January 2024 Micro-internships

Are you interested in doing a funded, remote, health-focused, community-engaged micro-internship project this winter?

If so, apply for funding from the Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES) and the New Jersey Alliance for Clinical and Translational Science (NJ ACTS). ProCES and NJ ACTS will be able to support up to 3 undergraduate student placements with organizations engaged in population health. The external funding source for this opportunity must adhere to federal guidelines. Only students who are US citizens, permanent residents of the US or non-citizen nationals are eligible for funding. Brief applications submitted in SAFE are due Thursday, November 30, 2023.

What opportunities are available?
Three remote projects are available which may include in-person meeting opportunities during Wintersession. Please see the complete project descriptions below for details about each opportunity and the partnering organization. 

  1. Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies (CHIBPS) & The Rutgers School of Public Health: Health Education and Web site Update for the LGBTQ+ Community 
  2. UrbanPromise Trenton: Information for Families about Behavioral Modification Medications
  3. Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Division of Population Health, Quality, and Implementation Sciences (PopQuIS), Department of Pediatrics: Improving Maternal and Child Health Measurement


Given the short timeframe to conduct the projects, projects requiring Institutional Review Board review are NOT eligible for funding. Partner organizations may provide de-identified data on human subjects which would not require IRB review. 

What does the funding cover?

  • The funding can offset expenses incurred and may cover project or research-related expenses such as transportation, educational material development or translation, access to publications, and food.

What is the amount of the funding?

  • Participants can receive $1,200 for two weeks of participation. A minimum of two weeks and 70 hours of work on the project is required.
  • Please note that half of the funds will be paid in early January 2024, and half will be paid upon submission and staff review of the final report in late February 2024. 
  • Stipends may be subject to tax and may be reported by the University to the Internal Revenue Service. See University guidelines 

What is the timeline?

  • Friday, November 17, 2023 - application period starts
  • Apply between November 17, 2023 and November 30, 2023. The deadline to submit applications is midnight on Thursday, November 30.
  • Receive a decision in early-December 2023.
  • Projects should be conducted during the month of January 2024.
  • Final reports (1-2-page description of the project goals, activities and outcomes) are due in SAFE by February 16, 2024. Final deliverables are also due to partner organizations, ProCES and NJACTS by February 16, 2024.

What do I need to know about applying and reporting?

  • Submit your application proposals via the Student Activity Funding Engine (SAFE). To apply, search for "Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship (ProCES) Health-Related Project Funding" 
  • Use the following search criteria to find the opportunity. Activity: Undergraduate Internship, Time Period: Winter Break or Intersession Break, Project Duration: Less than 4 weeks.
  • The sponsor (NJ ACTS) requires that funding recipients be US citizens or permanent residents.
  • Applicants will be asked to submit demographic information for sponsor reporting requirements.
  • You must submit a 1-2-page report; see details above. 
  • The external funding source for this opportunity must adhere to federal guidelines. Only students who are US citizens, permanent residents of the US or non-citizen nationals are eligible for funding.

Questions?


TO APPLY:
In your application, please identify:

  1. which project title and partner organization you hope to work with,
  2. your learning goals,
  3. a statement of why this particular organization and the project interest you.
  4. any relevant experience, knowledge or skills that would help you perform the project activities.
  5. In the "Supervisor of Internship" field, list Tania Boster, Director, ProCES, [email protected]

Applications are due 30 by midnight

Winter 2024 Project Descriptions

Project 1: Health Education and Web site Update for the LGBTQ+ Community

Community Partner Organization: Center for Health, Identity, Behavior, and Prevention Studies (CHIBPS) & The Rutgers School of Public Health

Description: Situated in the Rutgers School of Public Health, The Center for Health, Identity, Behavior and Prevention Studies (CHIBPS) is an interdisciplinary and nationally recognized center for the study of LGBTQ health, and a leading training ground for LGBTQ scholars based at Rutgers. CHIBPS advances research and knowledge to improve the lives of those affected with or by HIV and other infectious diseases, substance use, and mental health burden through the rigorous application of social science and public health research paradigms. Our research focuses mostly on the LGBTQ+ community, a critically underserved population.

CHIBPS is looking for an intern to help us update our website, including editing, updating, and refining the HIV/AIDS, Substance Use, and Resources sections. Our website is one of the first ways community members interact with our center and the site must have up-to-date information. For many community members, the website may be the only way they have access to resources. Ensuring that our website is easily accessible and can be understood by our community is also a priority. The student intern will research current literature and resources to identify information for the website updates, make the edits to the web pages, create a bibliography of the new content additions to the website, and identify appropriate graphics related to each topic. This is a great opportunity to learn more about research, health literacy, health education, and the LGBTQ+ population. This project will be conducted remotely with the possibility of in-person meetings with the partner organization.

