Anya’s guests–Bonnie Rubin, Tricia Kitzmann, McKenna Deaton, and Mitchell Wisniewski–talk about their involvement in a new initiative with an awesome name: the UI College of Public Health Strike Force. The Strike Force is a group of students that provides support to health organizations and non-profit organizations throughout Iowa, nationally and globally and assists with diverse public health related projects.

Learn more at www.public-health.uiowa.edu/strikeforce/

Find our previous episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud.

Anya Morozov:

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to From the Front Row, brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. My name is Anya Morozov, and if this is your first time with us, we’re 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. Today, I have a panel of guests here to speak about a new student organization at the College of Public Health, the Strike Force. Our panel includes Bonnie Rubin, the faculty sponsor; Tricia Kitzmann, the program coordinator; and two epidemiology students on the team, Mitchell Wisniewski and McKenna Deaton. Besides just having a great name, the Strike Force is working hard to support local public health in preparing for emergencies through lots of different activities that we’ll be discussing today. Welcome to the show everyone. So to start off, I don’t think my introduction did you all justice, so could you all introduce yourselves, how you got to the College of Public Health, and what your role is in the Strike Force?

Bonnie Rubin:

I’ll go ahead and get started. Thank you very much, Anya. We’re really excited for this podcast and participating in it. As a faculty sponsor, I became part of the public health after I technically retired from the state hygienic laboratory. I’m a medical laboratory scientist by background, and my first job in public health was the biological and chemical terrorism and response coordinator for the laboratory response network throughout Iowa. And this job here just happened because Dean Parker, as they were working on a workforce development grant for the Iowa Department of Public Health, thought it would be great to have a strike force based similar on an organization at the University of Michigan of students who are there to respond for events and/or emergencies so we can give a helping hand with any sort of public health event. And I’ll go ahead now and turn it over to Tricia.

Tricia Kitzmann:

Hi, I’m Tricia Kitzmann. I am the program coordinator for the Strike Force. I get the opportunity to work with the students and manage some of the things that they do underneath Bonnie’s direction. I have been boots on the ground public health practice for the last 20 years. I worked at the local and state public health levels here in the state of Iowa, and also I did some work in St. Louis when I was a graduate student there. So I get the opportunity to coordinate, set students up with various activities, and work with the projects that are coming up. So I will turn it over to McKenna.

McKenna Deaton:

Hello, I’m McKenna Deaton. I’m a second-year MPH and epidemiology student. I decided to come here for my master’s after I was working in local public health during my undergrad and really found an interest in the field, and then finally I serve as a student member of the Strike Force.

Mitchell Wisniewski:

Hello, my name is Mitchell Wisniewski, and I was introduced to the College of Public Health as an undergrad public health major, but now I’ll be going into my second year in the MS epidemiology program, and I’m also a student member of the Strike Force.

Anya Morozov:

Well, it’s really great to have all of you on the call, and you listeners can’t see it, but they all are wearing matching t-shirts today for the Strike Force. So it’s just very exciting to have you all here. So next we’ll talk about more of what is the Strike Force. I know Bonnie talked a little bit about it, but can you just talk a little bit more about what it is and how it got started?

Bonnie Rubin:

I’ll go ahead and start with that response. Again, it started with the idea from Dean Parker of creating the Strike Force as one of those activities in the workforce development grant, to have an opportunity for College of Public Health students to get real-life hands-on experience, especially in emergency or large event activities. So we’re designed to assist public health departments in any sort of public health related organization when they need more hands, or when there’s an event that they realize they need a lot more people to accomplish what they want to do. So we’re there for both emergent and non-emergent events.

