The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (UH) Healthy Hawai‘i Evaluation Team (HHET) has collaborated with the Hawai‘i State Department of Health (DOH) for over twenty years on the evaluation of public health initiatives in Hawai‘i. One of the key elements to the longstanding partnership between HHET, DOH, and UH Mānoa’s Office of Public Health Studies (OPHS) is a shared mission to train the public health workforce. Being housed in OPHS, HHET is uniquely situated to offer practical experiences in evaluation and research for public health graduate students. For over two decades, through DOH funding, HHET has been able to hire up to four graduate research assistants (GRA) annually. GRA positions are half time positions that are open to UH graduate students and come with tuition waivers and stipends. UH GRAs work on research teams, gaining work experiences that complement their classroom learning.
In 2023, HHET sought to evaluate if it had met its aim of training the public health and evaluation workforce over the past 10 years, and to understand how the GRA experience has impacted former GRAs’ academic and professional development. Sixteen former GRAs were interviewed over Zoom and asked about how their time with HHET influenced their academic and professional careers and to discuss the most valuable things they learned about evaluation and public health. GRAs shared stories of how practical skills and “real-world” experiences with HHET were pivotal to their professional and academic success. GRAs valued being engaged in evaluation projects from their start to finish and feeling empowered to work independently, applying concepts learned in school under the mentorship of HHET’s lead evaluators. GRAs also gained many of the core evaluator competencies including learning qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the importance of engaging stakeholders throughout the evaluation process, and how to communicate findings appropriately for diverse audiences. GRA positions helped participants finance and complete their degrees, while gaining invaluable experience they have used in their subsequent public health and evaluation careers. They also spoke about how the experiences helped them to secure jobs after graduation with their public health graduate degrees.
“Our evaluation study showed that HHET GRA positions are a valuable mechanism to not only support the higher education goals of future public health professionals, but to provide students with essential skills and experiences that have prepared them for the public health and evaluation workforces.” said Meghan McGurk, lead author on this evaluation study.
The study has implications for the broader training of public health professionals nationally. A recent study examining accredited schools and programs in public health established that teaching of evaluator competencies varies, and often, courses provide limited practical experience on the basic fundamentals of conducting evaluations. One recommendation to improve training to better prepare students for the workforce is enhanced collaboration between academia and professional evaluators. “Our evaluation study highlights the value of government-academic partnerships in training students to bolster their understanding of public health and evaluation,” said Dr. Brooke Keli‘ikoa, HHET Principal Investigator and co-author on this project.
Meghan presented findings from this evaluation at the American Evaluation Association annual conference in Indianapolis, Indiana in October 2023. Study co-authors also include Rebekah Rodericks (HHET Project Director) and Alena Shalaby (HHET GRA). More about HHET’s workforce development efforts, can be found on HHET’s website, along with a full report of findings from this evaluation.