Texas

University of North Texas Health Science Center, School of Public Health, Forth Worth, Texas

UNTHSC School of Public Health

Holly E. Jacobson, PhD

Health Partners:

• Northside Clinic, Fort Worth
• Planned Parenthood of North Texas, Arlington Clinic
• MHMR Tarrant Youth Recovery Campus, Fort Worth, TX
• Diamond Hill Community Health Center, Fort Worth, TX
  Approach

UNTHSC School of Public Health

The School of Public Health is one of three professional schools within UNTHSC. Established in 2000, it offers two graduate-level programs: The M.P.H. and the DrPH. The SPH is the most culturally diverse school of public health in the U.S.: one-third of the students are members of an underrepresented minority group, and approximately one-third of the faculty is Hispanic and bilingual English/Spanish.

Class Announcement

Leader : Holly E. Jacobson, PhD

Research Assistant Professor
Holly E. Jacobson, PhD, received her B.S. in ASL Linguistics and Interpreting at the University of New Mexico, her M.A. in Translation and Interpretation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and her PhD from the Interdisciplinary Program in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching, an applied linguistics program, at the University of Arizona. Her dissertation research, involving in-depth linguistic analyses of health education materials, was funded by a grant from the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality. She has also received scholarship support for her cross-disciplinary research from the Society of Prospective Medicine and the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center Cancer, Culture and Literacy Biannual Conference, and is an NIH Health Disparities Scholar. She is currently working as an independent linguistic consultant in health and business settings, and is Research Assistant Professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, Texas. Her areas of interest include cross-cultural communication, multiliteracies, translation and interpretation studies, corpus linguistics, L1 and L2 reading processes, and L2 writing. Her work is driven by her underlying commitment to the application of linguistic knowledge to bring about social change.

Health Partners:
Northside Clinic, Fort Worth
Planned Parenthood of North Texas, Arlington Clinic
MHMR Tarrant Youth Recovery Campus, Fort Worth, TX
Diamond Hill Community Health Center, Fort Worth, TX

Northside Clinic, Fort Worth
Northside Clinic is one of the 22 clinics of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, and is committed to Latino Health. The clinic will serve as a site for the interpreting rotation field experience of our HIHAL students, and is participating actively in the written materials initiative as Háblenos de su salud develops patient education information on obesity, HBP, diet and exercise.

Planned Parenthood of North Texas, Arlington Clinic
PPNT has served the North Texas area for over 65 years. Their Arlington clinic has a patient base that is approximately 90% Latino. The clinic will serve as a site for the interpreting rotation field experience of our HIHAL students, and is participating actively in the written materials initiative as Háblenos de su salud develops patient education information on birth control and the well-woman exam.

MHMR Tarrant Youth Recovery Campus, Fort Worth, TX
TYRC provides a contiuum of treatment services to substance abusing youth ages 13-17. A principal need at this clinic is communication with Spanish-speaking parents and clients.The clinic will serve as a site for the interpreting rotation field experience of our HIHAL students, and is participating actively in the written materials initiative as Háblenos de su salud develops Step Work for clients at the clinic.

Diamond Hill Community Health Center, Fort Worth, TX
Diamond Hill Community Health Center is part of the JPS Health Network, and collaboates with TCOM and UNTHSC in research and education. 96% of the patients served at the center are Spanish speaking.The clinic will serve as a site for the interpreting rotation field experience of our HIHAL students, and is participating actively in the written materials initiative as Háblenos de su salud develops patient education information on diabetes and ob/gyn literature.

Approach

The overall goal of the Háblenos de su salud project is to facilitate access to healthcare for Spanish-speaking populations in Tarrant County by enhancing language capacity and facilitating effective spoken and written communication. The objectives of the program include to: 1) develop a self-sustainable interpreter training program, the Health Interpreting and Health Applied Linguistics MPH program; 2) provide Spanish-English interpretation services at selected healthcare sites in Tarrant County; 3) develop a self-sustainable program for developing quality health-related Spanish print materials; 4) provide Spanish print materials to selected healthcare sites; 5) increase awareness of the need for language products and services, and the ability of healthcare provider employees to work in multilingual environments.