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Innovation Learning Laboratory for
Population Health

Overview

In April 2015, Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) announced receipt of $200,000 in a planning grant, as well as an additional $400,000 grant from United Health Foundation, and a $600,000 grant totaling in $1.2 million. The grant has helped enhance the institution’s patient-centered medical home, where doctors train, support, and advocate for community health workers. 

Purpose

The purpose of the Innovation Learning Laboratory for Population Health is to design and implement demonstration projects that generate innovative technology-driven healthcare models and fuel teaching and learning for population health improvement. Located within the Department of Family Medicine, this laboratory serves three purposes:

1. Identify, design, develop, demonstrate and disseminate innovative models of health care improvement
2. Study and foster population health through patient, community, consumer and provider engagement
3. Prepare 21^st century healthcare leaders/workers - including training for students, community, faculty and providers

The Innovation Learning Laboratory for Population Health is designed to enhance service, research, teaching and learning to improve abilities of the global health work force, patient care and community and population health outcomes. The laboratory specifically utilizes data/shared data for improvement of local community's (including residents, community based organizations, health systems, small practices, urban planners, government entities) capacity to plan, monitor, and evaluate for community/population health improvement.

About United Health Foundation

United Health Foundation was established by UnitedHealth Group in 1999 as a not-for-profit, private foundation dedicated to improving health and health care. To date, United Health Foundation has committed nearly $315 million to programs and communities around the world.

Innovation Lab Projects

• The CETOUR Youth Opioid Reduction Training Program

  The CETOUR Youth Opioid Reduction Training Program, aims to introduce youth to the dangers of opioid misuse and the importance of mental health. This program seeks to increase the number of trained mental health workers to engage family, peers, and community in strategies to achieve better mental health and decrease opioid misuse. The program consists of a 5.5 hours of classroom instruction with core competencies/ skills, self-guided and facilitated curriculum activities, and interactive community projects.

• The Clayton County COVID-19 Toolkits

  The Clayton County COVID-19 Toolkits aims to introduce the public to COVID-19 information to ensure the prevention of COVID in the Clayton County area. The toolkit seeks to improve the overall health promotion, prevention of disease, protection, and disaster preparedness planning activities that are evidence-based and data-driven. The toolkit consists of a booklet with information regarding Clayton County's Take, community safety, staying safe at the job, communicating with your doctor, dating, travel, vaccines, and family.

• The Clayton County COVID-19 Toolkit for Medical Professionals

  The Clayton County COVID-19 Toolkit for Medical Professionals aims to introduce a trusted source for reliable prevention information for patients. The toolkit seeks to improve the overall health promotion, prevention of disease, protection, and disaster preparedness planning activities that are evidence-based and data-driven. The toolkit consists of managing COVID-19 patients, health literacy, provider self-assessment, COVID-19 resources, and patient resources.

• Health Tech Innovation Academy

  The Health Tech Innovation Academy is a fun, interactive, virtual learning experience to introduce rising female freshmen, juniors and seniors to the field of Health Technology. Students will participate in an intensive data science bootcamp and learn the skills needed to create innovative products addressing problems commonly experience in their communities.

  Participants will be provided with a $1,000 stipend.

• FAMSTRONG

  FAMSTRONG is a mental health focused program in which the Innovational Learning Laboratory for Population Health and the Prevention Research Center has teamed up to deliver family oriented mental health topics using technology to engage families in fun, exciting ways to tackle mental health topics and challenges many families face. Join the fun and participate in FAMSTRONG22. Click here to register.

• HealthWorks

  HealthWorks is sponsored through a federal grant with the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) from February – October 2022. The overall goal of the HealthWorks Project is to reduce COVID-19 health disparities and advance health equity by strengthening vaccine confidence, through providing trusted, culturally, and linguistically appropriate information and education and to enhance access to COVID-19 vaccine and booster uptake to diverse, medically underserved populations in Georgia and Tennessee. A COVID-19 Consortium in Georgia and Tennessee, led by Morehouse School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, and ASHLIN Management Group with Black Girl Health Foundation, 1Joshua Group, and Mojo Marketing will work closely with Departments of Health, academic and community partners of the GA and TN Community-engaged Alliance against COVID-19 (CEAL), and small and large businesses in a coordinated approach to implement goals and objectives of the grant.  

• HSYA CHW Program

  The High School and Young Adult Community Health Worker Program aims to increase healthcare access and improve health equity to local communities. This program encapsulates community health worker core competencies thereby inducing strategies for better health and wellness. The program consists of a 7-week intensive training including shadowing experiences, self-guided and facilitated curriculum activities, and interactive virtual sessions led by medical and public health professionals.

