Updates from the Palouse…
As the abundant sunshine and warmth of summer in the Palouse give way to majestic autumn colors and cooler days, it is our hope that each of you is well. Despite being in its infancy, faculty and staff of WSU’s Bachelor of Science in Public Health degree program have made significant progress in developing an infrastructure reflective of our values of inclusivity, accountability, and free intellectual exchange. Utilizing these values, we hope to work collaboratively with students, communities, and stakeholders to promote and improve the health of populations at local, regional, national, and global levels by creating and translating knowledge into practice and policy, educating current and future health leaders, managers, practitioners and researchers through programs of excellence in community engagement and service. In doing so, we can contribute to a society whereby all people can live up to their full human potential.
It’s in that spirit that we’re proud to share with you – our public health stakeholders – the first newsletter of the 2024-2025 academic year.
Discussion with Community Partners and Stakeholders
In early August, we embarked on a series of listening tours with community-, programming-, academic-, and policy-based stakeholders across the state and region in an effort to effectively understand the public health practice and employment landscape. We continue to meet with representatives and public health leaders at local, state, and regional levels. These discussions have informed our approach to curriculum development and redesign, while similarly supporting our land grant mission of preparing a fit-for-purpose workforce. Consonant themes included a need for specialists in healthy policy, environmental health, and community-based rural health, and were particularly instructive as we completed our Notice of Vacancy for two tenure-track faculty positions to begin in August 2025.
Curriculum Redesign
One of our immediate tasks upon onboarding was a review of the public health curriculum approved by the Board of Regents and Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. This critical assessment allowed for further curricular mapping in accordance with leading bodies of public health education and workforce development. Consequently, twenty-five course changes were submitted to WSU’s Faculty Senate for approval. While maintaining the structure of both the infectious disease and community and behavioral health tracks, the proposed changes allow for effective scaffolding of content and skill development and are keenly focused on enhancing entry-level competencies. Reflective of the need to advance micro credentialing in public health, an academic minor was also submitted for consideration. Curricular changes such as these are rather common as content experts are onboarded.
Marketing
In collaboration with the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Communications and Marketing Office, an informative postcard was developed for distribution. Containing a QR code which directs interested parties to the program’s website, these colorful postcards are an excellent entry point for students exhibiting both a passion for and commitment to impacting their communities. Reflecting our commitment to diversifying the public health workforce, the postcards will likewise be translated across multiple languages. Regular updates will also be made to the website, keeping students and invested partners aware of news in real time.We are also in the final stages of a search for our Public Health Recruitment and Marketing Coordinator. Under the guidance of Academic Coordinator Chanelle Denman, this staff member will serve as an integral link between current and interested students, faculty, academic institutions, community organizations, the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Communications and Marketing Office and invested stakeholders. We look forward to adding this new hire to our team prior to the end of the semester.
Advisory Boards
We are honored to have secured the expertise and commitment from individuals spanning academic, health policy, tribal and indigenous health, public health practice and administration, applied research, and business sectors to serve on our internal and external advisory board. The knowledge, insight and experience offered by these stakeholders will assist in guiding program and curricular development, and complement our efforts to establish meaningful relationships that benefit students while at WSU and upon graduation.
Faculty Hires
In addition to hiring Co-Directors at the Paul G. Allen School for Global Health on WSU’s primary campus in Pullman, colleagues at our Spokane and Vancouver campuses have actively engaged in faculty searches. These faculty will lend their expertise to course development and instruction within the community and behavioral health track. The Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine in Spokane successfully completed its search for three tenure-track faculty, and Vancouver’s College of Arts and Sciences hope to hire two additional faculty. Two tenure-track faculty members, specializing in environmental health and rural and tribal health policy, respectively, will join Pullman’s College of Veterinary Medicine in the 2025-2026 academic year
Ekaterina Burduli, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Community and Behavioral Health
Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Dr. Burduli’s primary research focuses on the birth outcomes of women who use substances during pregnancy and their infants, and the development of novel interventions for perinatal women with substance use disorders. Dr. Burduli’s work will lead to a better and more thorough examination of the birth experience among substance using mothers and holds great promise to identify points of intervention, improve health outcomes for both mother and child, and ultimately, reduce health disparities for substance using perinatal women and their infants. She has over 38 peer-reviewed publications and has contributed to and is leading several NIH-funded grants as well, most recently an NIDA-funded Mentored Research Scientist Development Award (K01) that will adapt an existing mobile Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome tool for high-risk pregnant women and assess its usability, acceptability, and feasibility in a small randomized controlled trial. Dr. Burduli also has a high level of statistical methodology expertise in psychometrics, structural equation modeling, and clinical trial data analysis.
Anna Hing, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Community and Behavioral Health
Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Dr. Hing is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community and Behavioral Health in the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. At its core, her research attempts to understand how inequities in power lead to inequities in health, especially interrogating the ways in which structural racism operates to stratify power and health. She examines how racialized voting policies give rise to other unjust policies, such as restrictions to reproductive rights, and impact health equity. Dr. Hing has also examined how structural racism operates within the US immigration system, including exploring how the visa process stratifies health among immigrants from the Philippines, and considers the measurement and operationalization of structural racism. Her work spans community health science, sociology, and political science. She has received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s P4A and E4A programs and from the Minnesota Population Center. Dr. Hing earned a BA in Psychology and Anthropology at the University of Notre Dame, an MPH in Health Behavior & Health Education at the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Community Health Sciences at the University of California Los Angeles.
