Congratulations to Dr. Erin Athey, selected as the 2020 Nashman Center Community Engaged Researcher of the Year.
Dr. Erin Athey’s clinical, research, and teaching work is grounded in community partnerships here in DC, and champion the importance of engaging directly with the community and innovating strategies that meet the most immediate needs. Throughout her career, Athey has strived to provide equitable resources and quality care to individuals and families that need it the most. In doing so, she has brought her experience as a clinician and educator to Southeast DC where she has worked for the last decade to create a broader understanding of the social determinants of health.
The Barbershop Embedded Education initiative aims to positively influence mental and behavioral health wellness in the Southeast District of Columbia (DC). Through this program, Dr. Erin Athey (GW School of Nursing) and Dr. Nnemdi Kamanu Elias, MD, MPH (United Medical Center) partnered with local barbers as a historically trusted community resource to deliver positive and accurate mental and behavioral health wellness messaging to their predominantly black male clients and connect them to services. This “embedded education” approach, which provides public health education through everyday interpersonal encounters within organizations like barbershops aims to improve health literacy, mitigate misinformation and stigma, and encourage connection to health care. Athey and Elias built a network of health care professionals, community-based leaders, faith leaders, and key organizations like the Ward 8 Health Council to create the program. Moving forward, the program is considering adding financial literacy to the training program, to address the economic opportunity as a social determinant of health. The program was selected for the 2018 Leadership of Greater Washington Signature Program for its multi-sector approach. Learn more about this project.
“We found the need was to go directly into the community. It wasn't enough to only do work in the hospital, we had to do more to help out within the field."
In another project, Dr. Athey has introduced Mobile Health Clinics to affordable housing in Wards 7 and 8. In partnership with the United Medical Center, Athey and GW School of Nursing students operate essentially a health clinic in a van, providing much needed health care access, including COVID-19 testing vaccinations this year. Story featured in WAMU. Story featured in the Washington City Paper.
Dr. Athey has used this fieldwork as a model for the courses she teaches at GW. As an educator within the School of Nursing, and particularly with the community health course offered in GW’s accelerated nursing program, she has made a point to encourage her students to be more involved in community-engaged research. “To me, this type of teaching is almost always better in the field. So the best thing that I have found that I can do for students is to put them directly in these community settings so that they can observe and learn directly from them (community members).”
