Healthcare

(2025) Public transportation barriers to follow-up health care from emergency department visits. Informing Maryland Transit Administration service change

Faculty Partner: Rick Redett, Milton T. Edgerton Professor and Chair, Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine 

City Agency/Government Partner: Holly Arnold, Administrator, Maryland Transit Administration

Description: This project assisted the MTA in targeting its efforts to increase health access by 1) identifying target regions that would most benefit from increased service lines/frequencies to medical centers and 2) increasing MTA rider feedback through qualitative interviews. This information will be used to inform the MTA’s August 2024 service changes. A secondary goal of this project is to identify key barriers to patient care and to understand community priorities regarding health access in Baltimore City. This information will be used by the Johns Hopkins Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery department to support community-directed interventions to increase access to healthcare.

(2025) A Cross-Sector Roadmap to Improve Outcomes for Children with Asthma In Baltimore City

Faculty Partner: Megan Tschudy, Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine 

City Agency/Government Partner: Willietta Gombeh-Fonjungo, Director, Community Asthma Programs, Baltimore City Health Department, Community Asthma Home Programs

Description: The project aims to: 1) perform a landscape review of evidence-based literature, policies, and care studies; 2) perform stakeholder mapping; 3) conduct key informant interviews; 4) identify information, service, educational, and resource barriers impacting the Asthma landscape.

(2024) Health In the Food System - Strategic Planning for Integrated Food and Health Policy In Baltimore City

Faculty Partner: Yeeli Muii, Assistant Professor, Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 

City Agency/Government Partner: Alice Huang, Acting Assistant Commissioner of Community Services, Division of Aging at Baltimore City Health Department

Description: Food and nutrition security disproportionately impacts underserved communities, increases risks of chronic disease and mental health stress, and creates barriers among financially strained households. This projects aims to serve public health practitioners to better serve their communities by establishing a comprehensive and coordinated strategy across programs at the Baltimore County Health Department by identifying barriers to nutrition security, resources, and services; streamlining services using an evidence-based approach, and identifying local context and solutions that work for local government entities.

(2023) The Development of Maryland Specific Refugee Screening Manual

Hopkins Faculty Partner: Pamela Donohue,      

City Agency/Government Partner: Dipti Shah, Senior Associate, Center for Global Migration and Immigrant Health, Maryland Health Department

Description: The Maryland Department of Health (MDH) Center for Global Immigration and Immigrant Health realized the need for standardized health processes to assist with refugee health screenings. This project aims to assist in the development, implementation, and dissemination of Maryland state’s first standardized trauma-informed refugee health screening manual.

(2020) Food Access and Quality - Adolescents from SNAP Households

Hopkins Faculty Partner: Susan Gross, Associate Scientist, Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

City Agency/Government Partner: Holly Freishtat, Food Policy Director, Baltimore City Department of Planning

Description: In 2020, the Baltimore City government implemented a pilot of the Summer SNAP Benefits program in alignment with their commitment to reducing youth food insecurity. This project focused on adolescents ages 14-18 and aimed to (1) examine dietary patterns among food secure and food insecure youth in Baltimore, and (2) identify environmental and social contextual factors of food-related behaviors among food secure and food insecure youth in Baltimore. With this data, the Baltimore City government aims to understand how adolescents make food choices and access food to lead to community-driven solutions that can be translated into policies to health increase food security and improve food access for Baltimore City youth.