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To Our Community Partners,
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine’s Office of Population Science and Policy is excited to bring you the first 2018 edition of our newsletter, The Pioneer. This issue provides updates on our science and policy efforts, announces the launch of our Social Innovation Division, and highlights our partners across the region. Our success is built upon our relationships with the community and our partners - local, state and nationwide. A few outstanding partners including United Way, Illinois Education Association, and the Illinois State Board of Education, are featured in this edition of The Pioneer.
Please connect with us at
[email protected]
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We look forward to partnering with you to make our residents in central and southern Illinois healthier.
Best,
Sameer Vohra, MD, JD, MA, FAAP
Executive Director, Office of Population Science and Policy
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Humanities
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Message From the Executive Director
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The Privilege of Your Partnership
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine (SIU SOM) launched our Office of Population Science and Policy in October 2016 with a big, bold belief. Despite the challenges that existed in central and southern Illinois, we believed the Office, in partnership with our service region, could make a difference. Together, we could foster the right innovation that would improve and sustain healthy outcomes. United, SIU Medicine with leaders across our region could build healthier, happier lives for ourselves, for our children, and for our communities. We could and would build a healthier central and southern Illinois.
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As our team started on this journey, we knew we had the potential for great success. However, we were still worried. Would communities across central and southern Illinois want to work with us? My travels had opened my eyes to incredible leaders across the service region doing wonderful work. Those individuals and communities had inspired me. Would we inspire them? The challenges were great, and we had no magic solutions. I knew we had talent. I knew we had good ideas. Success, however, would depend on hard work, commitment, and most importantly, partnership. Would our region’s communities want to partner with us? I just did not know.
Over the past 16 months, our team has met with individuals across our service region. We have met parents, teachers, hospital CEOs, judges, community leaders, and many more. We have listened. We have learned. Most importantly, we have found that the region is just as passionate about improving health outcomes as we are. Our conversations confirm that our region understands its strengths, the strongest of which is the power of its people to make a difference. However, they also understand that no one can address their health and resource challenges on their own. We all need partners.
Our communities have told us that they need help to better understand data, design and evaluate programs aimed at success, and create sustainable strategies through policy development. Our Office has been honored to be a partner to provide that help for organizations and communities across the region.
Our Office of Population Science and Policy’s third issue of The Pioneer helps to explore a few of our special partnerships in greater detail. We sought some. Others found us. However, together we have started the connections necessary to improve health outcomes. Although the core of our partnerships start with individuals in our communities, we have been fortunate to also begin collaborations with legislators, state agencies, membership organizations, and corporations. Our Office understands that we need as many people at the table as possible, all working together to achieve our collective goals.
The Office is proud to have built a foundation of success, but we are just getting started. We know that there is so much more work to do. In order to address these growing challenges, our Office continues to seek additional partners to build a healthier region. The path continues to have obstacles, but as our partnerships grow, we increasingly have the tools to overcome them. Thank you, to all of you, for your commitment, your dedication, and your partnership. We look forward to the continued work we do together to improve the health of residents in central and southern Illinois.
Sameer Vohra, MD, JD, MA
Executive Director, Office of Population Science and Policy
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Improving the health of residents in central and southern Illinois through research, policy, and education.
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Announcing the Launch of the Social Innovation Division
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What is Social Innovation?
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Step into any community within Illinois and chances are someone or a small group has developed an innovative solution aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of community members. For many of these innovations, additional resources and supports are needed for the ideas to flourish and grow. On January 1, 2018, OPSP launched a new Social Innovation Division aimed to help community health innovations flourish. The division, headed by Jeanne Koehler, PhD, provides research expertise around change and innovation. Dr. Koehler explains, “People within our communities are working hard to address health needs and are doing so in some of the most resource lean, geographically isolated environments. Innovators tend to be so driven by the work they have a laser-like focus on the magnitude of the problem and the importance of the solution. Ideas in some cases might be small, mighty, and impactful, but without the needed support and support around the initiative, change is short lived and reliant on the innovator. Our hope is to find these innovations, collaborate with the communities and innovators, and conduct research and evaluation so effective changes last and become a fiber of the community.”