Bonnie Rubin:

So, so far we’ve been pretty busy and I’ll let Mitch and McKenna and Tricia talk about that. Right now we have 29 members. We really got organized the spring semester of 2022, and we anticipate we’re going to keep growing. We will be always accepting applications, especially this fall semester, so I want students to stay tuned to the possibility of applying and getting onto the Strike Force. So I’ll go ahead and turn it over to the rest of the panel so they can talk about how they see we have grown.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah, I do think that there definitely is a need for being adaptive in the field of public health, so it’s great that we do have the Strike Force to serve that role, especially with things like COVID and even natural disasters, like the derecho that happened a few years ago. I think having a student Strike Force would’ve been a very useful thing to have at the time, and hopefully it can serve great uses in the future.

Bonnie Rubin:

I mean, you did mention something which was one of our very first Strike Force initiatives, and that was to help the state hygienic laboratory process, receive test kits from COVID. When we had the huge surge at the state hygienic laboratory they reached out to us and we were able to provide them with student volunteers to help with that, and they also helped them put together kits too, so that was one of our very first projects.

Anya Morozov:

That’s great. So moving a little bit to how the Strike Force has grown, let’s first talk about our student members and why did you two decide to join the Strike Force in the first place?

McKenna Deaton:

Yeah, so initially I wanted to be a part of the group after I saw that college-wide call asking for volunteers to help process those COVID tests during the spike of the pandemic. I had worked at vaccine clinics and contact tracing during the pandemic and found it super rewarding, so I decided to volunteer to help out at the hygienic lab, but by the time that I reached out they had already filled all the spots. But soon after, Bonnie sent out an email with the opportunity to formally join the group as Strike Force. So, since I was interested in helping at the state hygienic lab, I assumed that the group would also provide me similar opportunities to volunteer and get more active in local public health, and volunteering and community outreach is something I definitely wanted to be a part of during my time in grad school, so it seemed like a perfect fit.

Mitchell Wisniewski:

I also joined at a similar time as McKenna, as the Strike Force was helping out with the state hygienic laboratory. But I also had a friend, another member of the Strike Force, Krishna Akhondi, who joined some of the members for a trip to the Iowa Lakeside Laboratory over the spring. And he really enjoyed that, so he told me about the group and he was really excited about things they might do in the future. So I have to give some credit to him for directing me towards the Strike Force. But I also think it’s really important for public health students to get experiences helping directly across the many areas and projects of public health, so I figured it could be really cool to be part of a group that basically just helping out wherever needed and doing things on the ground directly for public health.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah. You put it very nicely. I do think what we learn in the classroom is really important and provides a lot of the foundation for what we do in practice, but also getting that practical experience during our education can be really helpful for what comes next. So besides working at the state hygienic laboratory to assemble test kits, what are some of the other activities you’ve done so far?

McKenna Deaton:

Yeah. So I’ve been a part of a few different opportunities during the summer. One being the Johnson County CASPER Survey, which you, Mitch, and you, Anya, both know much about. So with that project, we went around the surveys, the questions revolved around how families handle exposure and response to extreme heat, and with that we collect information to find more vulnerable areas of the community with extreme heat. We partnered with Johnson County Public Health, and we went door to door to randomly selected houses to administer the survey. We counted houses and were out all day in the heat going back for three attempts. But it was a really great time, and we got to connect with each other, because we went out in pairs, and we had some great conversations with locals about public health, and many were really excited to see college students helping out in the community. And this survey, it’s nice to see that there’s a connection that this is actually being used, because it’ll provide that valuable information to the local health department so they can understand how to best respond if there was emergent events with extreme heat.

McKenna Deaton:

And then I can go into another activity as well too. This summer, I also helped out with the Fayette County CHA CHIP Survey. So we helped administer a community health assessment and community health improvement plan, or nickname CHA CHIP, for Fayette county, which is a really small county in Northeastern Iowa. So every five years health departments have to administer this survey to get new data about the most important health topics to their residents, but since some of these smaller counties with health departments only have a handful of staff getting a high response can be a lot of work.

McKenna Deaton:

So what Strike Force decided to do was to help administer the survey at the health expo at their county fair at the end of July. We left early on a Thursday morning and got some delicious breakfast, and checked out the fairgrounds before getting set up in the expo and roaming the fairgrounds and asking people to take part of the survey. It was a long and hot day, but we had some great conversations with locals about the health needs of the area. And by the end of the day, we had gotten 63 responses, which we were pretty grateful for.

