Radha talks with four public health graduate students about their experiences attending the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) annual conference in Boston a few weeks ago and how it felt to be immersed in an international public health community for a few days. What did they learn? What were their takeaways?

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Radha Velamuri:

Hello everyone and welcome back to From the Front Row. A few weeks ago, many of us Master of Public Health students at the College of Public Health were in Boston, attending the American Public Health Association, or APHA’s, annual conference. My name is Radha Velamuri and today we have a panel of students here to talk about their experiences at this conference. If it’s your first time listening, welcome. We are a student-run podcast that talks about major issues in public health and how they are relevant to anyone, both in and outside the field of public health. Welcome to the show everyone.

So we’re going to start real easy. I’m going to ask you guys to introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about the program you’re in and anything else you’d like to add, whatever floats your boat. So just one by one, let’s get the show on the road.

Ellie Madson:

Hi, my name is Ellie Madson. I’m a first year and I’m in the Occupational and Environmental Health Department. So we have a lot of different degree programs in the OEH department. So we have toxicology, ergonomics, a lot of different fun ones. I’m personally just the OEH, Occupational and Environmental Health, but personally I am specifically in Environmental Health. So, there you go.

Grace Gerdts:

Hi, I’m Grace Gerdts and I’m a second year in the MPH program here at Iowa and I’m in the biostatisics department, which is the ugly step sister, as a lot of people like to think of it. It’s a lot of data analysis. That’s what we do. We’re behind the scenes.

Eliza Steere:

Hi, I’m Eliza Steere. I’m a second year MPH student in the community behavioral health department and we look at communities, health behavior, and just health change in general.

Jada McDonald:

Hi, I’m Jada McDonald. I am a undergrad-to-grad student in the health management and policy program. I’m specifically interested in health policy and how to use policy change to promote maternal health outcomes.

Radha Velamuri:

Nice. And I’m Radha, as I said before, and I guess I’m representing epidemiology. So we got all the programs here. We got a biostats representative and epi representative, OEH, or occupational environmental health. We have policy and we have community and behavioral health. So hopefully we’ll get a nice overview of what was going on at this conference where there are apparently 12,500 people or more than that number were in attendance, which is mind blowing. So let’s, one-by-one, how about you tell me or tell our audience what the conference was like for you? Just maybe a summary.

Ellie Madson:

I personally just thought it was really big. As you said, there were over 12,500 whatever people. I thought that was super overwhelming a little bit that there were so many people. Like I said, multiple times, I was like, “This is the biggest building I’ve ever been in.” But it was so cool and exciting to learn about different things and there were so many areas of public health there that you could even get really niche. There was a couple talks specifically about ankles and feet and then there were the ones that I went to which was about a lot of climate change and education of children on climate and environmentalism. So there was just a big array of public health all over the spectrum and that was really exciting and cool.

Grace Gerdts:

I would agree. The two words I would use for the conference are overwhelming and equally exciting. It was very big and everything I went into the conference thinking I was going to attend, I ended up switching it up and going to different sessions. There was a session over any interest I could possibly have. I went to genetics talks, I went to systemic racism and data analysis talks. I went to women’s rights film screenings. So there was just a lot going on, but I think that made it really exciting to be able to hear from a bunch of different experts in a wide variety of fields.

Jada McDonald:

I would have to agree, I really liked indulging in my interest. There was definitely a lot of public health stuff there, which was really exciting. But I’m glad that I got to learn more about my field and then meet individuals practicing in my field, which was really awesome to see.

Eliza Steere:

I agree with everything said. It was very rejuvenating and exciting and I think it’s re-sparked my interest too in public health. And just as someone who’s graduating in May, it was really exciting just to see how passionate everyone was for public health coming out of the pandemic. It was a really tough time for public health professionals and so seeing everyone come together, it was really exciting just to see everyone go, “Hey, we had this really hard time for two years but we still have all these other aspects of public health that we focus on.” And so that was really cool just to see how passionate everyone was and how excited everyone was for the future of public health. And so that was something I really enjoyed and going through the expo and talking with people that were at different organizations, companies and schools, I think that was also really cool just to see how wide a variety of public health options there are out there for our careers.

