TwoHelp Atlanta

Pedestrian on the loose in Atlanta

So it turns out that Atlanta is pretty car-oriented. In fact, I found out from a guy I’m working with that many of the newer sidewalks in Atlanta were actually designed as crash zones for cars, not as walkways for people. So my weekend in Atlanta, as a pedestrian in search of a city, was interesting in a I-still-haven’t-found-what-I’m-looking-for sort of way. I feel like I spent a lot of time walking on sidewalks where no one else had walked that day. Or maybe that week. And maybe I was just self-conscious but I felt like everyone else, in their cars, was looking at me like I was crazy. But it was a beautiful weekend and so I spent a lot of time wandering around, trying to find the city of Atlanta, and all I saw, wherever I went, was a nearly deserted city. I’m sure, with a car (and a native Atlantan), I could have found some “hot spots” but instead people directed me to the mall; and it isn’t it just my luck - two very large ones are within walking distance of the hotel I’m staying in. So I kept walking, and found… not much.

Sunday was a bit more interesting. I went to the new Georgia Aquarium, the world’s largest aquarium. It opened in November 2005. There I discovered where all the children in the city were. But once I maneuvered my way around all of the strollers it was fabulous. The stars were two young whale sharks, Ralph and Norton.

They were amazing. I’d heard about whale sharks while learning to dive in Thailand, but at the time I was secretly happy that I didn’t see any because they were so big and frankly, I was a bit uncertain about how I would react to one while I was 40 ft underwater for the first time. But now, despite their size (an adult male can grow up to 60 ft. long), I’d really like to see one in the open water! The other bit surprise was the leafy sea dragon… I have never seen anything like it before, nor did I know anything like it even existed. It was like one of the crazy, wonderful, quirky creatures out of “Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.” So the good news is, there is one good thing in Atlanta - and all of the local three year olds are in the know. As long as there’s adequate parking for their strollers.

At the CDC…

I have been at the CDC Program Evaluation training course for three days and know a lot more about how to evaluate programs - in general. The challenge now is to take the theoretical knowledge that I have gained in these sessions and apply them to a real, on-going program. This “real” experience, I have discovered, is a rare opportunity in academia and I am eager for the challenge.

I am working with another HSPH student, and together, we will be evaluating a capacity building program within the CDC Environmental Health Services Bureau (EHSB). This program actually consists of 14 sub-projects (grantees of the larger CDC project), 9 state and local health departments and 5 universities. The goal of each project is to simultaneously increase capacity and improve health outcomes. Our goal is to create a framework to determine how well each project and the overall program are meeting these two goals.

We have spent a lot of our initial meetings discussing how we define capacity building. This is a popular buzzword, with a fairly nebulous meaning. It is used differently in different settings, though is often understood to mean organizational capacity building - or the ability for an organization to accomplish something. As this specific capacity building program within the EHSB has been passed down from one program manager to another, the original intent has shifted somewhat. As such, the definition for capacity building that we have settled on for our evaluation is the ability to implement an effective environmental health program.

The next step will be to create a logic model that includes the inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts of the program.  More details on this as it becomes a reality!

Off to Atlanta…

Tonight I will be leaving (snowy!) Boston and off to Atlanta for my two weeks with the CDC.  It should be interesting and I am looking forward to learning a lot more about program evaluation. And I have never been to Atlanta so am excited to get to know another city!

Stay tuned for more…

alexis