In this episode of Plugged in to Public Health, Lauren speaks with University of Iowa public health student Jahanvi Chawla about her summer internship abroad in London. Through a hybrid program that combined coursework and hands on experience, Jahanvi worked with Healthwatch Enfield, a community organization that gathers local feedback on healthcare access and connects residents with resources.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the student hosts, guests, and contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the University of Iowa or the College of Public Health.

Lauren Lavin:

Hello everybody, and welcome back to Plugged Into Public Health. Today we are talking about what it looks like to study and work in public health across borders. In this episode, we sit down with the University of Iowa public health student, Jahanvi to hear about her summer internship in London with Healthwatch Enfield, a community-based organization that works closely with the UK’s National Health Service to understand local health needs and improve access to care.

During her time abroad, Jahanvi worked on a project focused on mental health access in the community. Through conversations with residents, community groups, and local partners, she helped develop a mental health resource guide aimed at supporting people while they wait for formal care. Her experience highlights how culture, community and health systems shapes the way that people understand and access mental health support. We also talked about the differences between health systems in the United States and the United Kingdom, what it means to do public health work on the ground in a community and how studying abroad can shape both personal and professional perspectives.

I’m Lauren, and if it’s your first time with us, welcome. We’re a student-run podcast that talks about major issues in public health and how they are relevant to anyone, both inside and outside the field. So let’s get plugged into public health.

Plugged into Public Health is produced and edited by the students at the University of Iowa College of Public Health. And the views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the student hosts, desks and contributors. They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the University of Iowa or the College of Public Health.

To start off, would you like to introduce yourself? You can give us your major, college background, all of that info, and then you can talk about your summer study abroad experience.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah. My name’s Jahanvi. I’m a fourth year Bachelor’s of Arts student at the College of Public Health, and I did a study abroad hybrid internship program last summer in London with IES Abroad.

Lauren Lavin:

What’s your major then?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Public health.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. And do you have any minors?

Jahanvi Chawla:

I’m doing a business minor and a writing certificate.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, so a few things. That probably keeps you busy.

Jahanvi Chawla:

It does, yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Is the fourth year easier or harder?

Jahanvi Chawla:

I thought it would be easier, but I pushed a lot of my minor classes off, so it’s not as easy.

Lauren Lavin:

So you’ve got a full schedule going?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Full schedule, yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. And so last summer you ended up in London, and you said it was IES?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

What does that stand for?

Jahanvi Chawla:

I’m not sure.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay.

Jahanvi Chawla:

It’s one of the study abroad programs that’s offered through the university.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. And where did you work, learn while you were in London?

Jahanvi Chawla:

So for working, I was in the borough of Enfield in London. It’s like the northern part of London. And then I had classes in central London itself.

Lauren Lavin:

That is so fun. I have been to London a number of times and I love London. What did you think of it as a city?

Jahanvi Chawla:

It was great. I feel like two months is a lot of time when you think about it, but when you’re actually there, there’s so much to do that I felt like I wish I could have stayed longer.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, my gosh. I feel like if you’re an American, you can equate that to New York. Two months sounds like a long time, but everyone knows that New York City cannot be explored in two months and London’s the same way.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yep, definitely.

Lauren Lavin:

So you worked at Healthwatch, is that correct?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

Can you explain what drew you to this opportunity to study abroad, maybe more broadly, but then also specifically in London at Healthwatch?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah. So study abroad in general, I had thought about wanting to do when I came to the university, but I wasn’t sure at what capacity I wanted to do it, when I wanted to do it. So junior year, I was looking at opportunities to study abroad, and IES offered a hybrid program. And it was a mix of part internship, part taking classes. So while I was there, I got to do my internship as well as take public health courses. So I guess what drew me was just having that in mind and then finding out that there was an internship, like an international internship aspect as well.

Lauren Lavin:

So the hybrid component is the fact that you got to take classes in addition to do the internship work, correct?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

And I guess I never asked you, where are you from originally?

Jahanvi Chawla:

I’m from Des Moines.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. So you are Iowa born and raised?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. And how did you pick public health as your major?

Jahanvi Chawla:

So I came into the university as pre-law, not sure what I wanted to do with undergrad, and I knew that I didn’t want to do poly-sci. So I picked business thinking it’d be really easy and I’d enjoy it. Definitely not the case.