Radha Velamuri:

Yeah, thanks Eliza. When Grace mentioned going to a whole different variety of things, I relate to that so much. I went to the same film screening she went to, we actually sat right next to each other and I also went to, literally down the hall, I went to a discussion on SNAP benefits and on food insecurity. So just there was a whole spectrum of things in one building, which was just fascinating, which I think is a great thing that conferences can provide. It’s a giant gathering of people with similar interests but also non similar interests. So you can get everything that’s tied together but you can still break out into your little niches. So speaking of little niches, is there any highlight in your specific niche? We all are in different departments, so was there anything you went to that maybe is with your affiliation in your program and that was a highlight for you or that you had a major takeaway or a lesson that you think you could share?

Ellie Madson:

I don’t know about a lesson, but I got to do a lot of networking in my specific area. So I met a lot of other people that worked for environmental nonprofits and different things like that or were environmental health specialists for different public health agencies around the country. And so I got a lot of different business cards and I got to be able to talk to those people, which was really amazing and really cool. And there was one specific presentation over cover crops and different sort of agriculture, which is really interesting to me because food is important, that people have food and so you have to be able to produce more food with the climate changing and different things like that. And so I talked to her and she actually sent me her research, some of the things from that, which was really cool. So I have a bigger network from APHA just for my little section, which is really cool.

Jada McDonald:

Yeah, I think I would have to agree, the networking there was absolutely amazing. I met so many people that were in my field and I think taking away and still being in contact with those people is really, really, really awesome for me. And I also met people that were all over the world and country, but they’re doing work that’s really close to us actually in the county over and they want me to help them with that, which is really cool. Policy work regarding racial disparities and things like that. So it was really awesome to meet people that were doing things that are in Iowa and that I can actually relate to my policy degree.

Radha Velamuri:

I think it’s crazy that you ran into more people from Iowa at a national conference. I was running into people from everywhere, but that’s amazing that you were able to find an opportunity for a job later.

Jada McDonald:

What the thing is, which is really, really interesting, they’re not from Iowa, they’re from the east coast, but they’re doing projects in counties all over the country. And one of the counties happened to be Linn County, which is down the street. So a lot of them are on the east coast, they’re just doing projects around the country, which is cool.

Radha Velamuri:

Small world, still.

Jada McDonald:

Yeah.

Eliza Steere:

I’d have to agree. The networking at APHA was just really awesome and I think everyone there is so excited to be there, which I think just creates an environment that is great for networking. And I think also we had the opportunity to connect with a lot of alumni from the University of Iowa and so it was great just to connect with past colleagues that I worked with and I hadn’t met in person because we had worked remotely. And so finally meeting them in person for the first time, that was really fun.

But also getting to meet people who also did similar work to what I’m currently doing and seeing if there were any takeaways from their projects that we could apply to our projects and just seeing if there were things that they learned in their communities and if there’s anything in common. And so I think that’s what is really amazing about APHA is that everyone’s there for a common goal and everyone wants to help each other and see if there’s any way that we can push research forward. And so I think that was one thing I found is that everyone’s like, “Hey, I found out this. Is there anything that you found in your community or in your clinic?” And that was one thing I noticed a lot within research, so that was really cool.

Grace Gerdts:

I would agree with all of the networking stuff that’s been said. I know I went to some poster presentations over research that’s similar to the research I’m doing and I found that those were very helpful. But I would also add that I just felt like I learned a lot. I went to this talk about the way data is structured can enable systemic racism in a lot of ways, and as a biostatistician we talk a lot about making sure the data isn’t structured for biases and stuff. But this was a new topic it felt like, they were talking a lot about census data and other types of data and it just wasn’t really something that I had considered a lot in my work. Because you feel like as a biostatistician in the back half of the research, the epidemiologists are structuring and collecting data to make sure, but it just really introduced me to an entire concept that I hadn’t really thought about a lot yet, which I just thought that was really exciting.

