Grace Chong, California Academic Health Department

The California Academic Health Department (CAHD) is a new initiative led by the PHI Center for Health Leadership & Impact (CHLI) in partnership with the California Alliance of Academics & Communities for Public Health Equity (the Alliance). CAHD’s aim is to prepare a more diverse and anti-racist public health workforce in California and to generate a clear pathway for public health graduates and faculty into local health departments. CAHD will achieve this goal by developing and launching a public health local health department residency program; a public health local health department summer internship program; and a public health Scholars-in-Residence program.   

The work Grace Chong has done so far as a AmeriCorps VISTA member is to support the development and launch of the Public Health Residency Program and the Public Health Summer Internship Program. Pre-recruitment activities included drafting e-mails, surveys, and various informational content for schools and programs of public health in California, local health departments in California, and potential candidates.  

One notable project that the AmeriCorps member worked on during the pre-recruitment stage is the development of an Information Session series about California Public Health Career Pathways. This was held twice over two weeks to teach students about careers in public health and to raise awareness about AmeriCorps member opportunities at CHLI as well as CAHD. During the recruitment and post-recruitment period, Grace was tagged to create dashboards for the Residency Program, Summer Internship Program, as well as local health department participation status in the CAHD programs. These dashboards are for both internal and external usage and been shared with the members of their partner organization, the Alliance, as well as their funders, The California Endowment. CAHD is currently in the process of contracting with local health departments to get interns and residents placed into positions for this upcoming summer and fall respectively. 

Grace finished her service in February 2024 and is enrolled in the MS in Computer Science at Northeastern University.