Mira Sur
Lessons Learned from Implementation of Student Health Coach Training in a Hypertension and Technology Pilot Study: A Qualitative Research Approach
My summer research project is with the Comparative Effectiveness Study of Technologies to Promote Blood Pressure Control at UC Berkeley. In the study, a group of participants with high blood pressure (Arm 1) receives gifted blood pressure monitors and 9 months of health coaching through a student health coach. The other group (Arm 2) in the study receives a gift card and a phone app or website. As the team continues to work on the data analysis, we are interviewing the health coaches about their experiences in the study in order to understand the experience of the student health coaches and their thoughts on the training. Over the summer, I will be working with Dr. Susan L. Ivey (PI) and Edith Baca (GSR), to code interview transcripts utilizing MaxQDA. This will allow us to identify relevant themes. Additionally, through the summer, we plan to work on summarizing our findings and submitting them for publication. Our team’s goal is to disseminate lessons learned for the advancement of similar undergraduate training programs implemented at a larger scale or on other university campuses.
Message To Sponsor
I am immensely grateful for this opportunity. My involvement in research has enriched my college experience at UC Berkeley in so many ways. It has taught me about the process of conducting ethical research, enabled me to apply concepts from my classes to real-world issues, and given me access to unparalleled networking opportunities. Therefore, I truly appreciate how being a URAP summer fellow will allow me to devote more time to research and enable me to write a paper about my findings this summer. I am thankful to the donors who make programs like this possible!