Radha Velamuri:

I completely agree with the whole eyeopening thing and I like how all of you brought up networking as a highlight for the conference. You were just able to meet a lot of people, which like I said, there were 12,500 people in attendance at this conference and you’re bound to find someone who’s doing something similar to you. So I completely understand what the networking.

Ellie Madson:

The final thing that I would just like to add about maybe takeaways, it made you feel proud to be an up and coming public health professional. Because as we know public health, sometimes you’re swimming upstream in a way and sometimes it’s a little bit hard and just being surrounded by a bunch of people that were passionate and just really excited to make the world a better place made you want to also make the world a better place. So it just made you really proud to be the future in a way. And so that was really nice.

Eliza Steere:

Yeah, I have to totally agree with that. While the conference itself is very overwhelming because there’s so many people there, I didn’t come away more overwhelmed, I came away more excited and ready to jump into the workforce.

Radha Velamuri:

I love that. I love that so much. And I agree completely. As someone who went for epidemiology, I was thinking about what Grace said with how she talked about how all the biostat seminar really got to her and made her think about all the systemic things and all of the stuff and the research that she’s doing and how Eliza talked about the research that she was doing and how she met people who were presenting posters and how all of that made her think more about her own research. I feel exactly the same way. I’m really interested in maternal and child health a lot like Jada, and so I went to a film screening for maternal child health, just women’s rights in general. And I came away so much more passionate about women’s rights and women’s health that I went and tried to find some of those documentaries on my own.

We only watched partial screenings of all those documentaries and I just went online and tried to learn more about it just because I was so rejuvenated and encouraged to learn more from these seminars. So a lot of the things that this conference provided was maybe a taste of the field or you get to meet one person who is working in a field, but you come away with so much more motivation to maybe contact that person and meet more people or go around and read more books or watch more documentaries or learn more about the little taste you got in these seminars that we went to. Yeah. That’s amazing. I’m glad you all had that experience. I know one of you presented. Did any of the rest of you present at this conference? All right, Eliza, I’m going to put you on the spot. I know you presented at this conference, so can you tell us a little bit what about what that was like and maybe give us your brief elevator pitch for your research just so our listeners can know what you shared?

Eliza Steere:

Yeah, so I presented a poster on challenges and opportunities implementing evidence-based interventions and rural primary care clinics to increase HPV vaccination uptake. And so what that basically mean is that we worked, we partnered with the American Cancer Society to evaluate an intervention that they had already designed and tested in urban areas to basically see if it was able to be implemented in rural areas for HPV uptake. And so what we know is that HPV vaccination rates in rural areas within Iowa are lower than what they should be and they’re below the Healthy People 2030 target of 80%. And so we are working to implement immunization quality improvement for providers, or I equip best practices along with a learning collaborative. And so that’s the intervention. And so we are doing the evaluation side, so it’s a process evaluation.

Radha Velamuri:

That’s amazing. What was presenting that like? Did you meet other people? You said you met other people who were presenting similar topics, so were you able to get your point across? How do you think presenting went?

Eliza Steere:

So I was prepared to just sit there for about an hour and get a couple people to come talk to me and I was completely busy for the entire hour, I didn’t even take sip of my water. So that was very exciting for me as a student. This is a project I’ve been working on for almost two years now and so this is a topic, HPV vaccination is a topic I’m very passionate about. HPV vaccination prevents six types of cancer. And so everyone that was coming up to me either typically they were either working in healthcare clinics or physicians, doctors, nurses, or they do HPV vaccine research themselves. So everyone was very invested in the topic and so they were throwing around ideas, “Have you tried this? Have you tried that? Have you seen this in your clinic? What issues were you running into?”

And so it was really cool just to see how everyone was trying to brainstorm almost when they were coming up to me. And so that was really cool just to see what they were doing in their clinics or they were having a real tough time getting HP vaccination across in their clinic and so they were like, “How can we do this in our clinic?” And so me just pointing them to resources that we know work. And so that was a really cool opportunity just to really talk about what we’ve been finding in our clinics. And so I really enjoyed it.

