Community Engagement & Advocacy (StAT)

The goal of the Community Engagement and Advocacy (StAT) Scholarly Concentration is to promote child health and reduce child health disparities though engagement in community-based or legislative advocacy projects in collaboration with local, state and/or national partners.

The StAT program provides residents with specialized advocacy training and the opportunity to develop individual advocacy projects with the support of faculty mentors from the Office of Child Health Equity.

Program Overview and Objectives

The residency program provides residents with several opportunities to work in the community and to develop and practice advocacy skills. Residents in this track can expect to gain knowledge and practice in community engagement, program planning and evaluation, research and dissemination. After participating in this track, residents should be able to:

Apply principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR) to develop strong collaborations and meet community identified needs.
Demonstrate expertise in the development and execution of a sound program plan (assessment, implementation, evaluation), which may result in systems and policy change.
Demonstrate strong skills in community-based research using qualitative and quantitative research strategies to conduct needs assessments and evaluate intervention programs.
Practice grant writing and submission of IRB applications
Disseminate findings locally and nationally at academic pediatrics and public health conferences and in collaboration with community partners.

The Community Engagement and Advocacy SC leaders work with residents to identify a community partner/organization with whom to work and establish a collaborative partnership. Projects are designed to meet resident interests and community needs. Throughout the course of their projects, residents will acquire a variety of advocacy skills that can be applied to future community and academic endeavors.

Education

Required for All Community Engagement and Advocacy Residents:
- Community Engagement and Advocacy Scholarly Concentration Core Curriculum Rotation (PGY-2, 4 wks)
- Research Retreats (3/year): Research retreats are held for "Works-in-progress" presentations. During "works-in-progress" sessions, residents present their work to their fellow residents, project mentor and SC leaders for feedback and guidance. This is not an evaluative process. Rather, the goal is to amplify research efforts and use resident projects as a forum for teaching about study design and to share challenges and solutions to common research hurdles.
- Presentation of Project at Department of Pediatrics Research Retreat

Optional:
- Advocacy trips to Sacramento
- Community Pediatrics Elective
- Research Electives
- Participation in AAP Bay Area Advocacy Committee

Contact Information

Janine Bruce, DrPH

Janine Bruce, DrPH Janine Bruce received her Bachelor of Arts in Biology from Occidental College. After graduation she spent two years in Kyrgyzstan as a Peace Corps volunteer teaching ecology and English to secondary school students. More Upon returning to the US, she received her MPH in Maternal and Child Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2002. She returned to California and began working with the Pediatric Advocacy Program. Janine received her Doctorate of Public Health at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health in 2013. Her research interests included the reproductive health of foster care youth and vulnerable youth populations. With her background in public health, Janine’s role has been to bridge public health and medicine to better promote the health of underserved child populations through strong community partnerships and innovative community-based initiatives. She also teaches courses across the undergraduate campus and medical school on community engagement and qualitative methods.

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Bonnie Halpern-Felsher, PhD

Dr. Bonnie Halpern-Felsher is the Marron and Mary Elizabeth Kendrick Professor in Pediatrics II in the Division of Adolescent Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, Stanford University. She holds courtesy appointments in Epidemiology & Population Health and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences. More She is also the Director of Fellows’ Scholarship and Co-leader of one of the residency scholarly concentrations in the Department of Pediatrics, and Director of Research in Adolescent Medicine. She is also director of the REACH Lab.

Dr. Halpern-Felsher is a developmental psychologist with additional training in adolescent and young adult health. Funded by the NIH and many foundations, her research has focused on understanding and reducing adolescent and young adult tobacco use, alcohol and marijuana use, and risky sexual behavior. Her research, including about 200 publications in journals such as JAMA Network, Pediatrics, and the American Journal of Public Health, as well as her committee and policy work, have been instrumental in setting policy at the local, state, and national level. She has served as a consultant to a number of community-based adolescent health promotion programs and has been an active member on several national campaigns to understand and reduce adolescent tobacco/e-cigarette use. She has testified in several states and at the FDA arguing for more tobacco/e-cigarette regulation, served on six Institute of Medicine/National Academies of Medicine committees, and contributed to three Surgeon General Reports, all focused on reducing adolescent risk behavior and promoting health. Dr. Halpern-Felsher also translates her research findings into adolescent prevention programs, such as three programs in which she is the founder and executive director: Tobacco Prevention Toolkit, the Cannabis Awareness and Prevention Toolkit, and the Vaping Information, Solutions, and Interventions Toolkit. These internationally recognized and used toolkits have reached over 3 million students. In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Halpern-Felsher leads several programs and courses focused on teaching research, including leading the Department of Pediatrics’ fellowship research education academy and grant writing club, co-leading within the Department of Pediatrics’ residency scholarship programs, and being the instructor for Epi 244, focused on teaching survey development. Dr. Halpern-Felsher also developed and directs several mentoring programs for underrepresented youth, having mentored over 300 high school students over the past 20 years. In recognition of her research, advocacy and mentoring roles, Dr. Halpern-Felsher received the Department of Pediatrics’ Advocacy Award in 2019, the Postdoc Mentoring Award in 2019, and the Clinical Science Research Award in 2021.

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Jonathan D. Klein, MD, MPH

Dr. Jonathan D. Klein is the Marron and Elizabeth Kendrick Professor and Chief of the Division of Adolescent Medicine at Stanford University. A pediatrician and health-services researcher, Dr. Klein’s career has included academic medicine leadership, American Academy of Pediatrics executive staff, and public university research administration. More In each setting, his focus is been on improving child and adolescent health, and on career development of multi-disciplinary child and adolescent health advocates. Jon’s research includes tobacco control, adolescent and young adult health, preventive services implementation, survey methods, qualitative and quantitative health services research studies, and community-based program evaluation. His work includes pregnancy prevention/youth development coalition evaluation; survey methods validity and reliability; studies of adolescent confidentiality and private time during preventive care primary care encounters; and community engagement for guideline implementation and the NIH RECOVER study for COVID19 and long-COVID care, respectively. Dr. Klein is President of the International Association for Adolescent Health, a member of the International Pediatric Association Executive Committee, and serves on the Adolescent Well-being workstream and the accountability and evidence workgroup for the WHO Partnership for Women’s Children’s and Adolescents’ Health (PMNCH).

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