Mitchell Wisniewski:

Yeah. Helping out with surveying in Johnson County was a really great experience, and I learned a lot about just going out into the community and talking to community members about issues like extreme heat. Within the Strike Force itself, I’ve helped out with designing the t-shirts that we’re all wearing today, which has been a fun process. And then another activity that I’ve enjoyed is we practice doing incident response within the Strike Force, which is something that we do as part of the training. But we actually did a sample activity looking at an example outbreak of foodborne illness during an event like RAGBRAI. So I think it was really interesting to hear the perspectives of Bonnie and Tricia, who have experience working in incident response, and that adds to that great experience that I think public health students can get. And I know that we’re looking forward to some more trainings and speakers in the fall, which it’s cool to have those out of the classroom experiences in the field, but then also practicing things within our meetings, and getting prepped for future events like that has been a really interesting experience.

Anya Morozov:

Wow. Okay. So I’m going to try to list off everything you said. So we’ve got the CASPER emergency response surveys throughout Johnson County, the CHA CHIP in Fayette County, and then learning about incident response in public health. And I feel like I’m missing something. Was there another one?

Bonnie Rubin:

There probably was Anya, but wait, there’s more. And Tricia can talk about a few of those things.

Tricia Kitzmann:

So McKenna and Mitchell participate in quite a bit, but we also had a student that went and participated in Project AWARE, which is a project throughout the state of Iowa that asked for volunteers to clean up pretty much our rivers in Iowa. And this last summer, so the middle of July, one of our students participated in that. And Bonnie, you’ll have to remind me. I can’t remember which river it was.

Bonnie Rubin:

It was a branch of the Des Moines river. They did 61 miles.

Tricia Kitzmann:

Yep. And so they go and clean out the debris that’s in the river, so it’s a river cleanup. And they travel 61 miles, and they camp overnight, and it takes about a whole week to go through the whole river. And so they camp during the evening and then canoe throughout the day. So we had a student participate in that in July. We also had a student participate in a program called PrepWise to go through training. And that program works with elder adults that get them ready for any type of disaster, specifically focusing on do they know what to do, do they have an emergency kit, are they someone who is dependent on electricity due to oxygen or other means in their home to ensure that they are safe during any type of natural event or disaster? So we had a student that also participated in that here in Johnson County.

Tricia Kitzmann:

And then we’ve had several other projects that, obviously, to be a part of a team we have various projects that are required or needed to get everything up and running, and so Mitchell was responsible working with an individual to create the logo and to be able to coordinate in getting us t-shirts so we are identified when we are out in the field working. We have also had several students that have worked on pilot projects to get our sign-up sheet up and ready and available, so when projects come up students can sign up for them. And then we also have had students that are helping that will start working on our social media platforms and our website.

Tricia Kitzmann:

Bonnie and I then also work on then working with community partners and statewide partners. We acknowledge that we don’t want the Strike Force just for response and capabilities in Johnson County, or Eastern Iowa, but across the state. So Bonnie and I spend a lot of time meeting with partners from across the state to get our program marketed and let folks know that we are out there, or we have students that are anxious and ready to respond, but also to start setting up opportunities for these students to be able to go in and assist local public health agencies, if and when needed.

Bonnie Rubin:

And Anya, just an example of what Tricia just talked about, being ready. All of our students are encouraged to register and become members of the Johnson County Medical Reserve Corps, the MRC, so that if there is an event in Johnson County they’re ready to serve and they can be called up. So we’ve been pretty busy these past few semesters.

Anya Morozov:

It sure sounds like it. With all the activities you mentioned, I can’t believe that the Strike Force has really only been in operation for less than a year. You guys have done some really awesome stuff so far, and it sounds like there’s some really exciting stuff in the works as well. That leads me to another question. As someone listening to all of these great activities, I’m thinking, man, how do I become a part of the Strike Force? Can you walk through what the process is to join the Strike Force?

