Graduate students take charge of their research projects with support from CHHS

The SDSU College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) awarded Linda Salgin, Rose Naigino, Emily Leslie, and Samantha Shinder from the School of Public Health with Graduate Student Research Awards. Starting in 2022, the award has been offered annually with up to $3,000 to support research costs to graduate students within the CHHS who are conducting student-led research.

Linda Salgin was provided the award to conduct her dissertation research project titled: “Understanding Disparities in Tobacco Screening and Cessation Counseling to Inform a Theoretically Driven Tobacco Cessation Program within a Federally Qualified Health Center.” The award will specifically support the hiring of Research Assistants who will aid in the collection and analysis of qualitative data from key-informant interviews as well as compensating participants. Linda and her team hope to shed light on the barriers and facilitators to implementation of tobacco screening and cessation counseling within the context of a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). Linda has worked with San Ysidro Health, a local FQHC, for almost 10 years “implementing various service and research based programs.” Working as a Senior Program Manager, she has gained interest in research on health disparities seen in their patient population which inspired the topic for her dissertation.

Rose Naigino is currently implementing her research project in Uganda titled, “Alcohol use and HIV viral load suppression among Ugandan adolescent girls and young women: Exploring alcohol use patterns, post traumatic stress disorder and stakeholder perspectives.” Her research focuses on Ugandan adolescent girls and young women (aged 15-24 years) who are dually burdened with high HIV rates and a growing alcohol use problem. Rose explained she was inspired to pursue this research as, “It is the way to go in the fight against HIV in low income countries, targeting subgroups that are most-at-risk of HIV such as adolescent girls and young women.” 

The CHHS Graduate Student Research Awards provide a unique way to support and fund graduate students in their student-led research. Linda shared that she is “grateful to the CHHS for this award and look forward to seeing what the data I collect has to say about addressing tobacco screening and cessation counseling.” Rose also expressed thankfulness for this grant award.