Radha Velamuri:

So what I’m hearing is if you get the opportunity to present at a conference, especially one of this caliber, jump on it.

Eliza Steere:

Oh, a hundred percent.

Radha Velamuri:

Basically, yeah. Because then you know, get to share your work. But I think the more important thing is that you get to hear feedback from other people in the field and you can improve your own research and maybe hear perspectives you never thought of before. Yeah, that’s really cool. I want to switch gears a little bit. We talked a lot about the conference, we’ve probably tired people out just talking about how amazing this conference was, but can we talk about Boston? This conference took place in Boston and I want to know if any of you guys did anything fun in Boston. We can talk about not all conference things. Did anyone do anything fun in Boston that they’d want to share?

Ellie Madson:

Yeah, I’ve been to Boston quite a few times because I have family there and so I actually stayed with my family again, saved a little bit money, so I basically just explored the city a little bit more. I went on the boardwalk and just tried a couple of new funky restaurants that were right downtown, right in the area. So nothing too exciting but just did a lot of foot traffic where I could down there.

Jada McDonald:

I agree. I walked like 25,000 steps a day and actually one of my favorite parts, I did go to a lot of restaurants and cute cafes and coffee shops, which was really fun. But I went down to Harvard University and I went to their museums and saw some of those, which were really, really cool. So yeah, that was probably one of my favorite parts was just taking public trans up there and just looking at how beautiful their campus was.

Grace Gerdts:

I would say I agree, if I had to say two things I said I ate a lot of good food. Oysters and lobster rolls and some of those things that we don’t have here in Iowa necessarily. And then I would also say that I got really good at public transportation in Boston and did a lot of walking as well, but it was just really nice to explore the city, especially coming from a more rural Iowa growing up area. It was really exciting to be in Boston,

Eliza Steere:

I would say meeting up with colleagues at APHA and friends that I had worked with in the past and then I was able to go to a Boston Celtics game, so that was really fun.

Radha Velamuri:

Wow. That’s really cool.

Ellie Madson:

Jealous.

Jada McDonald:

I can agree, the Boston Celtics game was really fun. They’re so proud of their team. They scream so loud, they’re cheering and jumping. It was so fun.

Radha Velamuri:

Well, I’m jealous. I mostly just ate at restaurants and we also did get a lot of takeout, which was fun. But overall I was really excited. I’ve never been to Boston before. This was really probably one of my first times going to the East Coast. I’ve been in Iowa my whole life, or at least a majority of my life. So I thought it was really enlightening because as a future public health professional, I want to learn as much. I could work anywhere basically. I don’t know where I’ll get a job. So I think it’s really important to learn about different communities and learning more about how Boston works.

And I was like, “This is really different from Iowa.” So I was able to get some of that perspective and think about what they have going well for them and what we have going well for us and how we can all learn from each other. So I don’t know, that’s a wise perspective or whatever from just going to Boston for four days, but I think it was worth it. I really enjoyed it. I have a couple more questions. I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but I want to know if you guys have any advice for students who want to go to conferences or specifically APHA. Do you think it was worth it for you or would you go again?

Jada McDonald:

I think that it was absolutely worth it. You take so much away as a public health professional and as a student and it’s always an experience to travel and just get away and take a break. The biggest piece of advice, and I heard someone say this and I didn’t listen, but was to bring comfortable shoes. I thought I could just wear heels for four days straight and that everything would be okay and it was not okay. Day one, it was just not okay. So we were wearing tennis shoes and dress pants, but that’s just how I had to be because number one, the conference hall is huge. You’re in a new place, so you’re taking public transit, you’re walking. So biggest piece of advice–pack comfortable and cute shoes.

Ellie Madson:

Yeah, I will second the shoes definitely. I brought these little boots that I wore every single day that went with every single outfit because I was like, “Professional shoes? There we go. Comfortable? Yes.” But in one word for advice for students, go. That’s just attend, have fun, take anything out of it that you want because you are going to take something out of it when you go and it’s just an amazing experience. But the main thing is I want to hit on travel a little bit. Don’t expect anything from travel because that goes one way or another and then you’ll learn something from it. I made so many friends staying nine hours in an airport, it was so great.