Bonnie Rubin:

Since Tricia handles that mostly, I’ll let her respond to that.

Tricia Kitzmann:

Typically, we put a call out. We have a student bulletin that goes out weekly that we work with the College of Public Health on, and we put information in there on how to send in their application. There is a link I send to students that are interested. I send them the link on how to fill out the application, or at least where to access the application, I then request that they begin taking their required training, which are our instant command courses, ICS 100, 200, 800. We also require them to take a HIPAA compliance training. So I send them the information on the links to the various trainings, and then I also request, if possible before they even fill out their application, to send me their phone number so I can get them a part of our Strike Force team GroupMe so I can keep them informed on our upcoming meetings and any last minute events that may have come up throughout that.

Tricia Kitzmann:

I track, I work with the students, I answer their questions, I connect them with other students if they have additional questions to know what it’s like, and I always like to make sure I pair them with students since I’m more not part of the team. I help run the team, so I like them to get their answers from sometimes their future teammates. So really a lot of coordination, a lot of communication, answering their questions, and then once everything comes in, I file and track and make sure and get them a part of getting active and involved.

Bonnie Rubin:

And part of the action and involvement includes once you complete your volunteer authorization form, you get your set of business cards for the Strike team. And once you complete all your trainings, all the ICS trainings and your HIPAA training, you get your t-shirt.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah, that’s great. It really just overall sounds like a great way to, first of all, give back to the community and the entire state of Iowa and make sure that there is a bit of increased capacity for them, and also get really great experiences for potentially working in local or state public health in the future. So, Tricia, maybe be expecting another application fairly soon.

Tricia Kitzmann:

Awesome. Well, and I will say from a local public health, I come from local public health, I think one of the things that is a bonus for our students that participate the required trainings that we are asking our students to participate in are at least complete before they get their t-shirt and before we will deploy them, are actually certificates that are required at most local public health agencies. So if you have that training already done, along with your degree, and you can put that on your resume, you’re going to stand out more so than maybe some other the same position. So I think this definitely gives our students, maybe some other folks that may be applying for the same position. So I think it’s a great opportunity when we can give them hands on experience and some of the training that’s going to be required when they go out into the workforce, outside of the things that they learn through their academics.

Bonnie Rubin:

And just getting away from the College Public Health and meeting all the locals gives you other opportunities. Mitch mentioned Krishna, who went on our spring break trip to the Iowa Lakeside Laboratories, which is a campus based learning area. We stayed in the cabins there, and the students during that week really learned the interconnection between environmental and public health. And during that time we met and visited with Dickinson County Public Health Department, which resulted in Krishna being able to get an internship with them this summer. So there’s a lot of different advantages to being part of the Strike Force.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah, it sounds like it. So I know we have talked about a lot of different activities going on within the Strike Force. If you had to pick a favorite activity with the Strike Force, what would you say is your favorite, and what did you learn from it?

McKenna Deaton:

I would say that my favorite activity so far, it probably would’ve been the Lakeside Lab string break had I gone on it, but I had already had spring break plans at that time, but hopefully next spring we have another fun trip similar, but I would probably say it was the Fayette County Fair, just because I grew up going to county fairs and it was a good excuse to eat some fried food, but also it taught me to really appreciate the data that we have available to us as public health practitioners, because getting good data takes a lot of effort. And understanding that full scale, what it takes to get it, creates a new appreciation.

Mitchell Wisniewski:

I would say my favorite activity so far has been helping out with CASPER, with Johnson County. As a student intern a few summers ago, I actually helped with a different CASPER that they were doing, but this time I feel like I had some added knowledge and experience. And with being part of the Strike Force, I just enjoyed talking with Sam and Rebecca from Johnson County Public Health and learning more about what they do there. And then being out in the community was really fulfilling, and talking to people about their experiences with extreme heat and how the county can be better prepared in the future. That just gave me a bigger appreciation for those local people helping out with everything with that. I’m hoping we can do similar like that in the future with the residents of Johnson County.

