Trailblazers at the Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health have forged a new path to people’s improved health thanks to a first-of-its-kind collaboration between community and the College of Human Medicine. Over the last decade, the department grew from inception and garnered more than $220 million in external funding. Here’s an overview of how this innovative public health department operates, its community impact, and some highlights of its results.
A synergy between community and academics
MSU’s public health presence in Flint grew out of a request from the Flint community for an expanded medical school presence. MSU and the community pioneered a new approach in which the community co-developed and co-leads the department.
“In a traditional department the community is at best an afterthought,” said Aron Sousa, dean of the College of Human Medicine. “Often, they're subjects of study. In our public health department, community members are our collaborators. The people of Flint are incredibly talented, energetic, and intelligent. They're on the grants and research papers. They help us figure out how to do this work. We can't be successful without them. It's a very different kind of approach.”
In fact, there is no precedent for the department’s model.
“This is the first academic department of any kind that we know of in the world to be co-developed and co-governed in partnership with those it seeks to serve,” said Jennifer Johnson, founding chair and the department’s first faculty member. “We work with the Flint community to set research priorities. We co-designed the entire department infrastructure with the Flint community, which is why we have been so successful.”
Academic-community relationships are often established by individual researchers. In this model, when the researcher leaves the relationship breaks. At MSU, relationships are institutionalized, and community partnership continues even when faculty members change, Johnson explained.
Having everyone — men, women, professionals from the college, people with disabilities, youth, law enforcement, representatives from government agencies and clergy — around the decision-making table also means things happen faster.
“We’re not waiting two or three years later down the road and saying, ‘Oh, we need law enforcement here. We need mental health here. We need somebody from the disability network.’ They’re here, right now,” said Bishop Bernadel Jefferson, pastor, community champion and member of the department’s executive committee. “When we're at the table, we know who needs to come to the table.”
Bringing the community in as co-creators of the department has another benefit. “So many people prosper from the community but don’t value the community,” Jefferson said. “The department’s inclusion of community input makes a difference. People know they are represented, that they’re valued, and that they make a difference.”
Research that improves lives
“As collaborators in community-participatory research we have saved lives in numerous ways,” Sousa said. “From suicide and cancer to infant health and addiction, our success is due to our collaboration with the people of Flint. Our community partners have brought their expertise, talent, energy and grit to developing, building and co-governing the department itself—as well as to every collaboration with our students, faculty, and staff.”
Here’s a look at some of the projects created in response to needs expressed by the community.
The ROSE Program cuts post-partum depression rates in half
Nearly one in eight women experience postpartum depression, or PPD, after giving birth in the United States. Not only does PPD affect the health of moms and infants, but it also contributes to higher rates of postpartum substance abuse, domestic violence, infant mortality and suicide. The Reach Out, Stay Strong Essentials, or ROSE, program led by Johnson helps reduce negative outcomes through education.
“It’s not treatment, it’s prevention and it doesn’t require mental health providers,” Johnson said. “ROSE is a flexible program moms can access in a group setting or one-on-one with a health care provider. It can be done in an office or online from home. ROSE prevents half of PPD cases.”
Program facilitators say that even if new moms do develop PPD, ROSE provides them with the confidence to ask for help if they need it.
There are economic benefits too. The cost of a single case of untreated postpartum depression is almost $34,000. Getting a clinic up and running to offer the preventative ROSE program costs less than $4,000. Scaling this program nationwide to all moms would save millions.
Working together for children
In 2016, the MSU-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative was established to help children grow up healthy and strong. Led by Mona Hanna, pediatrician and associate for public health in the College of Human Medicine, the initiative serves as a national model for best practices to address and optimize children’s outcomes. Several PPHI programs of regional and national prominence include Rx Kids, the Flint Registry, Flint Kids Cook, and the fruit and vegetable prescription program.
Rx Kids supports moms and babies at a critical time
“The Rx Kids program is absolutely groundbreaking,” Sousa said. “It’s changing the way communities, cities, and counties think about improving health and caring for moms and babies. There's interest across the country in replicating this work.”
Rx Kids, the nation’s first-ever community-wide prenatal and infant cash prescription program, is designed to eliminate poverty and improve health by providing unconditional cash allowances to all pregnant moms and babies in a community. A one-time $1,500 payment is made to expectant mothers in mid-pregnancy: it’s followed by $500 monthly for either six or 12 months after birth.
The top things moms report spending the money on are baby supplies, food, rent, and utility bills. In surveys, moms also say they feel more financially secure (87%), have improved access to healthcare (more than 60%), and have gained confidence in parenting (81%).
