Faculty Voices: Joanna Almeida on Public Health Social Work

Dr. Joanna Almeida is currently an assistant professor at the Simmons College School of Social Work where she teaches “Human Behavior in the Social Environment.” She holds a Master of Social Work (M.S.W.) and Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) from Boston University, and she earned a Doctor of Science (Sc.D.) from the Harvard School of Public Health. As a social epidemiologist, Dr. Almeida’s primary research includes studying the unique conditions that influence the health and well-being of immigrant communities in the United States. The Boston Globe and Boston Public Radio have featured her work.

We sat down with Dr. Almeida to discuss the public health and social work, her research, and her professional experiences. The following is a full transcript of our conversation.

1. Tell us a little bit about your experience with Simmons College. How long have you been working as part of our faculty?

I was hired as an assistant professor in 2012, and it will have been three years in July. I have been trying to find a balance between teaching and doing my research. Our dean is extremely supportive, and I’ve found people here to be really collegial. So I have been really happy.

2. What is your academic focus at Simmons and what courses do you teach?

I primarily have taught Research Methods for the MSW program. I am also piloting a class on understanding suicide this semester with my colleague Kimberly O’Brien. It is an elective on Suicide Prevention, Intervention, and Postvention, which will be offered again next year. I am also in the process of developing a foundation class on social work health and health care, which will be the foundation class for students who are pursuing the certificate in health care.

3. What originally interested in you in the public health social work specialization? How did you get started?

I started out getting a Master of Social Work, and in my field placements, I kept hearing the same stories from a lot of my clients. I wondered whether the stories were a coincidence or if they were part of a larger social phenomenon that was happening. This led me to be interested in research and to really understand population-level health in addition to individual-level health. I also wanted to move beyond fixing individual situations and problems — to really look at the root causes of the problems that my clients were facing to try and prevent them from happening.

4. Can you shed some light on your research on immigrant communities and what you have found?

What I found is that immigrants are generally healthier than the average person born in the U.S. What happens after arrival in the United States is that health deteriorates for certain health and behavioral outcomes. For example, with perpetration of violence, immigrants have really low rates upon arrival to the U.S., but in a matter of four or five years, their rates spike and converge with that of their U.S.-born peers. We found that there is something about the social environment in the United States that adversely affects immigrants’ health. We believe that one of the major factors is discrimination, which is influenced by anti-immigration polices that have been proposed, passed, and implemented at the state level.

5. Based on your experience, what are the emerging career opportunities for new social workers looking to pursue a career with a public health specialization?

Certainly first generation immigrants and their children, who are second generation if they are born in the U.S., are a large and growing segment of the U.S. population. I assume there will be jobs for social workers working with that segment of the population to do preventive work and to really focus in on working with immigrants. Social workers can help immigrants leverage the resources and assets that they bring with them, such as their social support. They can help immigrants integrate and assimilate into the U.S. social context, and face the discrimination and unmet expectations that they experience upon arriving in the U.S.

6. From a social worker perspective, what are your thoughts on the changes as a result of the Affordable Care Act? Has this broadened your responsibilities as a social work professional? Do you think this will create new opportunities for social workers in public health?

I do. My understanding of the Affordable Care Act, which is limited, is that it will place more importance on prevention, which social workers can partake in. It will increase access to quality health care for a lot of vulnerable, disadvantaged populations, which social workers traditionally work with.

7. If you could give any piece of advice to a social work student pursuing their MSW, what would it be?

You might come into an MSW program with your heart set on working with one specific population, in one specific setting, or on one specific health or social outcome like substance use, but I would say be open to new experiences. You can learn something from every experience, regardless of whether or not it is in the content or setting area that you were originally interested in. Be open to learning from all opportunities and all settings.