Bonnie Rubin:

Well, this is Bonnie, and I’ll just say they’ve all been my favorite. Actually the best thing about my experience with this is working with students like McKenna and Mitch. Everyone is so enthusiastic. Everyone is so willing to take on new responsibilities to promote the Strike Force, and that’s really been what’s given me the energy and passion to really make this as big of a success as we can.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah. I can really sense that. It comes through just how passionate all of you are about this group, just on this video call, so that’s awesome.

Tricia Kitzmann:

Yeah, I would say I echo Bonnie. I love the interaction with students, and I was going to say that going on the field trips with some of them have been fun. Listening to them, watching them work, watching them have a real drive and passion and care about what they’re doing and the importance of the work that they’re doing. But I also coordinate a lot of our meetings, and so I really like that opportunity because then I get to see everybody, even summertime. We have several students that are home for the summer and have not been able to participate, but they’re participating in our meetings, and so we offer Zoom and face to face. So having students in the room, but having students on Zoom that are home for the summer and still engaged is exciting to me, and I get to see everyone, get to know them a little bit more on a personal level, and then watch them in action. So probably a little bit of everything, but I definitely love our team meetings where I get the opportunity to really see and chat with everybody.

Bonnie Rubin:

Plus we always try to have a few snacks at our meetings.

Anya Morozov:

That always helps for sure. It’s my number one tip to anyone hosting an event in the College of Public Health. Bring food. So we have talked a lot about things that are already happening and have happened in the past, but what are your hopes for the Strike Force in the coming year?

Bonnie Rubin:

I’d like to hear what Mitch and McKinna hope for. We do have a lot of plans that we’ve discussed at our last meeting that we can talk about, but I’d like to hear what Mitch and McKenna want to see accomplished.

McKenna Deaton:

I would say that I’m probably most excited to start hearing from some speakers. As great as Bonnie and Tricia are, hearing more experiences and career paths in public health really excites me as I get closer to joining the workforce. And I know Bonnie and Tricia have some great ideas of presenters from local level, state level, and outside formal public health.

Mitchell Wisniewski:

I’m really excited for us to increase our community outreach in terms of recognition around Johnson County and the surrounding areas with something like the t-shirts. And then I know we’re going to be working on the website and the social media as the fall semester starts up here. And I think it will be really cool for different community organizations and members to know that the Strike Force is available in events like emergencies or just general events that could use just assistance from the members of the Strike Force. So I’m really excited to see us grow as just an organization that is utilized in the community, and having people think of us when they need help.

Bonnie Rubin:

I’m excited in the sense that, it goes along with what Mitch said about recognition, one thing is, like with our t-shirts, we do have the NACCHO’s public health logo on it, of which we had to get permission to use that. And so we’ll be sending pictures of our Strike Force to NACCHO, and they’re very interested in what we’re going to do and what we’re accomplishing. But I also want to see us do some presentations and our articles for APHA and CDC so that we begin to have national recognition. Right now, as we know it, we are only one of two organizations like this in colleges of public health. The other one is at University of Michigan. And so I want to make sure we get the national recognition of our existence and what we can do so we can start doing more things on a national level.

Tricia Kitzmann:

And I would concur. I’m just excited to get the recognition for the students on the work that they’re doing, assist in connecting those students that are getting closer to the workforce and helping them make some of those connections in our community, but then also helping them be able to spotlight some of the work that they’ve done, even if they choose to leave the state of Iowa, to make sure that what they have really stands out on their resume as they move forward into the real world of public health. So again, I think the outside speakers are great. I think the work that we do is great, but really I’m passionate about helping our students get to that next level when they leave us to make sure that they’re prepared and they stand out in the workforce or when they’re competing for positions as they move forward. So really excited to see where our students can go even after.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah. I’m really excited to see where you all go in the next year as well, hopefully as part of the organization. So our last question is just a kind of general question. Your answer can be related to the Strike Force, but does not have to be. What is one thing you thought you knew, but were later wrong about?

