Karla Todd Barrett is the Senior Program Manager and Training Specialist at the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH). She manages overall operations and partnerships for HRSA-funded New England Public Health Training Center (NEPHTC), including training development, data analysis, reporting and governance. Ms. Todd Barrett has co-authored or presented about NEPHTC training innovations for the public health workforce at NACCHO, APHA, NNPHI, SOPHE, ASPPH and NACCHO Emergency Preparedness. In the past year, NEPHTC reached over 60,000 participants, through 500+ trainings, in collaboration with health departments, associations, and other academic institutions, reaching a diverse public health professional workforce. NEPHTC is committed to supporting Community Health Worker organizations in New England. Ms. Todd Barrett is a co-author of the Public Health Learning Agenda for Systems Change Manuscript and Toolkit. Five of NEPHTC’s courses have been selected by the CDC Learning Connection for national promotion and 22 of NEPHTC’s self-paced courses have been awarded quality seals by the Public Health Learning Navigator.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility
Karla Todd Barrett is committed to the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, and the implementation of those principles in a way that engages with the inequities and disparities in a particular community. NEPHTCs support DEIA principles in our work in multiple ways, including:
1. We increase the diversity of the future public health workforce by looking at student diversity characteristics, in addition to project characteristics and agency (where they are placed to experience public health work).
2. We collect multiple forms of diversity data: race and ethnicity, educational, economic and environmental disadvantage, SOGIM data (which we are improving in QI), and lived experience through open ended questions, and by collecting data on project and agency populations-served. This allows various types of diversity data to be considered, which is appropriate to the differing types of disparities experienced in different parts of New England, the region we serve.
3. We’ve improved our marketing to students, engaging the Communications officer of the Students of Color group at BUSPH to increase direct outreach to diverse student groups across New England.
4. In addition to increasing placement opportunities for students who are unrepresented minorities or come from disadvantaged backgrounds, our program also offers the opportunity, through placement in agencies, for all participants to increase their confidence and competencies to work with diverse communities.
5. We work with our partners to provide training on a variety of topics that help public health professionals learn how to implement an equity lens in their work. These include learning through titles such as: The History and Contemporary Reality of Black Communities in Maine, Race as a Social construct in Data and Practice, The Maliseet Food Sovereignty Initiative, COVID Latinx Disparities, and An Anti-racist Imperative for Public Health Data. We are coming out soon with a self-paced course entitled, An Equity Guided Approach for Leaders at All Levels.
6. We support the Community Health Worker Community through trainings and supporting community health worker organizations, and Karla Todd Barrett has co-authored a JPHMP paper on some of this work. CHWs often work with marginalized populations.
7. Karla Todd Barrett is a leader, along with four other schools of public health of the Public Health Learning Agenda for Systems Change manuscript, website, tools, pilot, conference presentations, and JPHMP publication for systems change, which was designed to help the public health workforce, and workforce development professionals, to use learning to impact difficult, adaptive challenges, such as the inequities that exist today in public health.
8. Karla Todd Barrett is a member of the Racial Justice Competency Model workgroup, which has developed and published the first draft of the Racial Justice Competencies Model for public health professionals.
Publications listed below are automatically derived from MEDLINE/PubMed and other
sources, which might result in incorrect or missing publications. Faculty can
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Kulik PKG, Alperin M, Todd Barrett KS, Bekemeier B, Documet PI, Francis KA, Gloria CT, Healy E, Hileman R, Kenefick HW, Lederer AM, Leider JP, McCormick LC, Prechter L, Reynolds KA, Rogers MH, Rose B, Scallan Walter EJ, Walkner LM, Zemmel DJ, Power LE. The Need for Responsive Workforce Development During the Pandemic and Beyond: A Case Study of the Regional Public Health Training Centers. J Public Health Manag Pract. 2024 Jan-Feb 01; 30(1):46-55. PMID: 37966951; DOI: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001835;
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Welter C, Davis S, Elnicki J, Kulik PKG, Lloyd LM, Tenney M, Todd Barrett K, Rose B, Walter C. Public Health Learning Agenda for Systems Change Toolkit: National Pilot Evaluation Results. J Public Health Manag Pract. 2023 Mar-Apr 01; 29(2):202-209. PMID: 36214660; DOI: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001654;
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Lederer AM, Barrett KT, Shorter C, Kenefick HW, Kulik PKG, Morales M, Reinschmidt KM, Shrestha S. Public Health Training Centers' Support for Community Health Workers: Case Studies of Needs Assessment, Training, and Student Field Placement Initiatives. J Public Health Manag Pract. 2022 Sep-Oct 01; 28(5 Suppl 5):S212-S222. PMID: 35867491; DOI: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001526;
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Welter C, Barrett KT, Davis S, Lloyd L, Rose B. Creating a Learning Agenda for Systems Change: A Toolkit for Building an Adaptive Public Health Workforce. 2020. View Publication
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MacVarish K, Kenefick H, Fidler A, Cohen B, Orellana Y, Todd K. Building Professionalism Through Management Training: New England Public Health Training Center's Low-Cost, High-Impact Model. J Public Health Manag Pract. 2018 Sep/Oct; 24(5):479-486.View Related Profiles. PMID: 28991053; PMCID: PMC6078487; DOI: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000000693;
This graph shows the total number of publications by year, by first, middle/unknown,
or last author.
| Year | Publications |
|---|
| 2018 | 1 |
| 2020 | 1 |
| 2022 | 2 |
| 2024 | 1 |
2021 Boston University School of Public Health:
"Think" Award
2021 Boston University:
Student Employee Supervisor of the Year Nominee
2018 National Environmental Health Organization:
National Certificate of Merit
2017 National Network of Public Health Institutes:
NEPHTC Team - Impact Award