Mya Sherman

Tulane University | TU · Department of Global Environmental Health Sciences

Caribbean small island developing states are highly exposed to climate change impacts. Incorporating weather and climate information into public health decisions can promote resilience to climate change’s adverse health effects, but regionally it is not common practice. We implemented a project to enhance dialogue between climate and public health...

Context: It is critical to evaluate community health worker (CHW) programs to maximize effectiveness. However, there is little consensus, and structure, for how to evaluate such programs. Objective: The purpose of this study was to develop a flexible framework for evaluating components of CHW programs in community and clinical settings. Design:...

Coastal communities along the U.S. Gulf of Mexico have been profoundly shaped by environmental health (EH) threats, reflecting the region's history of natural and technological disasters, as well as ongoing issues of environmental degradation and pollution. The Vietnamese American community in the state of Mississippi is vulnerable to EH threats, b...

Community health workers (CHWs) are recognized for bridging communities and health care systems; yet, there is limited discussion of CHWs' roles as organizational actors within and outside clinics. Individual semistructured interviews (n = 21) were conducted in 4 Gulf Coast states with CHWs and supervisors to examine the bridging function of CHWs f...

Objectives: To establish a validated, standardized set of core competencies for community health workers (CHWs) and a linked workforce framework. Methods: We conducted a review of the literature on CHW competency development (August 2015), completed a structured analysis of literature sources to develop a workforce framework, convened an expert...

Background: Climate change is affecting food systems globally, with implications for food security, nutrition, and the health of human populations. There are limited data characterizing the current and future consequences of climate change on local food security for populations already experiencing poor nutritional indicators. Indigenous Amazonian...

Instruments guidelines. (PDF)

Photovoice summary results. (PDF)

Standard evaluation practice in public health remains limited to evaluative measures linked to individual projects, even if multiple interrelated projects are working toward a common impact. Enterprise evaluation seeks to fill this policy gap by focusing on cross-sector coordination and ongoing reflection in evaluation. We provide an overview of th...

Climate change presents substantial risks to the health of Indigenous peoples. Research is needed to inform health policy and practice for managing risks, with community based adaptation (CBA) emerging as one approach to conducting research to support such efforts. Few, if any, studies however, have critically examined the application of CBA in a h...

Context: Integration of environmental and occupational health (EOH) into primary care settings is a critical step to addressing the EOH concerns of a community, particularly in a postdisaster context. Several barriers to EOH integration exist at the physician, patient, and health care system levels. Program: This article presents a framework for...

Context: Community health workers (CHWs) are an increasingly viable component of the American health system. While organizations may be interested in incorporating CHWs into the health care workforce, there are challenges to doing so. Objective: This study characterizes the successes and lessons learned from implementing new CHW programs in clin...

Climate change adaptation is increasingly considered an urgent priority for policy action. Billions of dollars have been pledged for adaptation finance, with many donor agencies requiring that adaptation is distinct from baseline development. However, practitioners and academics continue to question what adaptation looks like on the ground, especia...

Projections of climate change indicate an increase in the frequency and intensity of climatic hazards such as flooding and droughts, increasing the importance of understanding community vulnerability to extreme hydrological events. This research was conducted in the flood-prone indigenous community of Panaillo, located in the Ucayali region of the...

Community‐based adaptation (CBA) has emerged over the last decade as an approach to empowering communities to plan for and cope with the impacts of climate change. While such approaches have been widely advocated, few have critically examined the tensions and challenges that CBA brings. Responding to this gap, this article critically examines the u...

Arctic regions are experiencing the most rapid climate change globally and adaptation has been identified as a priority across scales. Anticipatory planning to adapt to the impacts of climate change usually follows a number of steps: assess current and future vulnerability, identify potential adaptations, prioritize options, implement prioritized o...

Rainfall variability and related hydrological disasters are serious threats to agricultural production in developing countries. Since projections of climate change indicate an increase in the frequency and intensity of climatic hazards such as flooding and droughts, it is important to understand communities’ adaptive capacity to extreme hydrologica...

Institution-oriented, top-down and community-oriented, bottom-up stakeholder approaches are evaluated for their ability to enable or constrain the implementation of adaptation in developing nations. A systematic review approach is used evaluate the project performance of 18 adaptation projects by three of the Global Environment Facility's (GEF) ada...

This paper conducts a systematic realist review to examine how market engagement interacts with vulnerability to food insecurity after a climatic hazard event, focusing on rural areas of the developing world. It examines who is able to engage in the market after a climatic hazard and the barriers and opportunities that this engagement presents to f...

Background: Current literature emphasizes the need to implement informed consent according to indigenous principles and worldviews. However, few studies explicitly address how informed consent can be effectively and appropriately obtained in indigenous communities in accordance with research ethics guidelines. Methods: This article uses participato...