McKenna Deaton:

I can go ahead. This is kind of related to the Johnson County CASPER Survey. I thought I had explored a fair amount of the Iowa city area in the past few years, but that was definitely far from the truth. We were doing surveys all over the county, and I found so many, many areas that I had never seen before, and it was a really great opportunity to explore the area more.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah, I agree with that. I remember I also did not realize just how big Johnson County is until we did those surveys.

Tricia Kitzmann:

I would say one of the things that I’m learning quickly is how many amazing other organizations that are out there that we are able to connect our students to, so not only local public health agencies, but also some of our community partners that do public health work. Not all local public health agencies can do it all, and they really rely on their other community organizations in and surrounding them. So making sure I’m learning and keeping up with what’s going on in the community, but meeting some of these fantastic individuals in Johnson County, but throughout the state, and learning some of the additional work that they do in their local communities. So not only being able to then make the connection for our students with local public health agencies, but then also the other nonprofits that are providing support to those local public health agencies, doing the programming there as well. So something I was kind of familiar with, but to the broad extent of the communities out there, the organizations out there, it’s pretty impressive, some of the other organizations that are doing work.

Mitchell Wisniewski:

I can go next here. I guess speaking a little more broadly to public health, but Strike Force has certainly helped. As I came in as an undergrad student years ago, I thought public health was going to be kind of a hard science extension of biology and stuff like that, but I’ve very quickly realized across undergrad, and now I’m still in the College of Public Health, that public health has so many different areas and is interconnected with so many parts of just how our community function. And so the Strike Force has really helped solidify that understanding that public health is not just science, but it’s really looking at how your community functions and how you can support the different organizations within it. And so I’m excited to just learn more about that and of see that public health has a million different components. So this is just a great organization to explore those different aspects of it.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah. I can also relate to that. I did my undergrad degree in biochemistry and then I came to study epidemiology, and I was like, oh, I’m going to be taking classes like pathology, going to be learning all of this hard science stuff, and it’s more been just drawing on so many different disciplines, and it’s the science of communities almost. And it’s been different than what I expected, but in a good way.

Bonnie Rubin:

Well, it’s interesting in that both of your backgrounds, though, are based on a very hard science with public health being very evidence based. So that is a skill and a knowledge that you guys brought into it, which is really great. I just want to say I have a very simple I thought I knew something, but I was wrong, and that’s when the students would like to meet the fall semester. So we were planning that in our last meeting, and I’m assuming sometime Monday through Wednesday in the evenings would work for everybody, but no, everybody likes Sunday evenings for meetings. And so we decided first and third Sunday evenings are our meeting times. So that was a little bit of an eye opener for me.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah. It does seem like when you’re coordinating with students, it feels like we all have a lot of things going on all the time. So there’s just, yeah. Sunday, evenings are one of those few times when everybody is maybe available. So before we wrap up, are there any last words you’d like to say about the Strike Force?

Bonnie Rubin:

Well, I just encourage all the students at the College of Public Health to watch out for our announcements. Look it up. We are mentioned in the every Thursday student opportunities bulletin that Bonnie Butler puts out. We’re usually the last article in there. Be sure to sign up because I think it’s a really exciting and great way to get hands on experience and meet a lot of people who are working in public health, outside of the college.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah. Well, like I said, your passion for this organization really came through in our discussion, and I’m excited to release this episode. And thank you all for providing all of the insights that you did today.

Bonnie Rubin:

Thank you for asking us to be part of the podcast.

Anya Morozov:

And that’s it for our episode this week. Big thanks to Bonnie Rubin, Tricia Kitzmann, McKenna Deaton, and Mitchell Wisniewski for joining us today. This episode was hosted, written, edited, and produced by Anya Morozov. You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook, and our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to help support the podcast, please share it with your 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 was brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Until next week, stay healthy, stay curious, and take care.