In Flint, the economic benefits of Rx Kids to the broader community were an estimated $1.57 return on investment for every $1.00 prescribed, underscoring its dual role in enhancing public health and stimulating economic growth.
The plug-and-play Rx Kids program that started in the City of Flint is now in 11 Michigan communities including the cities of Kalamazoo, Pontiac, Hazel Park, and Royal Oak Township and the counties of Clare, Chippewa, Schoolcraft, Luce, Alger, and Mackinac. More communities are lined up to offer Rx Kids in 2025. Legislators from the State of Michigan have introduced Senate Bill 309 to expand Rx Kids throughout the state.
Local nutrition initiative adopted nationwide
The MSU-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative’s Nutrition team works with many partners to improve nutrition access, education, and healthy eating behaviors for children and families. In 2016, many Flint children were eating less than one serving of vegetables per day.
To expand access to fresh fruits and vegetables, Amy Saxe-Custack, associate professor of food science and human nutrition and PPHI’s nutrition director, leads the fruit and vegetable prescription program. Every child, from birth to 19 years old, and every prenatal patient, receives one $15 prescription for fresh produce at every eligible visit to a participating pediatric or prenatal clinic. Prescriptions can be filled out at Flint Farmers' Market or Flint Fresh, directly supporting local farmers, or at select Meijer grocery stores.
Now, more kids in Genesee County are meeting their daily fruit and vegetable needs, food security is improving for families, children have healthier blood pressure, participate in more physical activity, and are more likely to shop at the farmers’ market. Plus, they’re establishing healthy eating patterns early in their lives, which helps reduce chronic diseases in adulthood.
As of June 2025, more than 180,000 prescriptions have been distributed and $740,000 in produce has been purchased from local farmers.
“The success from this program led U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow to put it into the 2018 U.S. farm bill,” Sousa said. “A practice turned policy, now there is national funding to support nutrition prescriptions.”
More community-participatory research successes
Researchers and community members have rolled up their sleeves to work on numerous challenges, some say are impossible to solve. Their successes include:
- Working to increase colorectal cancer screenings to detect disease early, which is proven to save lives
- Improving urban planning by examining the connection between the built environment and health behaviors to guide land use policy and promote healthier cities
- Discovering that one in five U.S. adults who die by suicide spent at least one night in jail to change how we target community prevention and providing thousands of suicide risk screenings and referrals
- Supporting the Flint community throughout the water crisis, the Flint Registry provided more than 35,000 referrals to services and became a recognized as a national model, sharing best practices with environmental and public health disaster response teams
- Bringing real-world change to improve the health of pregnant and postpartum people; particularly among African Americans, Hispanics, and rural residents who experience higher rates of pregnancy associated deaths and complications
Embracing the future
Ten years of progress and $220 million in research funding are huge accomplishments but it’s only the beginning.
“It takes 17 years for evidence to be implemented as a best practice,” Johnson said. “Implementation science is about trying to shorten that window. In part, Charles Stewart Mott Department of Public Health researchers are able to implement their findings faster because research builds on itself.”
The dedication and candor of the people of Flint also facilitates faster implementation. “Working together brings change, enhancement, growth, and prosperity,” Jefferson said. “When the community is involved in research projects from the beginning, assumptions are replaced by knowledge and facts.”
The real-world effects of the department’s work go far beyond Flint.
“The land grant mission is still relevant and powerful,” Sousa said. “Michigan State exists because the legislature set aside land to help support a college, and then a university, for the purpose of educating the people of Michigan and disseminating the benefits of knowledge across the state.
“So much of that started in agriculture, but it's moved into the broader parts of life. How do we work on economic development? How do we bring health innovation to rural communities? How do we help them figure out how to provide education and opportunity when their communities are shrinking?
“These are the same questions that we try to answer in Flint, which is a post-industrial city. Our rural communities struggle with the same kinds of questions.
“If we embrace the fact that there are 10 million Michiganders who can work with us and who are potential collaborators, we can do truly astonishing work that is unique to Michigan State University and distinguishes us from other universities around the country and around the world. It is a special sauce that includes community experts, public health innovation, and medical education. It is an unfair competitive advantage.”
On August 26, the College of Human Medicine celebrated the opening of its Flint expansion. The 40,000 square foot facility will soon house more than 225 public health researchers and team members, with space to collaborate with community partners.
This story originally appeared on the College of Human Medicine website.
