Main Partners

California State University, Long Beach (lead applicant): key personnel includes primary faculty members (Kamiar Alaei, Melawhy Garcia, Erlyana Erlyana, Sara Nourazari, Henry O'Lawrence, Amber Johnson, Wendy Nomura, and Monica Montano) who will work collaboratively to help develop the CCPHIT curriculum in Year 1, teach the courses in Years 2-4 and identify and refer internship placements in year 3-4. Other personnel include a part-time project coordinator and a graduate student assistant, who will coordinate the curriculum development process, internship placement and work closely with the faculty throughout the project period. Costs have been included for travel to meet with partners in the consortium and to travel to ONC as needed for meetings. CSULB will also provide support for paid internships for 240 trained students.

University of California, Berkeley will leverage our subject matter expertise in PHIT to support the consortium objectives of Goal 2 to develop culturally relevant public health informatics curricula. UC Berkeley’s key personnel includes four primary faculty members (Susan Ivey, Raja Sengupta, Charlotte Smith, and Marta Gonzalez), who will work collaboratively to develop the CCPHIT curriculum in Year 1 and teach the courses in Years 2-4. Other personnel include a part-time project coordinator, who will coordinate the curriculum development process and work closely with the faculty throughout the project period. In addition, the School of Public Health’s Chief of Curriculum and Instruction, Deborah Barnett, will advise the team on online course development and infrastructure needs; she has directed the existing Public Health online master’s program for the past 10 years. Furthermore, Deryk van Brunt, President and CEO of the Healthy Communities Foundation and an expert in public health informatics, will consult on the content of the curriculum in Year 1 to ensure that all topics are current and relevant to the needs of the California public health workforce; he will co-teach in Years 2-4. Costs have been included for travel to meet with partners in the consortium and to travel to ONC as needed for meetings. Other direct costs include instructional design and video production of the three online courses that will be developed; cloud computing infrastructure costs; and costs for laptops for the curriculum development team.

California State University, East Bay is the most diverse university on the mainland United States and is well situated to advance the project’s goal of increasing access to training in Public Health Information Technology (PHIT) to underrepresented segments of the population in California. Key personnel include five tenure-track/tenured faculty members (Dr. Arnab Mukherjea - Site Principal Investigator & Chair of Department of Public Health; Dr. Ayona Chatterjee - Chair of Department of Statistics & Biostatistics; Dr. Chandrakala Ganesh - Associate Professor of Public Health; Dr. Ryan Gamba - Assistant Professor of Public Health; and Dr. Michael Schmeltz - Assistant Professor of Public Health). The Cal State East Bay team will be engaged in curriculum development with a focus on developing the first upper-division course in the series using a framework of pedagogical scaffolding and backward design. It will also work with academic partners across the three-level higher education system in California to provide formal recognition of completion of the CCPHIT curriculum. Cal State East Bay will pursue a certificate to be conferred by the University to ensure a baseline number of students earn this academic recognition through completion of coursework and an associated internship.  

Bakersfield Community College is a key partner in the CCPHIT consortium, BCC’s Craig Hayward, Ph.D., will serve as project coordinator for community college activities (12-month schedule, 0.25 FTE, Years 1-4) will coordinate, facilitate, convene, and support CCC partners, faculty, staff, and administrators in collaborating to achieve the grant objectives including the adoption of Public Health Informatics & Technology (PHIT) curriculum, and the training of underrepresented minority students throughout the state. Hayward will support the development and alignment of the PHIT curriculum throughout the higher education segments, CCs, CSUs, and UCs. The project expects to recruit, train, and place 700 students in the field to grow and diversify California’s public health workforce. BCC will also hire a Data Analyst (12-month schedule, 0.25 FTE Years 1 & 2 and 0.50 FTE Years 3 & 4), who will assist multiple partners in submitting data to the ONC Performance Measurement System, conduct regular formative data analyses to support the CAL-PHIT-WD project implementation, and support required project reporting. Furthermore, a designated Project Coordinator will work with project director(s), support achievement of project goals and objectives, disseminate national curricular objectives, facilitate development, and alignment of curriculum at virtual and in-person meetings in northern, central and southern California. The Department Assistant III (12-month schedule, 0.10 FTE Years 1-4) will provide project support, process project transactions, and will coordinate virtual and in-person meeting logistics for CCC partners across the state. In Years 1 & 2 Craig Hayward, Ph.D. and other funded staff will attend required national, state, California, and local travel to ensure coherence at the project level across all three higher educational segments in the development of curriculum, alignment of curriculum, project data collection, analysis, and reporting. Required travel estimates included Health Information Education Leadership trips to Washington DC, Chicago IL, and a third location, TBD. Estimates for each trip includes airfare, hotel, and per diem expenses (4 days). In-state travel was estimated at 3000 miles / year based on the 2021 IRS mileage reimbursement rate of 0.56 /mile. In Years 3 and 4, coordinators will disseminate project outcomes or will share travel requirements, estimated to be half as much travel as in Years 1 and 2, and estimated at $6,288 each year.

The total proposed budget includes recruitment, student support services, The Human Touch Healthcare™ course, data portal development, website and collateral development, and a Student Service Manager for all support services provided. Futuro Health will deploy multiple recruitment strategies that involve partner organizations and staff. Recruitment partners include labor unions, community-based organizations, local health systems, and education providers. Futuro Health will require costs related to: 2) The Human Touch Healthcare™ course 3) CCPHIT Data Portal: Futuro Health will house and manage all CCPHIT related data; 4) Student Services Management (1.0 FTE).​

CAL2CAL will provide service in establishing in Year 1 and maintaining in Year 2-4 the Consortium between the CSULB, its subcontractors and all partner organizations and collaborators in order to successfully collaborate with partner organizations to support the consortium objectives of Goal 1. CAL2CAL will coordinate among all collaborators and other relevant public and/or private stakeholders that will lead to internships and/or job placements for students in year 3-4.

The Institute for International Health and Education will provide service in conducting external evaluation of the project in Year 1-4 and contributing to drafting quarterly reports. Additional tasks include collecting and analyzing performance records, program monitoring and evaluation, and measuring progress toward achieving project goals.