department of Health and Human Services, HRSA, 2012). The grant has provided research opportunities for current TUC MPH students, who have assisted with the project’s evaluation efforts and implementation of its oral health education component.