Summer Practicum for Students of Public Health

August 08, 2016

Beginning in June, 2016, the Mumbai Center partnered with the Mailman School of Public Health to introduce a practicum that enables graduate students to complete a planned, supervised and evaluated field experience in India.  The Center reached out to multiple organizations to house four student interns.  The three organizations that were selected include Society for Nutrition, Education, and Health Action (SNEHA), a secular, non-profit organization that works on public health issues in Mumbai’s slums, Khushi Baby in Udaipur, a wearable mHealth platform that aims to reduce mortality due to vaccine-preventable diseases, and Partners for Urban Knowledge, Action and Research (PUKAR), an independent and participatory research collective based in Mumbai.

Two students, Shivani Bhatia and Kaylin Cordingley assisted SNEHA in writing a final report for a four-year project entitled Beyond Boundaries that aims to improve access to and quality of antenatal, delivery, and postnatal services for mothers and newborns. A third student, Zahra Janoowala, worked on the implementation of a baseline survey with Khushi Baby. The practicum for the three students culminated in an event in the first week of August where the students presented their work and were joined virtually by faculty mentor, Dr. Cassie Landers. 

The Center continues to partner with the Mailman School to coordinate and supervise the six-month-long internship of Ragini Kathail, who is working with PUKAR on longitudinal health surveys of patients with chronic illness in a low-income neighborhood in Mumbai.