Anne Scheer, PhD, a member of the Social Innovation research team explains, “Our job as social innovators, then, is to help our communities identify and capitalize on what is already there but may have remained unrecognized. We are symbiotic partners in facilitating social change for healthier communities."
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In order to facilitate social change around health and medicine, we need to get to know the communities being served: What are their values? How do they live within the world? What resources do they use? Who do they recognize as leaders? OPSP’s Social Innovation Division seeks to help answer these questions – starting with the communities we serve and building on their existing knowledge and expertise. We are partners in facilitating social change for healthier communities. We do this through providing rigorous scientific research that includes looking at existing data, asking pertinent research questions, and using robust mixed methods approaches including intensive qualitative research. We help track outcomes of community members and organizations committed to improving the health and wellness of their communities.
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Meet Our Newest Team Members!
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Jeanne Koehler, PhD
Social Innovation Director
My research focuses on social innovation, resilience, academic performance, and experiential education. In the Office of Population Science and Policy, my role is to lead field research efforts to better understand the issues and inequities communities face, the approaches communities use to improve the health and wellbeing of children and families, and socially entrepreneurial efforts focused on health.
Also an Assistant Professor in Medical Education, I am the Director of the Academy for Scholarship in Education and help improve teaching and learning within SIU SOM. I earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, my Ed.M. in Human Resource Development, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a B.A. in English, Concentration in Secondary Education, Eureka College. In all of my roles, I have focused on human performance and the importance of meaningful relationships, identity development, problem solving, and pathways through broken systems.
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Lauren Slomer, MPH
Population Science Research Specialist
I am a graduate of Illinois State University and the University of Illinois at Springfield. I received my bachelor’s in 2015 devoting the majority of my studies to health education. After graduating from Illinois State University, I moved back to my hometown, Springfield, to pursue a Master’s in Public Health (MPH) at the University of Illinois at Springfield. I completed my MPH degree in December of 2017. I am committed to the health and wellness of the people in the communities of central and southern Illinois.
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Recruitment season is underway and the Office of Population Science and Policy has begun visiting colleges and universities. Heather Westrick, Administrative Director, and Amanda Fogleman, Senior Research Development Coordinator, recently attended a career and internship fair at the University of Chicago, and hosted a pop-up recruitment event at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. The Office will be presenting at Washington University’s Brown School of Social Work in February. If you’re interested in having OPSP present at your local career fair or learning more about internship opportunities, please email Heather Westrick at
[email protected]
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You can hear from two former interns turned full-time employees below.
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Arden Caffrey, BS
Western Illinois University
“At OPSP, I learned how to apply my knowledge of public health in real world scenarios. I’m grateful for OPSP’s flexibility, allowing me to explore my own passions while always offering support and guidance.”
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Christofer Rodriguez, MPH
University of San Francisco
“After completing my internship, I chose to accept a position in OPSP because of the Office mission, goals, and vision, the benefits provided, and an amazing work-life balance."
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The Office is also recruiting for faculty:
Research Assistant Professor – Cancer Health Outcomes
Function: To provide cancer epidemiologist insight and innovation (MD and/or PhD).
Research Assistant Professor – Human and Community Development
Function: To provide children’s health outcomes, human development, community health or social innovation research insight and innovation (MD and/or PhD).
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Applicants can view existing vacancies in a variety of ways:
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Science Division Partnerships
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As part of a sub-contract with the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), OPSP was asked to provide evaluation of the Center for Disease Control's Division of Adolescent and School Health (CDC/DASH) School-Based Health Grant “HIV/STD/ Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program”. The CDC/DASH Grant is a collaborative grant awarded to over 20 different State Education Agencies, as well as Local Education Agencies to introduce and implement comprehensive, evidence based, sexual health curriculum into grades 6-12 schools. The goal is to decrease the number of teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, and decrease HIV positivity in adolescents. Reginald Patterson, Ed.D., Principal Consultant at ISBE, shares “The partnership between SIUSOM and ISBE has proven to be invaluable. Performing evaluations requires both expertise with evaluations and insight of the program and the participants of the program, thus meeting their informational and resourceful needs. This insight has contributed to the successful implementation of the Health Grant. SIU has demonstrated through its collaborative efforts with all stakeholders of the grant, that their expertise and personal interest in making sure the program is successful, has made a difference in promoting and improving the lives of students, which is the main objective of the grant to improve adolescent health”.