Kimberly R. McBride, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Co-Director, Public Health Degree Programs
Paul G. Allen School for Global Health
Dr. McBride currently serves as an Associate Professor and Co-director for the Public Health Program in the Paul G. Allen School for Global Health at WSU. Prior to joining WSU, she served as an Associate Professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and the Department of Population Health (2014-2024) at The University of Toledo.
Dr. McBride also served as an Assistant Professor of Public Health at Central Washington University (2012-2014) and as an instructor in the both the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the Department of Applied Health Science (2008-2012) at Indiana University, Bloomington.
Dr. McBride is an interdisciplinary social and behavioral scientist whose broad research focuses on the individual, interpersonal, contextual, and social factors that influence human sexuality, sexual behavior, and sexual health. She is a mixed-methodologist, with specific expertise in qualitative research. Her current research interests include sexualities and reproductive justice. In 2021, she received a Presidential Recognition Award for Scholarly and Creative Activity from The University of Toledo in recognition of her highly cited research publications.
Dr. McBride is currently Chairperson for the Sexual and Reproductive Health Section of the American Public Health Association. Dr. McBride is also an active peer-reviewer for multiple scientific journals and has a special interest in ethics related to research and publication.
Todd Sabato, Ph.D., CHES
Associate Professor
Co-Director, Public Health Degree Programs
Paul G. Allen School for Global Health
Dr. Todd Sabato has held faculty and administrative roles at prestigious institutions, including the University of North Dakota and James Madison University. He has over twenty years of diverse academic experience, providing him with a deep understanding of the intricacies of global health promotion, disease prevention, and community development.
Dr. Sabato has an extensive background in HIV/AIDS prevention education, having collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and United States Office of Minority Health (OMH). He has assisted in the authorship of numerous prevention-based curricula, focusing on perinatal prevention as well as risk behaviors of sexual and cultural minority youth.
Dr. Sabato has previously worked with the Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services, Guam HIV/AIDS Network (GUAHAN) Project, and Women United Together Marshall Islands (WUTMI) to advance public health research, policy, and community capacity. His passion for health equity throughout the Pacific Islands and Asian subcontinent has been recognized by the Pacific Island Jurisdictions AIDS Action Group (PIJAAG).
Khairul Siddiqi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Community and Behavioral Health
Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine
Dr. Siddiqi is a health services researcher in the area of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), substance use, and mental health. As a faculty member in the Promoting Research Initiatives in Substance Use and Mental Health (PRISM) Collaborative, Dr. Siddiqi is working on developing, implementing, and evaluating evidence-based interventions to improve access to HIV prevention and mental health services. Using quantitative and qualitative research methods, he works to enforce the latest tools and strategies to prevent HIV/AIDS and substance use disorder (SUD) and promote health care delivery for the population affected by these conditions.
Programmatic Engagement and Outreach
In addition to advancing our curriculum and program infrastructure, we have been engaged across academic, policy, and research spectra. The following is a brief list of our efforts to date:
- Each of us attended the ‘Future of AI and the Health Sciences Summit’ in August, jointly hosted by the Washington State Department of Health and the University of Washington’s six health sciences schools. This summit convened professionals across academia, public health practice and the private sector to engage and connect around key themes, including practical applications of AI in public health, research around AI to improve the health of the public, and equity and ethical considerations of AI in the health sciences.
- We collectively presented our vision for the degree program at both the Allen School of Global Health’s Global Health Initiative, as well as the convening of Dean Dori Borjesson’s advisory council. These sessions provided an opportunity to meet with invested stakeholders and professionals, while establishing relationships that could benefit students as they seek to engage in research and experiential learning.
- We actively participated in the Washington State Academic Learning Collaborative (WAPHALCO) meeting in Yakima, WA. WAPHALCO is designed to accelerate collaboration and resource sharing between Washington’s public health professionals and community-based organizations, working together to create health and wellness solutions that can be applied across the state.
- We similarly attended the Washington State Public Health Association Conference in Yakima. A non-profit organization of members who work in public health, health care, and other areas dedicated to improving health and safety in all communities across Washington, the Association convenes annually to address advanced strategies and research efforts to enhance public health outcomes. Todd presented a poster at this year’s conference.
- We will also represent WSU at the American Public Health Association’s Annual Conference and Symposium in Minneapolis, where Kimberly currently serves as chair of the sexual and reproductive health section. With its mission to build public health capacity and promote effective policy and practice, APHA is the largest organization nationally that combines a 150-year perspective, a broad-based member community and the ability to influence federal policy to improve the public’s health.
Where YOU Come In…
As invested members of the WSU and public health communities, we look forward to speaking with you about how we may best serve our communities through education, advocacy, outreach, and public health practice. We likewise welcome the opportunity to engage in discussion about experiential learning methods for our students, to most effectively prepare them for the workforce needs and expectations. Your commitment, expertise and participation will allow us continue to model our values of inclusivity, accountability, and free intellectual exchange that may transform public health practice and outcomes.