Lauren Lavin:

Not the case.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Nope. Turned out that I didn’t enjoy it, and it was a lot more difficult. And because it was something I didn’t enjoy, I didn’t want to stay in business. And one of my friends was a public health major. She came in as bio, switched to public health through a friend. And I sat in on one of her classes and I really enjoyed just like everything about it. It was one of the intro public health classes.

Lauren Lavin:

I was just going to ask, what was it?

Jahanvi Chawla:

I think it was Fundamentals of Public Health. And it really aligned with the work I wanted to do with law and policy. And so I switched to public health and I’ve loved it.

Lauren Lavin:

You’ve been here ever since.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Mm-hmm.

Lauren Lavin:

I love it. Okay. So before you went to the UK, what did you think community mental health access looked like in the UK, and how did that differ from what you actually experienced when you were there?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah. So I thought of mental health access in the UK the same as the US, where I guess for my generation, we’ve grown up talking a lot about mental health. There’s been a lot of exposure to it, like kindergarten through graduating high school, outside of high school, organizations, stuff like that. So I assumed it was the same in the UK where people have the same access to information and are always talking about mental health. And then when I got there, it was a little different where there is a lot of information and access to mental health, but it depends on the community that you’re in.

Lauren Lavin:

Interesting.

Jahanvi Chawla:

So for Enfield, it’s a predominantly South Asian, Middle Eastern demographic, as well as a lot of older people. So while there is education and information on mental health, it’s not readily available or I guess as destigmatized with that population of people.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. I think oftentimes, and while we still have a long way to go, but in the US, I think we take for granted how accessible mental health is, especially in recent years, not only information about it, but access to that type of care. And there are absolutely disparities and all of that, and we need to keep working at it. But I think it’s come a long way. And so. I think it’s interesting that maybe we think about like other countries where that hasn’t been as pervasive. So for listeners who may not be familiar, what does Healthwatch do and what was your role there with them around mental health and their other things?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah. So Healthwatch is, they’re like a nonprofit. They kind of work with the NHS and other governmental organizations, but there is a Healthwatch London, which is like a broader organization. And then they’re also located in each borough of London. And they’re like a health watch dog. So they oversee healthcare access and other things in the community to make sure people’s needs are getting met, but they also provide information where there might be a knowledge gap. Some other work I did besides the mental health guide was like a dentist information packet, basically where people from the borough could call us and get information about dentists in the area that could provide services, and it was also available on their website as well.

Lauren Lavin:

So how do they monitor health across all the boroughs?

Jahanvi Chawla:

So they have, I guess, community organizations that they’re partnered with, as well as they do stakeholder meetings with community leaders just to get a gauge. And then, people can always call in and report what’s going on or if there’s information that they’re needing.

Lauren Lavin:

Interesting. So it’s a very boots on the ground approach rather than just watching like data come in?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

Interesting. I like that. I feel like data is definitely important to support some of this, but boots on the ground, understanding what’s happening with actual people is probably really good insight.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah. It was really cool to see. When you think about London, it’s such a big area.

Lauren Lavin:

And very diverse.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yes, very diverse. So going in and meeting with a bunch of community partners that already have this relationship with my coworkers, it’s a small team of people at the Enfield Healthwatch. And it’s really interesting to see that they’ve built this relationship.

Lauren Lavin:

Oh, you also mentioned that you did some dental work. How does that differ from the US?

Jahanvi Chawla:

So the dental work I did was very limited. It was just putting together a list of resources with work that had already been done before I got there. And it was different. I would say the work was less different than the US more than like the knowledge was different. Here, we really pushed getting primary care, going to your preventative checkups. And if you are able to access that, you get those services done. Growing up, I had my twice a year visits to the dentist, annual checkups to the doctors. And a lot of the times, it’s required for schools here. But in the UK, even if you have health insurance and the access and ability to go see these providers, a lot of people don’t go because there’s long wait periods.

Lauren Lavin:

Interesting.

Jahanvi Chawla:

So I have family in the UK, and I was talking to them about their healthcare system versus healthcare here. And they’re under private insurance. I was trying to understand healthcare insurance is very confusing.

