SPH students spend Spring Break along the Texas/Mexico border

Spring break was a trip – at least for a group of nine students from the School of Public Health.

Claudia Coggin, Ph.D., CHES, assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences, and Terry Gratton, Dr.P.H., assistant professor of environmental and occupational health, took their annual jaunt with this spring’s Texas/Mexico Border Health Issues class to the area around Laredo along the Rio Grande River in south Texas .

Seasoned public health instructors and practitioners took students on eye-opening tours of the colonias (rural areas near the border that lack adequate infrastructure and typically have high poverty rates), allowing them to see personally the living conditions, water and air quality, and vehicle and foot traffic of these areas.

Tours were also given at local plants, like the Laredo Waste Water Treatment Plant and the Caterpillar Plant in Nuevo Laredo , Mexico , where students had a chance to watch a maquiladora (American-owned assembly factory) in active operation.

The students also visited Lamar Bruni Vergara Education Center , a women’s center started by Sister Rosemary of the Convent of Sisters of Mercy. The center offers regular classes on self-esteem, computer skills and career development to victims of domestic abuse.

Public health students Shimona Bhatia, Isabel Espinosa, Elizabeth George, Sara Hossman, Kim McGee, Anila Nanji, Carla Pezzia, Mary Schimmoller and Erin Tompkins participated in this year’s trip.

“Being able to see firsthand the differences in healthcare services, access to care, working conditions, health beliefs and the environmental concerns of communities on the border were lessons that cannot be taught in the classroom,” Hossman said.

The goal of the course is to demonstrate the importance of cultural sensitivity and cultural competency when practicing public health in a multicultural environment.