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Being Seasoned for Changing Seasons
This is a season of change. At the Center for Health Equity, we remain steadfast in our mission: building healthier people across flourishing communities. As we embrace the momentum of 2025, I’m excited to share some meaningful updates that reflect our continued growth and impact.
We’ve expanded to eleven Center faculty members, bringing deep expertise across critical areas including housing and health, food and nutrition, water security, medical-legal partnerships, maternal and mental health, child and adolescent health, spatial and nutritional epidemiology, and chronic disease prevention and management. And we’re not stopping there—new faculty expertise in healthy aging is on the horizon (stay tuned!).
We have launched a new Data Visualization Studio, a service available to funders, researchers, and the community, to provide accurate and transparent metrics within policy and program initiatives. This Studio joins our core infrastructure initiatives— the Community Engagement Studio and the Health Equity Collective —which together enable robust systems and community engagement, grounded in data, to drive progress on the non-medical drivers of health.
If you’re curious about how these resources can support your work, we’d love to connect.
And speaking about the Health Equity Collective (HEC), a huge shoutout to our policy workgroup co-chairs, Jordan Everett and Iris Saenz, who led over 30 meetings this spring with HEC members. Their leadership helped inform, educate, and guide discussions around the Texas 89th legislative session—no small feat during a packed legislative season! We are also thrilled to announce the launch of our Health Equity Collective webpage, where you can join us in furthering our collective mission of health equity.
Another exciting development: we’ve deepened our internal partnerships at UTHealth Houston by formalizing our collaboration with the Coordinating Center for Clinical Trials to establish a Food Is Medicine Evaluation Core—a powerful step forward in our infrastructure for impact. Combining the expertise of the data science & biostatistics department for effective data management and rigorous evaluation, and a seasoned team of experts in epidemiology and health promotion and behavior, we are leading studies designed to advance best practices and interventions that improve health outcomes.
Our commitment to training the next generation of public health leaders remains strong. Please join us in welcoming our 2025 Health Equity Fellows, Katherine Joseph, MPH, and Najha Black, MPH, CHW, both doctoral students at UTHealth Houston. They’ll work closely with our faculty and community partners to advance health disparities research.
Ultimately, we work for our people and our communities. As we look ahead to the second half of the year, our seasoned team will continue to serve, adapting, learning, and growing through shifting winds. I invite you to connect with us. This space is for all, and we want to work alongside you.
Warmest of regards,
Shreela Sharma, PhD, RDN, LD
Director, Center for Health Equity
| | Data Visualization Studio Launched | | |
The Center for Health Equity is proud to launch the Data Visualization Studio, a consultative service that transforms complex data into clear, actionable insights. Designed for funders and implementers alike, the Studio supports real-time monitoring and evaluation to ensure programs stay on track and achieve meaningful impact.
Our two primary offerings include:
These tools empower organizations to identify implementation challenges, adjust strategies quickly, and clearly demonstrate impact by offering dynamic sight lines into what's working, where, and why. Whether you're leading a regional initiative or evaluating program performance, our data scientists, cartographers, and statisticians deliver visualizations that support smarter decisions and stronger outcomes.
Interested in learning more? Read more here and contact Wes Gibson, MPH, Senior Program Manager, for any other questions you may have.
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Community Engagement Studio
Where Research Meets Real-World Insights
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The Center for Health Equity at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health proudly offers the Community Engagement Studio (CES)—a consultative service designed to support community-informed research. Our team helps investigators and community partners co-create impactful interventions through community-informed study design, implementation, evaluation, and sustainability planning.
By meaningfully engaging community voices, CSES expands stakeholder networks, promotes shared governance, and strengthens research through culturally relevant strategies that drive real impact.
CES has supported key initiatives such as the Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program (HVIP) at Memorial Hermann Hospital, where researchers engaged community members to shape program design and address root causes of gun violence. In another example, our Food is Medicine Community Advisory Group convened mothers with lived experience in produce prescription programs to guide the development of equitable food access interventions.
Whether you're designing a pilot or scaling a community-based intervention, our studio helps ensure your work is grounded in the lived experience of those it aims to serve.