Lauren Lavin:

It is very complicated. That is true.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah. They talked about how they didn’t go to annual checkups for the dentist unless there was a really need for it, if there was an emergency, which was different from here. So that was really interesting to see.

Lauren Lavin:

In the UK, I believe their health insurance or provision of healthcare is done by the government. But as a result, so everyone has access to it and it’s relatively affordable. And as a result, the wait periods are really long, which then that, in and of itself, is probably a barrier to access for a lot of people, like what you’re describing.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yep. Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Is that the case even for primary care, if they wanted to go just for preventative screening at the, I don’t know, regular doctor?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah. From what I understood in my conversations, it was the same where unless they really needed it, it wasn’t something that they scheduled or thought of doing yearly.

Lauren Lavin:

What would you say the health of the population is like in the UK?

Jahanvi Chawla:

It’s a very broad question.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah.

Jahanvi Chawla:

I feel it depends on the population you’re looking at and what kind of aspect of health that you’re considering. I would say if you’re making a good amount, like you have a good income, you’re able to get healthcare when you really need it. So I would say that group of people is very healthy, even if they’re not having their preventative care. But in the long run, if you don’t have those annual checkups and something happens that could have been prevented earlier, I would say it would cause an issue.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. So probably people with lower income get passed over?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Was there a particular moment or interaction during your internship that’s really stuck with you?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah. I think about this moment a lot. But one of the stakeholder meetings that we did about our mental health guide was with this group of older ladies. And they did yoga at the community house that we were housed, our organization was housed at. And the first couple of weeks I was at Healthwatch, I’d see them go in and out and they would bring food, and they’d chat after their workout. And it was just like a great community of people.

So later during my internship, we had the opportunity to go sit in on one of their social events, and just chat with them about healthcare and mental health in the community. And it was really interesting to see from their perspective what they thought about mental health access, especially being from my generation where I feel like mental health is talked about a lot where going in I was like, “Oh, this is such like a repeated topic. I don’t know how much I’m interested in hearing about it.”

But that really shifted my perspective because while it is talked about, they brought up that there is still stigma for them and their communities and their demographic. One person mentioned how she had a neighbor whose partner was going through Alzheimer’s dementia, something like that. And she said that they tried offering help to the neighbor, but the neighbor wasn’t always receptive of it, because it’s seen as they’re not able to do what they can for their family. And so, it was really interesting to hear how they wanted like a guide to support them and support that in terms of mental health.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. What was the age of this group that you interacted with?

Jahanvi Chawla:

I’m not entirely sure. I would say upwards of 50s.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay.

Jahanvi Chawla:

So it was like older ladies.

Lauren Lavin:

It’s really cool. I’m a yoga teacher, so I always love hearing how yoga can bring people together, and be a starter for conversation like that.

What did you learn, and this kind of parlays off that last question, but what did you learn about how communities talk about mental health or did anything really surprise you?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah, I’d say what I said earlier where it really shifted my perspective from thinking that, “Yes, I’ve grown up with access to mental health and tools and stuff that I know I can just like Google and find something online, but it’s not the case for every community.” And that’s why there needs to be continued work on improving mental health access.

Lauren Lavin:

So in response to that conversation, what did your group talk about? Did you think about interventions for it going forward or what tools did you provide to them?

Jahanvi Chawla:

So our main tool that we were making at Healthwatch was a mental health guide. And in this guide we had different services that people could utilize during the wait times in accessing mental health care through a therapist or any kind of intervention like that. So a lot of it was community organizations that offered support during that time period. And after that conversation, we broadened who we were looking at. So we provided information on organizations that supported care with Alzheimer’s dementia, older folks.

There was an organization that we looked at where they provided support in like terms of isolation while… They started in COVID because everyone was in their homes. They still continued, because a lot of the times if you are an older demographic of people, you might not always leave your house, especially if you don’t have a job or something that you’re going to all the time. So providing support for that because that still ties to mental health.

Lauren Lavin:

Absolutely. Loneliness I think is a growing concern for people.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yep, definitely.

Lauren Lavin:

So the mental health guide provided resources in that waiting period. It was probably a really critical time, especially if that waiting period is longer. And you said it was community health resources effectively?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

So what might that look like?

