By Dr. John Waller, Director, Social Science Scholars Program
For over a decade, a world-class collaboration between MSU and Flint’s Hurley Medical Center has been improving the lives of some of America’s most financially vulnerable adults and children. It has also provided members of the Social Science Scholars Program with superb opportunities to learn new skills they will spend their careers putting to the service of others.
Led by Dr. Mona Hanna since its inception in 2016, the Pediatric Public Health Initiative (PPHI) has a single over-arching goal: to tackle the adverse effects on Flint’s children of lead-water, deindustrialization, and underinvestment. Among its several visionary initiatives are the ‘Flint Registry’ and ‘Rx Kids’. The Registry connects the victims of the Flint water crisis to medical and community resources that can lessen the harmful effects of lead exposure. Rx Kids is America’s very first community-wide infant cash prescription program that helps pregnant women and new mothers to afford food, housing, utilities, and baby supplies. Such has been the success of Rx kids that it is being expanded to more than 60 communities in Michigan as well as to Cleveland, Ohio. As Dr. Hanna observes, by reducing the emotional and financial stressors for women in Flint, this initiative is “Effectively rewriting the story for thousands of families.”
Read more: Flint awards highest civic honor to Flint's Mona Hanna
Programs like the Pediatric Public Health Initiative also have an important secondary benefit- training new generations of talented young people. Former interns, who have learned under expert tutelage, are equipped to go on to careers in public service that combine compassion, knowledge about struggling communities, and rigorous research skills. It’s a training which, over the past few years, several Scholars have been privileged to receive from PPHI experts including Dr. Nicole Jones, Dr. Mona Hanna, Kalie Kehoe, and Jenny LaChance.
Olivia Bowman '26 interned with the PPHI in the exciting early phases of Rx Kids. She describes is as “one of my favorite experiences at MSU." “I could go on and on about this program," Olivia adds, “and the love I have for it." Tanner Therig’s (graduated 2024) work on the Flint Registry gave him “an appreciation for the importance of data collection and survey research, and how that information can impact people's lives.” Justin Crown '24 also contributed to the Registry, updating residents about the resources available to them. Like Olivia, Justin describes the experience as “amazing.”
This past summer, current Scholars Mason Hambley and Finn Chambers both interned at the PPHI. Mason describes working with the Rx Kids team as “incredibly formative”, offering a special opportunity to “apply many of the analytical tools I learned in class” while learning “new methods of study design and the tools for psychological research." Just as effusive, Finn describes his time at the PPHI as an “amazing opportunity” that he “would recommend to anyone.” He especially valued being able to “do meaningful work surrounded by people who were consistently kind and passionate about the work they were doing.”
The relationship between the PPHI and the Scholars Program is deeply gratifying for me as the Scholars Program director. That’s partly because I receive such glowing feedback about our students. Writing of Mason and Finn, Nicole Jones, a perinatal epidemiologist and Director of the Flint Registry, said that “both did an outstanding job and contributed to the impact of PPHI.” Jenny LaChance, Associate Director of the PPHI, applauds Mason for his “sincere interest in the work” and a “strong critical thinking background that, combined with his statistical and economics knowledge, allowed him to accomplish tasks quickly and professionally.” Jenny especially highlights Mason’s contribution, as part of the Rx team, to an “examination of the impact of Rx Kids on maternal depression.” A testament to Mason’s excellence, the project to which he contributed will soon by presented at two conferences and he is co-authoring the manuscript based on this work!
Finn’s accomplishments also elicited fulsome praise. Dr. Jones writes: “Finn was an amazing addition to our team” who brought to the PPHI, “enthusiasm for learning and a strong commitment to understanding how public policy can shape health equity.” Above all else, writes Nicole, Finn, pictured below, was able to demonstrate “that government investments in infrastructure in Michigan helped eliminate racial disparities in lead service line replacements.” This work, too, will be presented at an upcoming conference. “We are so grateful for his work this summer," concludes Dr. Jones.
Every bit as satisfying is seeing how powerfully PPHI internships shape the careers of Scholars after they graduate. Olivia notes how the experience “opened” her “eyes to the wide range of options” available to her professionally. In fact, she credits her decision to pursue an MSW (which she just began at MSU) to her time spent in Flint.
Similarly, Justin Crouch attributes his passion for a career in psychotherapy to the opportunities he gained at the PPHI. Serving communities in Flint provided Justin with vital training in how to interact with the clients he now sees as a student of psychotherapy at Eastern Michigan University. Tanner expresses the same gratitude. “My time at PPHI gave me a leg-up professionally in several ways," he explains, providing “vital experience for many social science research positions” and a “great network." Indeed, Tanner describes his PPHI experience as instrumental toward him securing his current position as a Data Project Manager at the University of Michigan’s Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. Mason and Finn are both current MSU students, but their internships with the PPHI are also bound to have positive and enduring effects on their futures.
In closing, I’d like to thank the team at the PPHI for giving Scholars, as well as many other students, a chance to learn, grow, and gain in wisdom and sympathy.
Dr. John Waller, Director, Social Science Scholars Program