February 2025

As part of the Midwest D-CFAR project, the Light Institute team welcomed 25 early-career investigators, public health professionals, and community stakeholders to Korede House in St. Louis on February 7 for a morning of networking, conversation, and announcing the first, second, and third place submissions from the recent Partners 4 Health open call. All nine of the open call applicants were present for this event.

During the time together, the attendees connected with mentors, researchers, and Midwest D-CFAR representatives, participating in open discussions fostering collaboration and idea-sharing. After a presentation highlighting the vision and goals of the Partners4Health initiative, the following three outstanding projects were recognized for their innovation, feasibility, and community impact. 

1st Place: Fithi Andom, PhD, LISW – Recipient of $1,000 seed funding

Andom’s initiative, "Youth Photovoice”: Promoting Immigrant Youth-Led Community Action for HIV Prevention in the Midwest", seeks to address the elevated HIV risk among second-generation Black immigrant youth by engaging them in a photovoice project that empowers them to document their experiences and identify factors contributing to sexual risk behaviors. Through this community-based participatory research, immigrant youth will develop HIV prevention strategies, promote awareness, and work with local stakeholders to implement sustainable health interventions within their communities.

2nd Place: Tochukwu Patrick – Recipient of $800 seed funding

The bEnd It Festival is an event designed to increase HIV testing, promote early diagnosis, and ensure seamless linkage to care. It strongly emphasizes community collaboration and non-governmental partnerships. This festival is more than just a celebration—it’s a movement to make HIV testing routine, accessible, and stigma-free while connecting people to life-saving treatment and support services.

3rd Place: Germysha Little, PhD – Recipient of $700 seed funding

“Beyond Medicine & Rooted in Partnerships” is a collaborative initiative uniting academic institutions, healthcare organizations, and non-profits to end the HIV epidemic by expanding access to quality healthcare and promoting holistic well-being. Grounded in community engagement, the project challenges the notion of "hard-to-reach" populations, emphasizing that these communities are often overlooked and underserved. By meeting people where they are, this initiative aims to dismantle barriers to care, foster trust, and implement sustainable, community-driven solutions for HIV prevention, treatment, and support.

After the awards were given, the remaining applicants were celebrated for their innovations and learned they would each be receiving $500 seed funding through Midwest D-CFAR to further develop and implement in the community. All nine applicants were invited and encouraged to continue collaborating with Midwest D-CFAR and Light Institute by participating in upcoming grant-writing support opportunities, including the upcoming March Grantathon event (March 4 – 7) and mentorship pairings.

The event concluded with the participants learning additional funding resources are available through Midwest D-CFAR to further support their essential work. Partners4Health remains committed to supporting early-career investigators and advancing community-focused public health solutions. Plans are underway to enhance mentorship programs, expand training and research implementation workshops, and strengthen grant-writing resources for future cohorts.

Please note: The second and third place winners, Patrick and Little, were awarded additional seed funding after the event concluded, exceeding what was originally awarded during the event and listed on their certificates.

Members of the Light team recently went to Nigeria for the implementation of the Music4Health Pilot. This pilot program was co-developed with Nigerian adolescents and young adults to address hypertension and stroke in Nigeria, using music to raise awareness, increase access, and encourage the uptake of preventative interventions and care. The objectives of the ongoing Pilot are to assess the feasibility of a youth-driven music-inspired campaign to address the health of older individuals at risk of disease and to change health behaviors to prevent diagnoses of hypertension or stroke.

The Pilot started in Ikot Akwa Ebom Ediene in Abak Local Government of Akwa Ibom State, South-South, Nigeria. The team met with community leaders and worked with a town announcer to sensitize the community members about the project and invite them to the town hall to screen and potentially enroll in the Pilot. Sixty youth-caregiver pairs (120 individuals total) enrolled and attended a Music4Health intervention day at the Ikot Akwa Ebom Ediene village hall with the Village Head, and the Village Head’s chiefs. The day started with introductions and an overview of the program given by the Music4Health Research Supervisors. 

The participants then engaged in an interactive music session, where the participants shared with the team what they learned from the music. After these activities, the teams worked with participants to complete a post-intervention questionnaire. The Music4Health team is analyzing the pilot data to identify trends, next steps, and how to incorporate pilot findings in the upcoming clinical trial.

On February 5, 2025, members of the Light Institute partnered with the National Cancer Control Program at the Nigerian Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) to host a policy concept mapping event with cancer control policy actors in Abuja, Nigeria to discuss and capture perceptions about the use of research evidence in policymaking and the factors influencing the policy implementation climate for cancer control policy to address vaccine-preventable cancers and preferred dissemination strategies in Nigeria. This event was part of a three-day program to commemorate the 2025 World Cancer Day.  

