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Workforce Development

As part of the Healthy Hawai‘i Evaluation Team’s (HHET) public health evaluation activities, HHET trains future public health professionals in evaluation.

Housed in the UH Thompson School of Social Work and Public Health, HHET is in a unique position to hire graduate and undergraduate students in public health and other related fields to serve as research assistants on evaluation projects. Student research assistants participate in all aspects of the evaluation process and gain hands-on experience in evaluation to supplement their academic studies at UH. The workforce development mission has been a key feature of the partnership between the Hawai’i State Department of Health Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Division (CDPHPD) and the Office of Public Health Studies (OPHS).

Katherine Braden“I think learning about the programs that the Department of Health was implementing and learning more about program evaluation and data collection, then actually going out and doing it really strengthened my academic understanding. Up until that point it was a lot of theory and concepts and public health is so applied that, being able to have that hands-on experience really just deepened my overall academic journey.”

--Katherine Braden MPH, Class of 2016

Amber Sophus“Being able to be involved from the beginning of the process to the end with HHET was very useful because a lot of times as a GRA you come into a project in the middle, so they've already done the collaboration and you're coming in when they're collecting data via survey, or even just analyzing it, so you don't really get the full picture.”

-- Amber Sophus, PhD, Class of 2022

HHET trains and provides experiences in the following aspects of public health evaluation and research:

  • Evaluation best-practices and innovative methodologies
  • Stakeholder-driven and utilization-focused evaluation
  • Community-based participatory approaches
  • Qualitative research and analysis methods
  • Quantitative research and analysis methods
  • IRB research and ethics
  • Networking opportunities with the Hawaii State Department of Health and key public health stakeholders in the state on a variety of chronic disease prevention and health promotion efforts
  • Disseminating findings through reports and presentations to public health implementers, presentations at academic conferences, and publications in national and local journals.

Over the past 10 years alone, HHET has trained over 25 graduate and undergraduate research assistants in a variety of roles with our team:

What former GRAs have said that they learned about evaluation through HHET:

David Stupplebeen“It helped me hone in my skills around evaluation and working on different contracts, especially like the CDC work, and getting that experience, that actually proved to be very valuable in the work I'm doing now.”

-- David Stupplebeen, PhD, Class of 2019

Francine Naputi“Being at HHET made me way more comfortable with evaluation, in a way I think a lot of people are not. Evaluation gives us the ability and power to course correct so that programs and future research can be useful for communities.”

-- Francine Naputi, MPH, Class of 2014;
PhD, Curriculum Studies, Class of 2019

Being an HHET GRA has helped students to get positions in public health, evaluation, and research after graduation.

Nicole Kahielani Peltzer

“It was absolutely my GRA position with HHET that helped me get a state public health position after graduation. It gave me more experience working with chronic disease prevention and health promotion, which has translated perfectly into my field now.”

-- Nicole Kahielani Peltzer, MPH, Class of 2021

Where are they now?

Former GRAs have gone on to these types of public health, evaluation, or research careers:

  • Evaluator
  • Data Analyst
  • Researcher
  • Postdoctoral Researcher
  • Clinical Research Coordinator
  • Research Impact Consultant
  • Public Health Educator
  • Public Health Professor
  • Health Communications Specialist
  • Project Coordinator
  • PhD Student
  • Medical Student
  • Nurse Practitioner
  • Health Law Attorney

HHET alumni are working in public health throughout Hawai‘i and the world.

  • Hawai‘i
  • California
  • Washington
  • Alaska
  • Utah
  • Florida
  • Texas
  • Washington, DC
  • Guam
  • Korea

HHET has been able to help develop the public health and evaluation workforce in large part through the vision and commitment of the DOH CDPHPD and support from UH OPHS over the past two decades.

More perspectives from former GRAs about the impact of their HHET GRA positions on their academic and professional journeys can be found ​in this evaluation report.

Contact us for more information on workforce development opportunities.

 

The Healthy Hawai‘i Evaluation Team at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Institution.