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CDC as a Career Path for Social Workers

National Association of Deans and DirectorsAtlanta, GA

October 26, 2011

Bryce D. Smith, PhD, MSSW

Agenda

Background Opportunities for Social Workers at CDC

Full-time employees Fellowships and internships

Doctoral preparation for CDC

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Background

University of Texas at Austin – MSSW Substance Abuse and Mental Health

Clinical mental health for seven years University of Georgia at Athens – PhD

Research methods Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

HIV/AIDS prevention – five years Viral hepatitis prevention – three years

• Public/private partnerships through the CDC Foundation

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

HIV/AIDS prevention Program Evaluation

• Data collection for state and local health departments• Multi-site evaluations of HIV prevention interventions

Viral hepatitis prevention Hepatitis C screening studies Guidelines development Cost effectiveness studies Hepatitis C rapid test evaluations Hepatitis C treatment and prevention in opiate agonist

settings

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Opportunities for Social Workers at CDC

Health Scientists Behavioral Scientists Policy Analysts

Development of guidelines and other policies Fellowships

Student internships and fellowships Post-doc research fellowships

http://www.cdc.gov/Fellowships/ http://www.cdc.gov/Fellowships/CareerIntern

ships.html

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Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE)

ORISE fellows serve in many capacities all over CDC, at both masters and doctoral levels

Most masters level fellows have an MPH, but not always

http://www.orau.gov/cdc/ http://www.orau.gov/cdc/presearchFRAMESE

T.htm

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Selected Content Areas for Social Workers

Infectious disease HIV/AIDS, STIs, Viral Hepatitis, TB

Injury prevention Chronic disease (cardiovascular disease,

obesity, nutrition, cancer) Adolescent and school health Adult and community health Reproductive health

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Doctoral Preparation for CDC

Protocol development – what is that? Leave the case-study design to the Masters

program Delve more deeply into rigorous designs,

including RCTs and other comparison group designs

Develop more research proposals Increase emphasis on evaluation

Focus on commonalities of evaluation methods across content areas

Formative evaluations, process monitoring and evaluation, outcomes monitoring and evaluation

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Thanks!