The event started with a presentation to an audience of 150 community members and stakeholders to raise awareness of the ongoing work in implementation science research and capacity support for vaccine-preventable cancers in Nigeria through the US-Nigeria Cancer Control Center for Research on Implementation Science and Equity (C3-RISE) Grant and introduce the C3RISE Policy Project. 

The C3RISE Policy Project is the newest initiative under C3RISE, committed to engaging Nigerian policy actors in participatory activities to develop dissemination strategies to increase the use of research evidence in policymaking for preventing vaccine-preventable cancers in Nigeria. Attendees were all policy actors and included representatives from government institutions, academic research and practice institutions, advocacy groups of survivors and families of survivors, and national and state agencies.

After the presentation, the attendees participated in a brainstorming activity where they answered the following prompts:

The event ended on a high note, where the team mingled with the participants, responding to questions and sharing more about the policy project. The C3RISE Policy team noted the policy actors’ strong engagement during the brainstorming activity, the positive reception to the C3RISE project overall, and the range of policy actors enthusiastic about future engagement with the policy project and committing to adding new knowledge and recommendations to the national cancer control policy plan by the end of 2025.

The C3RISE team is grateful for the efforts of Dr. Uchechukwu Nwoku, the National Coordinator of the National Cancer Control Program, the Nuclear Medicine Technical Working Group at the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and all the organizers of the 2025 World Cancer Day events in Abuja for their support and inclusion of the C3RISE policy brainstorming activity in their programming. Stay tuned for ongoing updates as the project progresses!

From February 7–9, 2025, the 3rd edition of the highly anticipated STAR (Stimulating Training and Access to HIV Research Experiences) Designathon was held via Zoom, bringing together bright minds from WashU, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Northeastern University, and Georgia State University. Over the course of 48 hours, six teams collaborated to design innovative solutions for improving HIV prevention efforts among young people in the global majority.

The STAR Designathon provided an engaging, hackathon-style experience where participants applied design-thinking principles such as rapid prototyping, co-creation, and start-up methodologies. The event aimed to foster youth-led innovation, encouraging participants to develop feasible, scalable, and equitable solutions that could enhance HIV prevention services in their communities. Guided by expert coaches and mentors in HIV implementation science, teams refined their ideas before pitching them to a distinguished panel of judges. Expert coaches shared their research, implementation science, and community engagement journeys with the teams, on HIV Research and Disparities (Drs. Gamji Abu-Ba’are and Whitney Irie) and Health Equity: Working with Communities through Evidence-based and Strength-based approaches (Dr. Allison Mathews, Darius Rucker, and Kiwan Lawson).

Throughout the weekend, participants focused on the prompt: “How Might We Work with Community Organizations to Promote HIV Prevention Services among Youth Aged 13–24?” Teams crafted solutions anchored in real-world applications, aligning their projects with HIV awareness days and ensuring their initiatives were culturally relevant and sustainable. The judges evaluated projects based on five key criteria: clarity and conciseness, relevance to young people in the global majority, novelty, feasibility and scalability, and equity and fairness in addressing marginalized communities.

The STAR Designathon continues to be a catalyst for youth-driven solutions in public health. By fostering collaboration among students, experts, and community leaders, this initiative empowers the next generation of implementation science researchers to create meaningful change in HIV prevention. We celebrate the incredible efforts of all participants and look forward to seeing these ideas come to life in their respective communities.

The competition featured groundbreaking ideas and passionate presentations. The winning pitch came from Dennis Dela Tsagli, Kwabena Boateng, and Dagem Gebremichael from WashU, and stood out for their clear and impactful project proposal. Alia Saleebaan, Heather Omoruyi, Jamira Collins & Krystal Amihere from Northeastern team won the Audience Choice Award and the Most Innovative Pitch awards.

Congratulations to all teams for their hard work, dedication, and vision for a healthier future! We are excited to continue the momentum from the Designathon and embark on the next phase of this journey—the six-week STAR Innovation Summer Bootcamp this summer!

We are now one month into the LIGHT (Leaders Igniting Generational Healing and Transformation) open call! LIGHT is a literary arts and public health initiative dedicated to using storytelling and creative expression to reimagine health equity and community well-being by fostering dialogue at the intersection of art, health, and social change.

This open call is inviting artists, writers, and storytellers to reflect on public health and answer the question “How might we build public health systems that are trustworthy?” creatively: an original piece of art, story, poem, or letter. Creativity has always been at the heart of revolution— let your voice be part of it.

From the Head to the Heart:
30 Years Later with Health and Culture Beyond the Western Paradigm

Collins Airhihenbuwa, PhD, MPH
Author, Health and Culture Beyond the Western Paradigm
Professor, Health Policy & Behavioral Sciences at Georgia State University

Airhihenbuwa

Mailing Address: 660 S. Euclid Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63110