The benefits of the ISBE partnership are many. Partnering on the CDC/DASH grant allows for the Office to play an active role in changing how sexual health education is being taught, while addressing the availability of health services to students and the creation of safe and supportive environments vital to the health and well-being of adolescent students. Working with state agencies allows OPSP to be visible at a higher level, which also attracts attention from other state agencies, states, or universities that also work in the same scope. Additionally, working on state contracts that are federally funded allows for the Office to gain experience collaborating with the state on larger grants that require inter-organizational partnerships.
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Social Innovation Division Partnerships
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The Social Innovation Division conducts rigorous scientific research through examining existing community data, developing a research plan with community around areas of interest and need, and integrating quantitative and qualitative methods targeted at the specific research question. The Division seeks long-term partnerships designed to help track outcomes for community members and organizations committed to improving the health and wellness of their communities. In addition, our active research presence and partnerships with communities will provide valuable data back to SIU SOM so that we can better design service solutions that align with the needs and cultures of the communities we serve.
The Social Innovation team has established a strong relationship with the Trauma Informed Partnership (TIP) of Macon-Piatt County, Illinois. This interdisciplinary team is hoping to foster school innovation around trauma informed learning environments. The team is led by Macon-Piatt Assistant Regional Superintendent Jill Reedy, Illinois Education Association UniServ Director Amelia Finch, and the Educational Coalition of Macon County Executive Director Dani Craft. Craft shared, “At the heart of our partnership is respect and collaboration. Four perspectives, health, education, association, and community join in vision and collective work on our journey to healthy schools, families, and community. It is our hope this pioneering approach will set a culture of collaboration for other communities to model.”
Through working with TIP, Assistant Superintendent Reedy connected the Social Innovation team with Chaddock School in Quincy, Illinois. Chaddock provides cutting edge residential treatment and special education for children with trauma and attachment-related difficulties. For the last 30 years, Chaddock has actively researched and explored therapeutic approaches for the children and the families they serve. “Nationally known as a leader in developmental trauma and attachment based services, Chaddock welcomes collaborative opportunities with SIU to develop research based tools that can increase the impact of our work with children and youth,” said Emily Robbearts, Director of Performance Excellence & Agency Impact. “Combining our clinical expertise with SIU’s research perspective strengthens Chaddock’s ability to apply our work to community based settings and foster trauma-informed systems of care.”
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Policy Division Partnerships
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Partnerships are critical to the success of our Policy Division. We strive to research and develop sustainable and appropriate policy change to improve the health of populations in our service region. With that as our goal, it is important to partner with community leaders and organizations to assure that they inform the process of policy research and change. OPSP works in partnership with both the Community Health Roundtable of Sangamon County and the United Way of Central Illinois. These partners help to keep OPSP grounded in the communities in which we serve and aid in the goal of producing appropriate policy change. John Kelker, President of United Way of Central Illinois and a member of the Community Health Roundtable spoke to the importance of our partnerships by saying “the work of the Office of Population Science and Policy is strengthening a partnership of interested organizations and individuals serving on Springfield’s Community Health Round Table. By providing the expertise and research necessary, the Office of Population Science and Policy is validating and documenting our community’s health issues.” Our partnerships are highly valued and appreciated, as we believe that community voice is a main factor in sustainable policy change. The Policy Division is excited about nurturing our current partnerships and working with new partners to improve the health of residents in central and southern Illinois.
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Office of Population Science & Policy
201 E. Madison Street
Springfield, IL 62702
(217) 545-7939
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