HESA 245: Intro to Population Health

with Professor Victor Ronis-Tobin 

When Xavier’s Center for Population Health was founded three years ago, the public health crisis triggered by COVID 19 may not have exactly been on the radar but the resulting impact on factors that support community health was the type of examination and intervention the Center was designed to engage.  Unlike the medical model of healthcare, population health is a collaborative interdisciplinary, approach that addresses health on a level of a population and not just through a specific individual. 

Professor Victor Ronis-Tobin’s HESA 245 Intro to Population Health, is a foundational course for a new Population Health Minor supported by the Center that introduces undergraduate students from any discipline to the concepts, methods, and career paths in population health.  His course touches on the theory and practice associated with the administration of non-medical risk factors associated with increased likelihood of contracting illness and factors affecting poorer medical outcomes, and emphasizes the prevention over treatment models of healthcare. Recently, Ronis-Tobin integrated his course instruction with an in person immersive learning experience for his students in Cincinnati’s Lower Price Hill. 

Community Matters, a place-based nonprofit led by Xavier alum, Mary Delaney, works closely with neighbors in the Lower Price Hill community and recently acquired another Price Hill-centered nonprofit, Healthy Homes Block by Block, that addresses several factors tied to population health.  Since 2013, Healthy Homes has worked to activate a network of community members throughout the Price Hill neighborhoods to support families with young children. 

While Ronis-Tobin’s students walked the neighborhood, one of Health Homes’ community outreach leaders, Valarie Perez, shared candid insights about how food and job access, housing, and safety were all "health" issues for her community and her own family.  Each week, Valarie and her colleagues (all working moms) meet with families with children, assess issues of safety, and provide direct resources like smoke detectors and cribs, and referral resources to free healthcare providers, or city and state programs.  While COVID has made some community members fearful of any engagement, Perez believes that because Healthy Homes is staffed by residents, there is a trust that allows them access and engenders their ability to make a difference in the overall health and welfare of their community.

Before working with the Eigel Center to coordinate the experience for his students, Ronis-Tobin knew that immersion experiences were invaluable in bringing academic content in to life.  However, it was after the engagement that he noted how these experiences continue to add context and color to classroom learning.

"Following our visit a student commented that it was more impactful to hear the same information from the community members than from me, the professor - It made it more real, and more believable." He adds, "The experience is now fueling (our) classroom discussions, and is being used to illustrate every academic model, and theory discussed in the classroom."  Junior HAS major Baylor McKinney reflected:

"What really stuck with me was how passionate the women were - they've found a way to make a real difference in their community. It was inspiring. I hope I can learn from their compassion and love to better those around me, just as they do."

"It was an important experience I'll remember for a long time," he adds. Ronis-Tobin agrees.

"Overall, the time spent in Lower Price Hill with members of that community, have elevated an entire semester’s work to another level, and enriched our experience."