To explore how CES can enhance your project, you can contact Anne Marie Thompson, MPH, CHES, CLC, Senior Program Manager.
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Advancing Food is Medicine
Centering Equity in Nutrition and Health
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The Center for Health Equity continues its mission of advancing Food is Medicine (FIM) efforts across Texas and nationally. Here are some highlights of our work so far in 2025:
We have formalized our partnership with the Coordinating Center for Clinical Trials at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health to establish a FIM core to provide the most rigorous, state-of-the-art implementation and evaluation support for FIM. This includes our Data Visualization Studio, which equips partners with interactive dashboards and geospatial tools to track performance and outcomes. The Center actively supports the design, implementation, and evaluation of 8 FIM efforts in Texas.
Building off the work of the Health Equity Collective's Food Security Workgroup and the Texas Consortium for Non-Medical Drivers of Health Program Index, we conducted a statewide review of Food is Medicine programs to understand the depth of work happening in Texas and to gather information about intervention design, partnerships, organizational experience, and funding sources. The survey will remain open to continue to garner FIM implementation insights across Texas. You can learn more about our FIM Statewide landscape Scan here.
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Is your organization implementing at least one Food Is Medicine Program in Texas? Your input is invaluable.
Please take the FIM Program Survey.
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Statewide Landscape Scan of Food is Medicine Initiatives Meeting - via Zoom
June 27, 2025
10:00 am to 11:00 am
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Health Equity Collective
Driving Better Health Together
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The Health Equity Collective—a systems-based coalition committed to enhancing care coordination for NMDOH through a collective impact approach— continues strong in its 6th year.
We are excited to announce the launch of our new website, which highlights our expansion to over 300 participating organizations and celebrates their remarkable achievements.
Our reach continues to grow, engaging public health experts at local, national, and international levels. To date, we have hosted 46 networking and learning sessions to foster collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
As part of the 89th legislative session, our HEC Policy Workgroup is working diligently to advance non-partisan legislation to create more opportunities to improve the health and well-being of community members served by NMDOH.
The build of the Health Equity Collective's technology-based care coordination network- the Community Assistance and Referral Exchange (CARE)—is now complete! To ensure a truly community-centered approach, we've launched a Community Advisory Group (CAG) to guide this next implementation phase. The CAG, consisting of community members who have received social service referrals from their healthcare providers and experienced these needs, provides essential input on what care coordination looks like in their lives- the barriers and facilitators to accessing essential services, effective communication of referrals and resources, and strategies to ensure patient-centered practices around consent and data sharing. By leveraging existing regional technology assets and centering community lived experience, the HEC CARE Network will facilitate interoperability and connectivity between healthcare and social service organizations across the Greater Houston region.
| | Center for Health Equity Spotlights | | |
As Research Coordinator, Garcia Quintana brings expertise in dentistry, public health, and behavioral science, managing evaluation activities, data collection, and school engagement. She is passionate about integrating oral health into broader public health strategies, particularly in underserved communities.
Crichlow, a senior program manager and former elementary teacher, leads daily project operations and ensures effective implementation of school-based interventions. She manages timelines, supervises data collection, and fosters strong relationships with school partners.
Since joining the Center in 2022, both have contributed their talents to ensuring these projects’ success!
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Andrea Ramirez Varela, MD, PhD, MPH
Andrea Ramirez Varela, MD, PhD, MPH, assistant professor with the Department of Epidemiology, works as physician-scientist and researcher at the intersection of medicine, public health, epidemiology and policy research. Her career focuses on life course studies among underserved populations in the US, Latin America and low and middle-income country settings.
One of her recent projects, Futbolito for All, is a community-driven after-school soccer program promoting physical activity among Latino/a children and families in Galena Park, Texas. Hosted at Galena Park Middle School and North Shore Elementary, the program offers fun, culturally relevant opportunities for exercise, supported by Houston Dynamo and Dash Charities. Professional coaches train school staff to ensure sustainability, while children build soccer skills, confidence, and healthy habits over five weeks. Funded by the UTHealth PRIME Award and Rice University’s TMC Collaborator Seed Fund, Futbolito is paving the way for broader efforts to reduce health disparities.