Radha Velamuri:

So I’m hearing your travel experience wasn’t smooth sailing.

Ellie Madson:

I think a lot of us had struggles. If anyone didn’t, go them.

Eliza Steere:

I’m impressed if anyone made it there without delays.

Ellie Madson:

Yeah.

Jada McDonald:

It was great.

Radha Velamuri:

I’d like to say that I made it there without any delays, but I don’t want to brag a little bit, but you can continue your point.

Jada McDonald:

I think, well, Ellie and Eliza, I think we were all in O’Hare together for hours on end. Yeah, it was great. We played cards, we ate a bunch. What else could you want?

Eliza Steere:

I think O’Hare took our money.

Jada McDonald:

O’Hare took a lot of our money. That’s what happened. Yeah, and it was because number one, it was super windy and it was super cold and I think it was snowing or raining or something, I don’t remember. And also Joe Biden landed in O’Hare the exact same day, the exact same day.

Eliza Steere:

Same [inaudible 00:23:21] we were going.

Ellie Madson:

Because when the president comes in, guys, for future advice, the airport basically shuts down and his plane is the only plane that gets to go.

Eliza Steere:

For 30 minutes.

Ellie Madson:

Yeah

Radha Velamuri:

So expect the unexpected. Do we have any other advice for our future students?

Eliza Steere:

If you’re presenting a poster, try to get it printed on fabric because you can fold it in your backpack and then you can steam it when you get to wherever you’re presenting. And that takes away the hassle of having to bring it as a carry on. Also, Dr. Gilbert did a pre-conference thing for our department on what to expect at APHA and that was really helpful and I recommend attending those because it helped. I know that the APHA also does those when you’re there the first day in the morning, but it also helps know what you’re doing. And then what else would I recommend? The shoes is so true. I also wore boots, but even wearing boots, my feet still hurt a lot. So maybe two pairs of boots and then also have room in your suitcase for the free stuff they hand out. I think I had a lot of free stuff that they handed out coming back with me. So like pack accordingly, have a big suitcase, just be under of the 50 pound limit. But yeah, pack accordingly.

Radha Velamuri:

Be prepared. All right.

Eliza Steere:

Be prepared.

Radha Velamuri:

Anything else?

Grace Gerdts:

I would say just try to attend a wide variety of things. Originally going into the conference, I thought I picked out all events on women’s rights and reproductive justice, but after going to the first event, that is a tough topic right now especially. And I think that I changed up my events and I got such a wide array and that helped not only my mental health at the conference, because I think it would be tough to go to your full couple days’ worth of talks about reproductive justice. But I also think it allowed me to get experience and knowledge on so many different topics that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. And make sure you have room in your suitcase because I ran into that problem as well.

Eliza Steere:

I also want to point out for people listening that if you attended in person, there are still recordings available online, I believe until December 15th for anything that was in person. There were some sessions that were recorded so you can still utilize your ticket to go. Also, the University of Iowa spent a lot of money. There weren’t a few colleges I know that pays for students to attend, and that was something that I was very shocked that I found out when I attended APHA was everyone’s like, “Oh, how many students attended in person from your college?”

And they’re like, “Oh, how many was it three to four?” And I was like, “Oh no, we have 44 students attending.” And everyone was so shocked to hear that and they’re like, “How?” And I was like, “Oh, well our college actually funds us to go.” And that was something I wanted to highlight that I thought was really impressive that the University of Iowa helped support students to attend APHA. And that was something I was really grateful for because I don’t know if I’d be able to attend if I wasn’t presenting. And so I think that’s something that we should point out as something that we’re really grateful for, that our university is able to help fund us.