• HSYA CHW Curriculum

  The High School and Young Adult Curriculum consists of 20 modules that explores community health worker core competencies, hosted on Canvas, a learning management system used by educational institutions worldwide. The students are guided through the curriculum with fun interactive welcome videos, assignments, readings, and activities. Pre and post learning quizzes accompany every module to assess the student’s learning. Once completed, the student receives a certificate of completion. This curriculum prepares high school and young adults for community health worker and similarly skilled jobs, or students can use the knowledge they have gained to be the first step toward a health career.

• Adult CHW Curriculum

  The Adult Community Health Worker Curriculum consists of 20 modules that explores community health worker core competencies, hosted on Canvas, a learning management system used by educational institutions worldwide. The students are guided through the curriculum with fun interactive welcome videos, assignments, readings, and activities. Pre and post learning quizzes accompany every module to assess learning. A certificate of completion is given once completed. This curriculum prepares adults for community health worker and similarly skilled jobs.

• NCRN CHW Mobilization

  NCRN CHW Mobilization - To mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on racial and ethnic minority, rural, and socially vulnerable populations The NCRN COVID-19 national dissemination platform will consist of six foundational areas in which the network will: 1) Identify and engage vulnerable communities through local, state, and national partners. 2) Nurture existing and develop new partnerships to address the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure the NCRN is an active information dissemination network with whom to collaborate; 3) Partner with vulnerable communities and national, state, local, and government organizations to provide and disseminate culturally and linguistically appropriate information throughout states, territories, and tribes; 4) Use technology to link members of the priority vulnerable communities to community health workers, COVID-19 healthcare and social services, including testing, vaccinations, behavioral health counseling, and links to primary care practices; 5) Monitor and evaluate the success of the services and measure outcomes using process improvement methods to improve the quality of the overall program. The initiative is designed to work with community-based organizations across the nation to deliver education and information on resources to help fight the pandemic. The information network will strengthen efforts to link communities to COVID-19 testing, healthcare and social services and to best share and implement effective response, recovery and resilience strategies. MSM PRC affiliated faculty lead or advise efforts related to community engagement, community health worker leadership or health communication for this effort.

• AARP SHOWS Program

  Students Hanging Out With Seniors (S.H.O.W.S.) was developed to improve the social connections, health, and well-being of the 65 and over senior population during the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. In collaboration with the Compassionate Cares course offered at Morehouse School of Medicine, third year medical students engaged assisted living seniors through weekly bio-directional virtual interaction introducing themes to the seniors specific to the geriatric population including fall risk assessment and cognitive testing. This provided both the students and seniors with social connections while the students were able to enhance their medical knowledge of the geriatric population. The goals and objectives of the SHOWS program are to create social support through psychosocial and educational intervention thereby reducing isolation and loneliness, to develop physicians who are competent and knowledgeable in the delivery of quality and compassionate care of the older adult, and to increase interprofessional communication becoming competent in teamwork. Our partners include AARP Foundation and Mercy Housing.

• Data Science Bootcamp

  This intensive bootcamp offers skills-based training in theory and technique including skills needed in every “facet” of data science: project design, data acquisition and storage, tool selection, analysis, interpretation, and communication. Students will learn the fundamentals of data science in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, data exploration using Python, data visualization, and data science ethics, preparing them for entry level data scientist jobs. This bootcamp is hosted on Canvas, a learning management system used by educational institutions worldwide. Upon completion, students will receive a certificate.

• SNAPP PPPIA

  In collaboration with The Health Promotion Resource Center at Morehouse School of Medicine (HPRC/MSM), The Innovation Learning Laboratory for Population Health has developed the Statewide Network among Partners for Parent/Caregivers (SNAPP). SNAPP will explore, develop, test, refine, evaluate and disseminate effective parenting and caregiver interventions that help reduce teen pregnancy, STIs, and related youth risks in the state of Georgia. Community organizations, community members, parents, teachers and students attend a 7-week innovation bootcamp, The Promising Parenting Practices Innovation Academy (PPPIA), to learn the innovation development process from idea to proof of concept.

• Doris Duke Foundation Grant

  We are developing a culturally and linguistically appropriate Native American (American Indian)/ Alaskan Native adaptation of the High School & Young Adult Community Health Worker Training program. This innovative initiative will be based on best practice modeling and lessons learned from our original HSYACHW Training Program. This initiative will align three focal components to address mental health and wellbeing among youth: mental health literacy training, community-based mental health intervention (i.e., communication campaign + service linkage), and year-round engagement through mental health screening and reinforcing lessons. The virtual training and engagement for the year will be open to all high school students and recent high school graduates within identified AI/AN communities which will be determined.

