International Health Projects Funded by Fred H. Bixby Foundation

A UABC physician works with a migrant worker family

In its long-standing tradition of community-based research, the Graduate School of Public Health (GSPH), under a grant from the Fred H. Bixby Foundation, is exploring issues of reproductive health and family planning in the United States and abroad. In 2005, the foundation granted the school a total of $116,000.

Hovell studies reproductive health

One project supported through the grant was that of Mel Hovell, Ph.D., professor and head of the health promotion division, who studied reproductive health both in the United States and China. Hovell designed a community-based intervention of informed choice on contraceptive knowledge among women of reproductive age in rural China. The intervention activities were shown to improve the knowledge level of women in the target population on various measures of contraceptive methods.

GSPH partners with Mexican colonia on family planning

Stephanie Brodine, M.D., and John Elder, Ph.D., both professors in the GSPH, along with John Weeks, Ph.D., a professor of Geography, and Miguel Fraga, Ph.D., of UABC, TJ, jointly planned and launched a Bixby project within VIIDAI (Viaje de Integracion, Interinstitucional, Docente, Assistencial y de Investigacion). VIIDAI is a binational collaboration between Universidad de Baja California (UABC) Tijuana, School of Medicine, the GSPH, UCSD School of Medicine, and the Sunrise Rotary Club of La Mesa. Multi-disciplinary faculty, student teams and Rotarians conduct biannual 4 day public health and clinical field work with the vulnerable indigenous populations of an 'adopted' colonia or migrant camp in San Quintin, Baja. With the Bixby funding, the VIIDAI team was able to address issues of family planning for the first time in this community.

Studies included exploratory qualitative research and a survey within the community on reproductive health and contraceptive knowledge and use in married women. They found that the mean level of education of women in the colonia is less than four years; the mean number of children is 4.6; 33 percent of women were married between the ages of 13 and 15, and 60 percent by 17; and, approximately 24 percent had never used birth control.

From these findings, a pilot health education program developed by SDSU students was provided to 14 volunteer health promotoras, all community members, who enthusiastically received the training.

"This project was highly successful in demonstrating the feasibility of assessing and intervening in family planning needs in the colonia and, importantly, that the colonia leadership is committed to the issue of family planning, and was willing to be a part of education and prevention strategies," says Brodine. "It is also clear that intervention is required in both genders, and well before the age of 13 years."

Bixby Scholars and the Bixby Colloquium

Also supported by the Bixby Foundation's grant were eight GSPH students who assisted in related research, and the Bixby Colloquium, held by the GSPH in April of 2005. The students were Christine S. Muhart, Carol L. Sipan, Noopur Pathak, Araceli Fernandez, Cerdeno-Franco, Megan Galbreath Turnbull, Meagan R. Gold, Kimberly D. McDougal and Tara M. Beeston.