THRC Presents Mapping Public Health at the 2025 IIMS Community Engagement Symposium
The Translational Health Research Center (THRC) was proud to participate in the 2025 IIMS Community Engagement Symposium, titled "Deep Roots, Resilient Voices, and Collective Action through Community-Academic Partnerships in Health Research."
The symposium, held on Saturday, November 8, 2025, in San Antonio, Texas, brought together community members, students, healthcare practitioners, and researchers to explore how partnerships between universities and local communities can strengthen health outcomes across Texas.
About the Symposium
Hosted by the Institute for Integration of Medicine & Science (IIMS), this year’s event focused on how community engagement enhances every stage of health research—from identifying local health priorities to translating findings into real-world impact.
The symposium aimed to:
Provide spaces for community members and researchers to share stories and priorities that shape health and well-being.
Build and maintain trust through open communication and shared decision-making.
Ensure all partners have a meaningful role in shaping research goals.
Highlight real-world examples of how academic and community partners collaborate to improve health.
THRC’s Contribution: Mapping Public Health
Program Manager Cittlaly Escatel represented THRC at the symposium, presenting a poster on Mapping Public Health (MPH)—a free, online training designed to build geographic information system (GIS) capacity among Texas’s public health workforce.
The Mapping Public Health program equips professionals with the tools to use spatial data to understand and address health disparities. Through hands-on projects, participants learned to map local health challenges, identify resource gaps, and apply data-driven insights to guide community interventions.
Since launching in March 2025, the course attracted 26 participants from across Texas—including epidemiologists, public health program managers, researchers, and nonprofit leaders—reflecting a growing demand for spatial analysis skills in public health.
Following the course, participants completed a post-training evaluation to assess knowledge gains and describe how they plan to apply GIS tools in their work. These results will help guide future program development and evaluate the broader community impact.
Looking Ahead
Events like the IIMS Community Engagement Symposium reflect the shared mission of THRC and its partners—to strengthen the connection between academic research and real-world application. By presenting Mapping Public Health at this year’s event, THRC continued to promote collaboration, capacity-building, and community-informed health research.
