Community members honored for service to research

The Rev. Portia Cavitt, pastor of Clair Memorial United Methodist Church in Omaha, and Kathy Karsting, program manager for Maternal, Child, Adolescent and School Health, Division of Public Health at the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), have been named the two recipients of the 2021 UNMC Community Service to Research Awards.

The Community Service to Research Awards were established to recognize the critical roles many community members have played in UNMC research, as facilitators, implementors, reviewers, and collaborators, among other roles.

See the awards ceremony at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 24.

Rev. Cavitt has served the community in many ways but was nominated by two UNMC faculty for different projects she has facilitated.

She has co-led a collaborative of health care workers and community members with Jasmine Marcelin, MD, UNMC Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases, since March 2021 to increase vaccine access to marginalized communities, focusing on the North Omaha community.

“By developing connections with the health department and Nebraska Medicine, Pastor Cavitt helped to create a new vaccine clinic at Girls Inc., which ran from March 27 to May 16. Through the clinic initiative, more than 5,000 vaccines were provided, and 37% of vaccines were administered to North Omaha residents. Pastor Cavitt was at every vaccine event over the two-month initiative,” Dr. Marcelin said in nominating Rev. Cavitt for the award.

In a related effort, Rev. Cavitt partnered with her other nominator, Keyonna King, DrPH, assistant professor in the UNMC Department of Health Promotion and a member of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities in the College of Public Health, on a project to collect COVID-related information by surveying North Omaha residents.

“I cannot think of a community member more deserving of this recognition than Pastor Portia Cavitt,” Dr. King said. “Her dedication to her community and collaboration with UNMC on COVID-19 efforts and beyond are unparalleled, and she has been a pivotal stakeholder in bringing other important community members into collaboration with UNMC. I look forward to more opportunities to partner with her in both research and advocacy activities.”

Karsting, a registered nurse who also holds a master's degree in public health, was nominated by Dejun Su, PhD, associate professor in the UNMC Department of Health Promotion in the College of Public Health, because of her work on two federal grants and a series of impactful, widely circulated health reports based on the data collected from those projects.

“Ms. Karsting’s vision and leadership have made it possible for UNMC and Nebraska to adopt a data-driven approach in empowering health agencies, communities, families, schools and Nebraska DHHS to develop evidence-based strategies for improving maternal and child health,” said Dr. Su, who is director of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities.

“We are also impressed by Ms. Karsting’s commanding use of a health equity lens in guiding the projects in which we have collaborated over the years,” he said.

In addition, Karsting’s emphasis on purposeful engagement with health care providers, communities and families from underserved and underrepresented communities, as well as her expertise in developing culturally, linguistically and age-appropriate programs serving diverse groups of children, has played a key role in the attempt to address inequities in mental health care access for children in Nebraska, Dr. Su said.

Jennifer Larsen, MD, UNMC vice chancellor for research, said: “Both these awardees are incredibly passionate about public health and understand what it takes to make a difference. UNMC is fortunate to have such strong community partners for research. We congratulate both of them for all of their work.”