Room 4 Schedule
Eaton 209
Wednesday, April 15th, 2026
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The Safe at Home program is a Marion & Polk Early Learning Hub program developed to engage community volunteers and support families with open child welfare cases during trial reunification. This project included participant observation, interviews with community volunteer and partners, a literature review on adverse and positive childhood experiences, and a scan of volunteer programs and trainings. This informed a toolkit of local resources, relevant trainings, and recommendations to strengthen Safe at Home’s capacity to improve the quality of support provided to families navigating reunification.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) aims to provide well-rounded, culturally-relevant, and accurate knowledge on sexuality. Professionals face challenges in integrating CSE curricula into schools due to community, social, and political factors. Working with HIV Alliance, this project increased outreach to public schools in Marion County to schedule classroom presentations. It also included development of a presentation on LGBTQIA+ history, which was presented to various LGBTQIA+ organizations. Overall, this project provides a template for cultivating relationships between the Alliance and public schools, improving access to quality sexual health education for students.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Public health has long sought to assess community health needs accurately. However, disparities remain between traditional assessment methods and ability to capture community voice and experiences. To engage multiple community voices, the Multnomah County Health Department (MCHD) utilized a multifaceted approach for the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) development. This presentation discusses the efforts used by MCHD to develop the CHIP priority areas and strategies. By examining multiple approaches, this presentation documents and encourages inclusive and collaborative community assessments that are foundational to public health practice.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Every year, thousands of children in Oregon go into the foster care system. Many go through adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as abuse, neglect, drug exposure, and homelessness while their families fail to reach the minimum level of care. Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) for Children work closely with the caseworkers to support children appropriately. Based on my experience with CASA of Marion County, I demonstrate how CASAs operate with the child’s best interest to evaluate and investigate each situation and collaborate to achieve a permanent, safe home.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Parental alienation is when a child aligns strongly with one parent and rejects a relationship with the other without legitimate justification. Often in high-conflict divorces, one parent tries to undermine the relationship that the child has with the other parent through malicious behavior. However, scholars disagree on the incidence rate of parental alienation in the courts and how to address it. This narrative review and capstone seek to explore this scholarly debate and integrate public health frameworks to dissect what solutions can be implemented to handle alleged parental alienation within the courts.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Public health consultants work with different levels of government, businesses and non-governmental organizations to support the essential functions of public health. As an intern with the Rede Group, I supported qualitative evaluation of a Mobile Health Unit (MHU) pilot program, strategic planning for state health departments, event planning and more. MHUs are traveling clinics that deliver healthcare to communities. My research explores the current landscape of MHUs and financial barriers to expansion. MHUs improve health outcomes for underserved populations but sustainable financial models have yet to be adopted nationwide, blocking opportunities for improved healthcare access.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Food insecurity and food waste are prominent public health problems in the United States. Urban Gleaners, a Portland nonprofit, harnesses these paradoxical issues to turn food excess into food access at citywide Free Food Markets with salvaged foodstuffs. This project develops a qualitative overview of the impacts of local fresh fruits and vegetables provision to Portland residents through Urban Gleaners programming. Individual interviews revealed key themes, including that the provision of fresh vegetables has a significant impact on the diet and budget of low-income, food insecure individuals. Results bolster organizational operations and public health programming at Urban Gleaners.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Public agencies are increasingly interested in understanding and meeting the diverse needs of the workforce, clients, and public at large. Intersectionality is a theory that continues to have gaps in research, understanding, and practice. Despite being a critical consideration for equity, there are limitations in research about how to construct and assess practices in research and institutions. Through a systematic review, this article aims to highlight significant gaps in framework, methodologies, and implementation related to intersectionality. Results will assist in the creation of recommendations for the Department of Human Services to better prioritize intersectionality within a customer service survey.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Pharmacies provide key public services such as vaccinations, over-the-counter and prescription medications, and sexual health and wellness services. Institutionalized access and equity disparities affect these services, especially amidst rising pharmacy closures nationwide. We sought to quantify pharmacy access in Marion County through GIS spatial analysis and supplemental semi-structured stakeholder interviews. Our findings indicate that geographic and spatial barriers are key determinants of pharmacy access across Marion County. Our project aspires to both inform future county intervention efforts and support a growing body of research that describes modern pharmacy accessibility.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Our purpose is to educate convenience store owners on ways that they can help their customers make healthier choices. To understand best how to create a retailer toolkit, we investigated data surrounding substance use as well as case studies in which healthy retail interventions were implemented. In addition, we used the Marion County Tobacco and Alcohol Retail Assessment data to make suggestions on the toolkit’s distribution. We created a comprehensive, understandable retail toolkit with resources and strategies to transition into a healthy retail store. This will address the public health crisis regarding addictive products available in convenience stores.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Heat exposure and air quality are environmental health hazards that often lead to cumulative occupational health risks, especially for outdoor workers. Farmworkers are disproportionately exposed to these hazards, even as cultural and educational levels reduce health literacy. They also experience significant power imbalances with their employers, making self-efficacy difficult. This literature-based project was used to develop culturally relevant promotional educational materials in English and Spanish for local farmworker unions in Oregon. Educating farmworkers on Air Quality Index (AQI) and heat index regulations improves farmworker health outcomes through greater health literacy and more informed decision making.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership -
Older adults face a variety of mental, physical, and social health issues that require a certain set of care. Spending time in outdoor spaces, like parks, provides many benefits that aid in healthy aging. The purpose of this project is to understand how Aldrich Park can become a better outdoor 3rd space for older adults in the community. This was investigated through conducting a walking park audit with older adults and conducting interviews with older adults to better understand their wants and needs for this space. We will provide recommendations to stakeholders on how to improve it.
Faculty Sponsor: Nicole Iroz-Elardo
Discipline: Public Health Ethics, Advocacy and Leadership