Ramirez Varela also serves as Co-chair of the Global Observatory for Physical Activity (GoPA!) and the Global Observatory for Physical Education (GoPE!), advancing global research to increase physical activity and education worldwide.
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Serwaa Omowale, PhD, LMSW, MPH
Serwaa Omowale, PhD, LMSW, MPH, assistant professor with the Department of Management, Policy, and Community Health, addresses maternal health disparities with a focus on maternal mortality, morbidity, and the broader social determinants that influence women’s health across the lifespan in her research. Her work has explored how stress during pregnancy and occupational factors shape maternal outcomes.
A cornerstone of Omowale’s work is The Swaddle Study, a community-based research initiative aimed at improving Black maternal and infant health. This intervention seeks to improve Black maternal and infant health by reducing barriers to mental health and social services during the perinatal period.
The intervention will pair social workers and birth doulas to provide culturally responsive, holistic care, aiming to reduce adverse pregnancy outcomes and enhance maternal care quality. It is rooted in long-term collaboration with Black mothers, clinical social workers, birth doulas, and community research scientists in the San Francisco Bay Area, California and Houston, Texas with a long-term goal of setting a national standard for culturally competent maternal and infant care.
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Ru-Jye (Lindi) Chuang, DrPH, MS
Ru-Jye Chuang, DrPH, MS, is an assistant professor in the Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences department and a faculty member at the Center for Health Equity. Her work focuses on developing, implementing, and evaluating multilevel health promotion interventions for under-resourced populations, spanning food is medicine, oral health, and maternal and child health.
| | | Her current projects include school-based projects providing Food is Medicine to pediatric populations through the Brighter Bites program, produce prescription initiatives, and oral health interventions like CATCH Healthy Smiles. She is currently co-leading three projects partnering with healthcare systems, UT Physicians, Acres Homes, and Legacy Community Health’s school-based clinics to provide low-income families with produce and/or vouchers. She also mentors students and leads interdisciplinary teams, advancing evidence-based approaches to promote health equity. | | |
Welcome Center Summer Intensive Fellowship Fellows
The Center for Health Equity hosts a competitive, paid summer intensive fellowship opportunity for UTHealth Houston students to provide them with education and training opportunities in health disparities research.
Meet our 2025 fellowship recipients, Najha Black, MPH, CHW, and Katherine Joseph, MPH.
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Najha Black, MPH, CHW
Najha Black, MPH, CHW, is a second-year PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology whose research focuses on racial and ethnic health disparities in chronic illnesses, with a particular emphasis on systemic lupus erythematosus, obesity, and cardiovascular disease.
She currently serves as the Evaluation Coordinator for Salud en Mis Manos, a community-based intervention designed to increase breast and cerical cancer screenings and HPV vaccinations among Latinas in underserved communities across Texas. With over four years of experience as a graduate research assistant, Black has contributed to multiple community-centered public health projects.
Her academic background includes an MPH in Epidemiology from UTHealth Houston School of Public Health and a BS in Microbiology from Texas State University. Najha has also served as a teaching assistant for an equity-focused epidemiology course, a resident assistant, and a summer camp counselor supporting youth from diverse backgrounds and abilities.
These experiences reflect her commitment to inclusive, community-engaged public health practice.
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Katherine Joseph, MPH
Katherine Joseph, MPH, is a second-year PhD student in the Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences where her research explores wastewater-based epidemiology and its applications for monitoring population health outcomes. Her work focuses on the detection of illicit and pharmaceutical drug metabolites, viral disease shedding, and metabolomic indicators in wastewater.
She integrates geospatial analysis to investigate environmental and non-medical drivers of health—such as climate factors, mass movement, and health disparities—aiming to inform targeted public health interventions.
Joseph holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Law, Science, and Technology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and earned her MPH from George Washington University. Her professional background includes roles in orthopedic research and COVID-19 laboratory testing. At UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, she conducts research in Dr. Fuqing Wu’s laboratory, advancing the field of wastewater-based epidemiology to address emerging public health challenges.
| | | Center for Health Equity Awards & Publications | | | |
You can find our publications along with other resources on the CHE’s Resource Hub page. | | Stay Connected with the Center for Health Equity | | | | |
