Arts and public health is a growing field, and Briana Woods-Jaeger, PhD, associate professor of behavioral, social, and health education sciences at Rollins School of Public Health, has been working at that intersection for years.
“Over the last couple of years, I've been really excited to see some the growth that's happening in arts and public health,” says Woods-Jaeger. “I also found after doing a departmental needs assessment that students were looking for more opportunities to engage in community and creative ways to promote health equity.”
She created the Responsive Engagement Through Arts & Culture to Promote Health (REACH) Fellowship to provide that opportunity.
The REACH Fellowship trains Rollins MPH students to advance public health through storytelling, arts, and culture. Fellows participate in workshops during the spring semester to learn to apply storytelling, ethnography, cultural humility, theater arts, and filmmaking in public health. Then, they complete their applied practice experience (APE) with community partners in Atlanta or Trento, Italy.
Jamyah Combs, a 2025 REACH fellow and MPH student in the Hubert Department of Global Health, was already committed to promoting the arts in public health before her fellowship experience. The REACH Fellowship allowed her to deepen her skills in storytelling, project management, and more while completing her APE in Italy this summer.
“The REACH Fellowship was a great opportunity to strengthen my application in arts-based global health initiatives, so I was very excited to be a part of an innovative project advancing public health through food, art, and culture,” she says.
Combs worked on the Building Bridges project. This film intervention study is working to reduce loneliness and social isolation and encourage cross-cultural solidarity to promote health.
Chizaram Anyaegbu, an MPH student in the Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences, is also a 2025 REACH fellow. She spent the summer working with Emory’s THRIVE Lab and local nonprofit Hopeful Change to create a social media campaign for a youth mental health initiative. She believes that the health communication and research translation skills she gained this summer will be an asset as she continues her public health career.
“Speaking directly to the youth that we were impacting and synthesizing my findings in a way that was engaging to someone as young as 9 years old really pushed me to consider multiple methods of communication,” says Anyaegbu. “I anticipate more situations where I have to speak to populations who may not relate to or understand the complexities of my research, and I know that this experience has been a great introduction to overcoming that challenge.”
The fellows will present their APE projects at a showcase this December.
The REACH Fellowship is now accepting applications for its 2026 class of fellows. Interested students can apply here.
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