Project 2: Information for Families about Behavioral Modification Medications

Community Partner Organization: UrbanPromise Trenton

Description: UrbanPromise Trenton (UPT) helps young people reach their academic potential, surrounding them with an intentional circle of support that prepares each child to become thoughtful, engaged citizens in their communities. In line with their mission, UPT works to build up the whole child so that they have a choice in their future. The organization has identified a need for health information articulated by families and guardians of youth participating in UPT programs whose children are being advised to pursue treatment with behavioral modification medications for Attention-Deficit/Hyper Activity Disorder, Attention-Deficit Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and Intermittent Explosive Disorder.

UrbanPromise would like to have evidence-based information gathered from current medical literature, academic research, and experts to provide their families/guardians with a guide that will assist with navigating decisions and asking questions of health care providers about these medication interventions. There is a particular concern raised by families about the long-term effects of certain prescriptions, including both physical effects as well as the possibility of opening children up to discrimination later in life if they are asked, for example, to disclose any history of prescribed medications for behavioral health on a job application.

The student intern will have the opportunity to consult with an expert in children’s behavioral and emotional disorders, who is also trained on the use of behavioral modification medications and other interventions. Project deliverables could take the form of an extensive literature review, compilation of resources and detailed recommendations for an accompanying roadmap or brochure to equip families with resources to ask informed questions of medical providers. The latter roadmap or brochure will be developed during Spring 2024 by students in a Medical Anthropology course based on additional research. This project will be conducted remotely with the possibility a few in-person meetings with experts and the partner organization.

Project 3: Improving Maternal and Child Health Measurement

Community Partner Organization: Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Division of Population Health, Quality, and Implementation Sciences (PopQuIS), Department of Pediatrics - Lawrence C. Kleinman, MD, MPH, FAAP and Sandee Moroso

Description: Maternal and Child Health (MCH) suffers from a relative deficit as compared to adult health in measures that stimulate and support efforts to improve outcomes and make them more equitable. Specifically, MCH requires enhancements of MCH researchers' capacity to measure the value of care to maternal and child population regarding positive health and family engagement. Without such advances, MCH populations may be systematically disadvantaged even by well-intended health policies and practices. Dr. Kleinman just concluded four years as PI of the Health Resources Administration Maternal Child Health Measurement Research Network (HRSA MCH MRN), which considered these issues as a national multidisciplinary stakeholder collaboration.

Goal(s) and Objectives of the MCH MRN: 1) Increase the quality of options available for MCH measurement by convening and deploying a collaborative infrastructure for multi-site MCH measurement research. 2) Develop, Evaluate and Assess prioritized MCH measures for use in specified populations and contexts using the Collaborating Research Entity environment developed by the Network. Support and advocate for their thoughtful implementation. 3) Identify opportunities for and promote the translation of our findings into policy and practice for the benefit of health and health equity in MCH populations. 4) Renew, revise, and disseminate research agenda for MCH measurement annually, while maintaining, updating and communicating the MCH MRN measure compendium. Learn more about the National Strategic Measurement agenda, research priorities and gaps related to maternal, child and family health.

Project: Depending on the student's interest, provide research for one of several MCH MRN measurement improvement groups focused on the following topics:

  1. Participation on a project that involves a literature review to help to articulate the MCH MRN’s approach to incorporate life course perspective into the assessment of COVID and Long-COVID and their implications for children. A life course framework for thinking about the impact of COVID on the health of children and adolescents.
  2. Identify public data sources and apply the MRN’s innovative Disparity-Adjusted Performance Measurement metric to consider how the incorporation of disparities into measurement would change how we understand the data. This could be used with immunization rates, educational data, infant mortality and lots of other data sets. Students interested in this project must have experience with statistical data analyses (e.g., R, Stata, SAS, MATLAB, advanced Excel).
  3. Demonstrating the Hazard of Veiled Injustice (HVI). Risk adjustment represents a family of statistical and other approaches to allow for the comparison of like to like during analysis. HVI is defined as occurring when risk adjustment hides actual disparities across racial and ethnic groups. See publication for more information. This project will involve the use of simulation techniques to develop a data set with specified relationships between Race, Social determinants, Clinical, and Outcome variables and demonstrate the differences in interpretation when the Hazard of Veiled Indifference is and is not accounted for. Students interested in this project must have experience with statistical data analyses (e.g., R, Stata, SAS, MATLAB, or advanced Excel).

In the application, students should state which one of the three topics they want to focus on and briefly describe their statistical skills, if relevant. This project will be conducted remotely.