Radha Velamuri:

I completely agree. I was going to bring that up if someone didn’t, I was going to be try to find funding to go to a conference because I’ve gone to a couple conferences in my day. I’m not that old, but in my day I’ve gone to a couple conferences and I was able to get funding for both of them. So I think that if there’s a will, there is a way. You might have to branch out. There was a conference that I went to for neuroscience lab that I was a part of, but I still got funding from the College of Public Health by applying for a scholarship through them. So you just have to be willing to apply for scholarships. You have to be willing to search and try to find funding sources. But if you can get the funding, I think it’s a hundred percent worth the effort to go to a conference because you get to learn just so much information.

I have one more question for you, question before we wrap up. It is a question that we ask every single person who comes on the show. And it is a really difficult one. Actually, it’s really not, but you can make what you want of it. So the question is, what is one thing you thought you knew but were later wrong about? It could be about Boston, it could be about the conference, it could be about public health, it could be about your breakfast, it could be about anything. So I don’t know. Anyone, I’d like to hear what is one thing you thought you knew but were later wrong about?

Jada McDonald:

I think I thought I knew that I was going to go in and just know everything, know what was going to be presented about, just be able to go to all of the classes and sessions that were happening and that I was definitely wrong because there is just so much going on. There is so many new things to learn. There was just so many experts in so many different fields. So I was pleasantly surprised to learn that there’s no way that everything that’s there, there’s so much, so many new things to learn. And I was also a little disappointed that I couldn’t go to as many sessions as I wanted to because there’s just so many, so many cool things to go sit and learn about. That was one thing I did not know and I wasn’t aware of. And I will be a lot more conscious about next year.

Ellie Madson:

This is something that Grace and Jada just hit on. But I thought I could go to everything and I thought I could go to five or six events every single day and be perfectly fine and not get tired. And I was definitely wrong about that. After the first two days I was pretty exhausted. And then I just slowly went to less and less things, but still got amazing experiences and it was a great experience, but it is also tiring, you being business-y all the time. But it was really fun. But that was something that I was definitely wrong about. I thought I could keep my energy level up and nope.

Grace Gerdts:

On a lighter note, before going to Boston, I had only ever had one lobster roll and it was served hot. And then I went to Boston and I got a lobster roll and it was served cold and I was very shocked. But apparently they’re served both ways.

Radha Velamuri:

Interesting.

Grace Gerdts:

That’s something I learned in Boston.

Eliza Steere:

I think maybe something that I thought I knew was that, I thought you had to have a lot of research experience in order to present at a conference and I’ve only really had two full years of research experience at this point and I was able to present. So I think putting yourself out there and just being open-minded and hardworking and willing to really put yourself out there along with your research team, anyone with research experience, even you’re able to be trained in different ways. So your research team will train you.

I’ve been on the same research team for two years, but any research team in the college has openings typically depending on funding for entry level positions. And so they will take people with little to no experience and train you. And so anyone without experience can get research experience and that’s how you work your way up. And I think that is something that I didn’t know how to really get research experience when I was first in the college as a sophomore in my undergrad. And so I think that was something that I wasn’t really sure about. And so I just want to put that out there that you don’t really need to have it all put together before you really understand what’s going on. Yeah.

Radha Velamuri:

That’s a really heartwarming note to end on. We’re all works of progress or works in progress and I think it’s really amazing that we were all able to bring our own perspectives. And we have a presenter here, we have someone from every department. We were able to get a nice variety of people for this panel and I’m so thankful that you guys were able to. Thankful, we are recording this two days before Thanksgiving. It’ll probably come out a little later, but I’m really glad that you guys were able to come and speak with me and speak with our audience today on your experience at this American Public Health Association conference.

Anya Morozov:

And that’s it for our episode this week. Big thanks to Grace Gerdts, Ellie Madson, Jada McDonald, and Eliza Steere for joining us today. This episode was hosted by Radha Velamuri and written, edited, and produced by Anya Morozov. You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to help support the podcast, please share it with your friends, colleagues, or anyone interested in public health. Have a suggestion for our team? You can reach us at cph-gradambassador@uiowa.edu. This episode was brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Until next week, stay healthy, stay curious, and take care.