Honors in Community Health - University of Houston
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OUR MISSION

Honors in Community Health (HICH) seeks to build healthy communities through a multidisciplinary approach to overcoming barriers for underserved populations. This collaborative, student-led organization uses its understanding of the non-medical drivers of health to explore multiple types of service: community engagement, advocacy, and research. HICH provides all students at the University of Houston the opportunity to design, implement, and lead a wide variety of community health projects. Through support from the Honors College, HICH members are given the opportunity to pursue projects that best suit their interests, values, and goals.

 

 

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Membership

Membership fee: $15 per academic year

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Our current members collectively contribute perspectives from business, math, science, education, engineering, and other disciplines work together to create measurable and sustainable impacts for our Houston communities. Students who demonstrate a high level of commitment and participation will have the opportunity to design their own community health projects and develop valuable leadership skills.

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Featured Projects

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    The Better Respiratory Education and Assistance Targeting Houston's Elementary (BREATHE) program is designed to provide respiratory health education to medically underserved youth. At its core, we aim to help students build better health awareness and provide tools that enable them to advocate for themselves. Our unique undergraduate-led structure focuses on interactive conversation-based learning that engages the students we work with, providing a fun and welcoming space to decrease respiratory health stigma and increase health literacy.

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    The Creative Care project aims to collaborate with Cuney Homes to increase mental health outcomes through a curriculum that encourages self-expression, physical activity, and reflective writing. The Creative Care project is dedicated to providing a safe space for the children to be themselves and gain the tools needed to deal with their life stressors. Volunteers will develop and facilitate weekly creative wellness workshops for elementary and middle school-aged children. Creative Care is also beginning a partnership with a Houston Community Health Worker to lead a women’s domestic violence support group, using art therapy to promote healing.

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    Project Engaging Encouraging Rising Students (PEERS), supported by the University of Houston, Honors College, Community Health Workers Initiative, and the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Data Science Institute, focuses on encouraging STEM education and providing mentorship to underserved students in grades 9-12. PEERS grew from and embodies the Community Health Workers (CHWs) model as simultaneous educators and advocates. Initially conceived in a CHW class, this program pairs high school students and the University of Houston undergraduates to create long-lasting, effective, and engaging community projects that are meaningful and relevant. In addition, facilitating community engagement through collaboration and project-based learning encourages both our undergraduate and high school participants to pursue academic and professional development to advocate for improved health outcomes in their communities. Each student team presents their final project at the PEERS competition to compete for a monetary prize.

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    Responsive Resourcing (RR) aims to recognize public health barriers unique to the diverse communities or “hubs'' of Houston, including Gulfton, Sunnyside, Pasadena, and Third Ward, as well as uncover the proper resources to help alleviate the health discrepancies in our hubs. RR allows students to gain perspective by engaging in weekly interactive workshops designed to grow awareness of resource gaps, creating opportunities to volunteer in-person and collaborating with community health workers(CHWs) in finding resources for community members across the hubs. Through the experiences RR offers, students will learn about the social determinants of public health concerns specific to Houston and CHW’s unique roles in merging between the community and health institutions.

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    The Wildlife and Environmental Advocacy and Relief (WEAR) project aims to bring awareness to environmental health disparities in the Greater-Houston area through research and civic engagement. Our goal is to use data and research to show how systemic racism has affected black and brown communities in Houston while also giving a platform to community members who do not have a voice. Our unique partner-based structure connects a variety of Houston’s leaders in environmental toxicology, architecture, biology, public health, data, etc. together with the goal of using green solutions to solve the city’s environmental issues. At our core, we are an advocacy group who is striving for environmental health equity in Houston!

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    Operation Fusion aims to serve the refugee and immigrant children of Las Americas Newcomer School while partnering with Amaanah Refugee Services. The goal of Operation Fusion is to blend culture and health through education and empowerment to allow the students to define their identity and set their personal health goals. This program emphasizes explicitly channeling cultural diversity to promote a sense of agency and belonging. Volunteers will lead weekly interactive sessions encouraging students to build healthy habits and learn to utilize their home cultures as assets in their education, identity, and everyday lives.

  • Self-Advocacy for Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities (SAIID) is dedicated to empowering individuals with intellectual disabilities by enhancing their ability to navigate and advocate within the healthcare system. Individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) are at greater risk for significant health issues, yet face serious barriers to accessing quality healthcare. People with ID often experience unmet healthcare needs, and their voices can be overlooked by providers who may focus more on caregivers than on the patients themselves. To address these challenges, SAIID seeks to improve self-advocacy skills for individuals with intellectual disabilities through interactive workshops focusing on the various aspects of healthcare, as well as to boost awareness of intellectual disabilities among pre-health undergraduate students.

Recruitment and Development

The Recruitment and Development (R&D) team provides the backbone to all HICH activities and serves as the communication link that facilitates the flow of information between the various projects within HICH and its members. We host HICH-wide educational workshops, socials, and a mentorship program, and we welcome and recruit prospective members of all backgrounds and majors.

Directors: Rosemarie Le and Melody Tran

Membership Coordinators: Agnes Gunawan, Mielad Ziaee, Nick Navarro

Project Head Coordinators:  Eric Lee, Nawar Ahmed, Hai-Chau Hoang, Anaya Ubha

Outreach Coordinators: Joyce Joy, Kimeera Paladugu, Tofunmi Jewesimi

Annual Report

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CONTACT US

Email: uh.hich@gmail.com

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