A look into the lives of CSU's Current Environmental Health Interns
Week 2-Nicaragua
Wow, what a week! We have been here for two weeks now and this is absolutely the most amazing and life-changing experience of my life. I have gotten to meet so many people, both participants in the study and other people traveling.
The project is going fairly well. Many of the women are incredibly smart and can easily complete the surveys that we are asking both the primary women in the household and often times a secondary woman who helps out in the kitchen or is also home most of the day. My personal role in the project is to administer a questionnaire to any secondary participants in the houses that we are studying. Erin and Doug are on my team. Erin is fluent in Spanish and gives the questionnaires to the primary participants and Doug cleans the stoves and completes the stove use surveys which indicate how the participant is using and taking care of the stove and includes putting up UCB monitors and CO monitors in the kitchens. On set-up days I help doug complete the primary assessment of the kitchen and hang the monitors while Erin asks the participant to wear a personal CO monitor and asks them about their use of the stove. On take down days Erin and I do the questionnaires and Doug cleans the stove and then we all complete the health endpoints which include blood spots, Piko lung function tests, exhaled CO tests, pulse oximetry tests, and measuring blood pressure, height, weight, hips and waist.
In the past week we have gotten into a good routine with the houses. Each day either two or three of the teams go out with the exception of Sundays, which we have off. We have been working on the schedule for awhile now and we have pretty much decided that on days where we have only set-ups or only take-downs that two of the teams will go out and on days when there are both all three teams will be in the field. When a team has the day off they are responsible for entering the data that they have collected. So far my team has completed around 10 houses and all of the data from the different surveys has been entered into excel spreadsheets.
I have found that my Spanish is definitely improving. If anyone ever needs to know any of the words associated with a cook stove or fires, I've got your back! My Spanish classes have been instrumental in preparing me for this project. In at least one of my classes the teacher would not allow us to ask for a direct translation of a word, we had to explain in in Spanish until she was able to figure out what the word was and then she would tell us. That has been extremely helpful because a few of the questions that we have to ask the participants need to be clarified every once in a while as do the techniques used in completing the health endpoints. Being able to explain what I need to the participant the think about or do has been very helpful in all aspects of my participation.
I think that the participants are doing very well. Some of them are a little worried about the blood spot, but they don't typically mind having the monitors in the kitchen or have to wear them. Most of them remember the tests from last year and many are very quick to remember what they have to do. The Piko and exhaled CO tests have been a little troublesome to explain because they are slightly difficult in the first place and sometimes the participants use poor technique when completing the tests. If that happens and I can't adequately explain how to get a good reading I usually have Erin explain in a little differently so that they understand what the problem is. We have had a few women refuse the blood spot. Yesterday we had a really cool lady
The project is going fairly well. Many of the women are incredibly smart and can easily complete the surveys that we are asking both the primary women in the household and often times a secondary woman who helps out in the kitchen or is also home most of the day. My personal role in the project is to administer a questionnaire to any secondary participants in the houses that we are studying. Erin and Doug are on my team. Erin is fluent in Spanish and gives the questionnaires to the primary participants and Doug cleans the stoves and completes the stove use surveys which indicate how the participant is using and taking care of the stove and includes putting up UCB monitors and CO monitors in the kitchens. On set-up days I help doug complete the primary assessment of the kitchen and hang the monitors while Erin asks the participant to wear a personal CO monitor and asks them about their use of the stove. On take down days Erin and I do the questionnaires and Doug cleans the stove and then we all complete the health endpoints which include blood spots, Piko lung function tests, exhaled CO tests, pulse oximetry tests, and measuring blood pressure, height, weight, hips and waist.
In the past week we have gotten into a good routine with the houses. Each day either two or three of the teams go out with the exception of Sundays, which we have off. We have been working on the schedule for awhile now and we have pretty much decided that on days where we have only set-ups or only take-downs that two of the teams will go out and on days when there are both all three teams will be in the field. When a team has the day off they are responsible for entering the data that they have collected. So far my team has completed around 10 houses and all of the data from the different surveys has been entered into excel spreadsheets.
I have found that my Spanish is definitely improving. If anyone ever needs to know any of the words associated with a cook stove or fires, I've got your back! My Spanish classes have been instrumental in preparing me for this project. In at least one of my classes the teacher would not allow us to ask for a direct translation of a word, we had to explain in in Spanish until she was able to figure out what the word was and then she would tell us. That has been extremely helpful because a few of the questions that we have to ask the participants need to be clarified every once in a while as do the techniques used in completing the health endpoints. Being able to explain what I need to the participant the think about or do has been very helpful in all aspects of my participation.
I think that the participants are doing very well. Some of them are a little worried about the blood spot, but they don't typically mind having the monitors in the kitchen or have to wear them. Most of them remember the tests from last year and many are very quick to remember what they have to do. The Piko and exhaled CO tests have been a little troublesome to explain because they are slightly difficult in the first place and sometimes the participants use poor technique when completing the tests. If that happens and I can't adequately explain how to get a good reading I usually have Erin explain in a little differently so that they understand what the problem is. We have had a few women refuse the blood spot. Yesterday we had a really cool lady
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