Introduced in the spring of 2016, the Health and Social Justice Scholars Program engages professional students with local communities and faculty mentors to bring about changes to benefit under-served populations in the Louisville area. For more information, visit Health and Social Justice Scholars.
Diana Kuo has been named one of four students in the first cohort of Health and Social Justice Scholars. Born in Taiwan, Kuo immigrated to the United States with her family at age 3 and lived in New Jersey during her formative years.
Prior to entering the PhD program at UofL, she worked as a medical laboratory technologist for the State of North Carolina, UNC Healthcare and the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. She also has experience working for an international health non-profit organization, developing fundraising activities for the organization to provide medical and social services for Chinese orphans with special needs. Kuo is a second-year PhD student in the epidemiology department of the School of Public Health and Information Sciences.
She took time out of her schedule to talk to UofL News about what motivates her and what her goals are as a Health and Social Justice Scholar.
UofL News: What motivated you to invest in health and social justice?
Diana Kuo: Ever since my time as a grad student in my master’s program I was interested in epidemiology, but also international health. A lot of international health courses I took had a human rights perspective with health, so my background has been fluctuating. After I graduated from the master’s program, I worked for an international health organization in a fundraising office for our operations in China where we helped handicapped orphans. Once I left that career I went into the medical field as a medical technologist helping to diagnose diseases. Inherent in me has always been the idea that the health and wellbeing of everyone in our community is important. That sent be back to pursue my PhD. One of my main topics of interest in epidemiology is social epidemiology, which melds a lot of different disciplines to understand this bigger picture of health and why it is different in different populations.
UofL News: What is one experience that drives you to make a difference?
Kuo: My most significant experience was in my MPH program in which I did an internship with a student-run organization. We went to Uganda to catalog services offered by NGOs, MPOs, private clinics and local hospitals for HIV and AIDS patients and their friends and family who were affected. While I was there we worked with a local brother-and-sister-run orphanage. In Uganda there is no such thing as a state-run orphanage system, so it’s basically people taking in children from the street. A lot of those children are orphans because their parents died of AIDS and none of the family members want to – or can – help out. One of the days we were there we went around talking to children who had not yet gone to seek someone to help them. They were still living on the streets. A lot of them were hiding in the sewer drains. I think that was one of the most up-front and eye-opening events I ever experienced.
UofL News: What would you like to accomplish as a Health and Social Justice Scholar?
Kuo: It will depend on how we collaborate to figure out what would be the best project to help the community, but I think there are a lot of issues that are not directly related to health but contribute to whether people have healthy lives. One of the main things is to get the idea of public health out to the community and affect policy change in the city. Although I don’t know when or if we will achieve this, I hope it will be within my lifetime.
Ashton Green has been named one of four students in the first cohort of Health and Social Justice Scholars. Born in Indianapolis, Green was an athlete throughout high school and as an undergraduate student at Xavier University in Cincinnati. After graduating from Xavier in 2014, she dedicated the following year to serving the Indianapolis community. She established a junior youth spiritual empowerment group, with a vision to make a positive impact in the lives of young people within the community.
Green is a second-year student in the UofL School of Dentistry. UofL News had the chance to talk to her about her motivation and her goals.
UofL News: What motivated you to invest in health and social justice?
Ashton Green: I’ve always been very aware that the best way to be useful in society is to serve those around you. I have also always had an interest in the field of health care. In my initiative to address local health care disparities, I think my target area would deal primarily with cigarette smokers because in Kentucky smoking is a huge issue. Part of my motivation for choosing to focus on smoking also stems from my family. Some of my mother’s side of the family is from Kentucky and we have lost several relatives due to lung cancer and esophageal cancer. Smoking and diseases that stem from it are very personal to me and I want to come up with a resource that I feel the greater community can easily use and learn from. Hopefully this knowledge can contribute to cultural change. The impact might be small at first, but I feel that if you target one area you have the ability to focus on it and expand it to make greater change later.
UofL News: Explain one experience that drives you to make a difference.
Green: Upon first moving here I wasn’t quite aware of how intense the problem of smoking is. One time while walking home from school I passed by the hospital. As I walked by, I saw patients in hospital gowns and some carrying IV poles standing outside smoking cigarettes. As you can imagine, this was such a confusing sight, but in that moment I realized people must not be aware of how detrimental smoking actually is. I was definitely shocked that day. I remember calling my mom about it and saying, ‘You won’t believe what I just saw.’ That was pretty eye-opening.
UofL News: What would you like to accomplish as a Health and Social Justice Scholar?
Green: I want to create something that is sustainable long after I graduate. I have a few ideas I would like to speak with my mentor about and get the ball rolling. I definitely want to address smoking cessation and create a resource that will last long after I’m gone, because the point is to make permanent, positive change if you can. I have some ideas that I am really excited about.
Mallika Sabharwal has been named one of four students in the first cohort of UofL Health and Social Justice Scholars. As an undergraduate student at the University of Florida, Sabharwal volunteered at the Equal Access Clinic, a student-run free clinic providing medical care to underinsured communities in North Florida.
Before starting medical school, she worked at the Chicago Department of Public Health through the CDC’s Public Health Associate Program. In Chicago, Sabharwal worked in the school-based sexually transmitted disease program, which educated and tested high school students on the south and west sides of the city. She is a second-year student in the UofL School of Medicine and serves as public health coordinator for the national American Medical Student Association.
UofL News had the opportunity to talk to Sabharwal about what motivates her and her objectives as a Health and Social Justice Scholar.
UofL News: What motivated you to invest in health and social justice?
Sabharwal: My family and I immigrated to Florida from India. My dad struggled with mental health disorders and we lived in a rural area so he didn’t always have access to the care he needed. There also were linguistic and cultural barriers besides economic barriers. Seeing him struggle with medical care and how it affected my family motivates me to improve health care access for everyone.
UofL News: Describe one experience that drives you to make a difference.
Sabharwal: When I was an undergrad, I volunteered at a student-run clinic. We often would see patients who were underinsured or homeless – underserved populations. I found it ironic that in health care you learn so much about people yet they are just there for a medication. We can give them a prescription for that medication, but there are so many underlying barriers that affect their health. I feel like I am in a position to address those other barriers.
I remember one woman specifically. I was doing intake on her, just going through the motions, and when I came to address, she said, ‘I am homeless.’ I was just … ‘sorry.’ I didn’t even know how to react. She needed a blood pressure medication refill. As a physician, I feel like I can give you your blood pressure medication, but I can also refer you to public housing or a social worker who can help you find housing besides just giving you the blood pressure medication.
UofL News: What would you like to accomplish as a Health and Social Justice Scholar?
Sabharwal: I would like to build a skill set that allows me to better articulate on issues of health disparity and health inequity. I also hope to create a project that the community can adopt and sustain beyond the program.
About the Health and Social Justice Scholars program
Introduced in the spring of 2016, the Health and Social Justice Scholars Program engages professional students with local communities and faculty mentors to bring about changes to benefit underserved populations in the Louisville area. The students will participate in public service projects and mentored scholarship to learn techniques for working interprofessionally and with community members to combat issues such as youth violence, public water safety and depression in adolescents in West Louisville and other disadvantaged communities.
Health and Social Justice Scholars are selected during the second year of their professional program at the UofL Health Sciences Center and are expected to remain scholars for three years. They receive annual financial support of $10,000 toward educational expenses.