  The initiative will be implemented over a two-year period and will train high school CHWs to engage their peers, schools, and community in strategies for better mental health and wellness, specifically mitigation of the effects of COVID-19. Utilizing our existing training infrastructure combined with the NCRN dissemination platform, we propose to train 60 HSYACHWs in identified indigenous areas to serve as primary deliverers of mental health education within their schools and communities. Participants will be involved in the development and implementation of a mental health public messaging campaign to cover topics including stress, substance and alcohol abuse, suicide. They also learn strategies for mitigating mental health emergencies and work with peers to implement community-based mental health initiatives.

  As part of this initiative, student participants will be trained in Community Health Worker competencies with a focus on COVID-19 education, mental health education, resource navigation, infection prevention and control, and mitigating the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable populations. This will be accomplished through the HSYAHCW Online Training Curriculum, youth-tailored COVID-19 educational workshops, mental health activities, peer-to-peer education, and monthly health monitoring and wellness checks for peers, family, and community members.

• NIH Administrative Supplement

  To examine and decrease COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy among the Haitian American immigrant population, and to decrease mental health disparities among underserved youth, our team proposes to culturally adapt, implement, and conduct a preliminary validation of a youth (18-24) led health and mental health education campaign to address COVID-19 related psychosocial stressors. Our central hypothesis is that through participation in this program, young adults become active agents in the development of positive health outcomes for themselves, their families, and community. Participation in HSYACHW will encourage healthy behaviors and better health outcomes, while helping to mitigate the adverse emotional effects of COVID-19 and vaccine hesitancy among underserved young adults.

  Our objective is to utilize social ecological public health theory and Community-based Participatory approach to examine the sociodemographic factors involved in motivating young adults to develop strategies for influencing health outcomes at the individual, family, and community levels. This work also aims to foster the development and sustainability of positive health behaviors among medically underserved youth, their families and communities. This is a RCMI Supplemental project is to adapt and evaluate this approach. The specific aims are: 1) To adapt the High School & Young Adult Community Health Worker Training program for use with young adult refugee and Immigrant populations (ages 18-24) of Haitian descent; 2) To implement and validate the success of the adapted HSYACHW within the target population to vaccine hesitancy and uptake and improved mental health.

• Young Adult Mental Health Program

  Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) will lead the Young Adult Mental Health Community Health Workers Program. This initiative will align three focal components to address mental health and wellbeing among youth: mental health literacy training, community-based mental health intervention (i.e., communication campaign + service linkage), and year-round engagement through mental health screening and reinforcing lessons. Participants will be involved in the development and implementation of a mental health public messaging campaign to cover topics including stress, substance and alcohol abuse, suicide. They also learn strategies for mitigating mental health emergencies and work with peers to implement community-based mental health initiatives.

  • CLICK HERE to be a part of the program.
  • CLICK HERE to buy the curriculum

Meet our Team

Arletha W. Livingston, PhD, MPH, MBA
Director II, Innovation Learning Laboratory for Population Health
Associate Professor, Family Medicine
NCRN, CHW Mobilization Strategic Lead
Assistant Director, Community Partnerships, Prevention Research Center
Director, HealthTech Initiatives, Office of Translational Technologies

Highlights & Outcomes

• Patient-Centered Medical Home Neighborhood (PCMHN) metrics
• Shared healthcare savings
• Dashboard created to monitor/track patients
• Scaling care coordination with Accountable Care Organization (ACO)

News & Events

	A Practical Risk Stratification Approach for Implementing a Primary Chronic Disease Management Program in an Underserved Community
	High School Community Health Workers (HS CHWs)
	Morehouse Celebrates $1.2 Million in Health Grant Click here to watch the full video of the presentation

Publications

• Williams-Livingston A, Akintobi, T, Banerjee, A  (2020) Community-Based Participatory Research in Action: The Patient-Centered Medical Home and Neighborhood Journal of Primary Care and Community Health Volume 11: 1-7 November 2020
  
  
• Williams-Livingston A, Ervin, C, McCray, G (2020) Bridges to Health Equity High School Community Health Worker Training Program Journal of Georgia Public Health August 2020
  
  
• McCray, G, Haynes, B, Proeller, A Ervin, C, Williams-Livingston, A (2020)Making the Case for Community Health Workers in Georgia Journal of Georgia Public Health August 2020
  
  
• Xu J., Williams-Livingston A., Rust G., Gaglioti A. (2017) A Practical Risk Stratification Approach for Implementing a Primary Care Chronic Disease Management Program in an Underserved Community Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved February 2018
  
  
• Dancey-Scott N., Williams-Livingston A., Dutcher, G (2017) Enhancing the Capacity of Community Organizations to Evaluate HIV/AIDS Information Outreach: A Pilot Experiment in Expert Consultation Journal of Consumer Health on the Internet 36(3-4): 217-230
  
  
• Zheng, J, Williams-Livingston, A, Danavall, N (2021) Online High School Community Health Worker Curriculum: Key Strategies of Transforming, Engagement, and Implementation. Frontiers in Public Health Accepted