Jahanvi Chawla:

So a lot of community organizations that already existed, but people didn’t know about, there were crisis lines or there was like multicultural, multi-language therapy for people who might go to an NHS therapist and not always be able to talk to them based on their background and cultural experiences. There were organizations that worked with LGBTQ individuals, so stuff like that.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And once people are able to access care in London or England more broadly, does that care look similar to what we receive here in the US? Is it therapy or like maybe medication via doctor or is it different?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah, it’s very similar. So the NHS has two, I believe, different types of therapy and interventions, and it’s like the talk therapies or cognitive behavior therapy.

Lauren Lavin:

Cool. So how did living and working abroad change you both personally and professionally?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah, that’s a great question. I would say professionally, it really opened up skills with working with other groups of people, other cultures, which is really important in public health. Because you really have a diverse group of communities that you’re working with. And so, going in and adapting to their work culture was really interesting. I would say my work here is very… You come in at a certain time, you have your lunch, you get off your lunch break, you go home at a certain time. But in London, depending on where you’re working, it’s very social. So there’s a lot of times where you’re not even working, you talk about what’s going on, working moving forward, and a lot of personal conversations, which is a little bit different from the workforce here, I would say.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And that it’s probably… Did you enjoy that crossover between personal and professional relationships?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah. The first couple of weeks, it took some adjusting to, because every time it would be like social, I would be thinking, “Maybe we should be working.”

But I really did enjoy it. It makes you want to continue working at a place longer if you have those personal relationships rather than coming into work, doing your work, leaving.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. And what’s the work-life balance? And I guess you can probably only speak to your experience. What’s that like?

Jahanvi Chawla:

I would say for my work experience, it was really great. I had a set amount of time I came in and left, but also you’re so welcome to take breaks, and go on walks or go explore the neighborhood. And it’s very lenient. And that was still kind of part of working because you’re out in the community.

Lauren Lavin:

Right. Yeah, absolutely. So if another student is interested in an experience like yours or just an international public health experience, what advice would you give them?

Jahanvi Chawla:

I would say, talk to the study abroad office. A lot of the advisors there have a lot of information that could be used for studying abroad. And then, I would say if you are doing an internship and you have your interview, really take it seriously, ask the organization what they’re looking for, what their project is, so you know that it is something that you are interested in.

Lauren Lavin:

Absolutely. How early did you start the process? When did you know you were going to do this and how long did the whole thing take?

Jahanvi Chawla:

So I knew that coming in I wanted to study abroad, but I didn’t really finalize wanting to do it until October or November of the fall before I went in the summer. And then application deadlines are around end of January, beginning of February. And then after that, it’s a lot of filing visa applications and things like that.

Lauren Lavin:

Yeah. So there’s a lot of paperwork I’m guessing involved?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. Final question. So you are in your senior year. What is next for you?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Next is law school.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay.

Jahanvi Chawla:

But between now and law school, I’m taking a gap year and the plan is to work in more community organizations that are health policy focused or advocating in terms of healthcare.

Lauren Lavin:

Do you have work secured for the gap year or are you still looking?

Jahanvi Chawla:

Not yet, still looking.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay.

Jahanvi Chawla:

But hope to find it soon.

Lauren Lavin:

And where do you want to go to law school?

Jahanvi Chawla:

I’m not sure yet.

Lauren Lavin:

Okay. The world is your oyster.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yep.

Lauren Lavin:

Absolutely. Thank you so much for taking time to chat with me and share this fun experience that you had. I know other students will enjoy listening to this as well.

Jahanvi Chawla:

Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Lauren Lavin:

That’s it for our episode this week. A big thank you to Jahanvi for joining us and sharing her experience studying and working abroad in London. In this conversation, we heard how community organizations like Healthwatch play an important role in connecting people with health resources and amplifying local voices. Jahanvi also highlighted how cultural perspectives, community relationships and health system structures can shape access to care, particularly when it comes to mental health. Her internship experience is a reminder that public health work often begins with listening to communities and understanding their unique needs.

This episode was hosted and written by Lauren Lavin and edited produced by Lauren Lavin. You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to support the podcast, please share it with colleagues, friends, or anyone interested in public health.

Have a suggestion for our team? You can reach us at CPH-gradambassador@uiowa.edu. This episode is brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Until next week, stay healthy, stay curious and take care.