Students get public health experience at Health Through Walls

Torrens University Australia students are going beyond the classroom to tackle some of the toughest healthcare challenges in the world.

As part of the Special Populations Project (third year core subject), Bachelor of Nutrition students worked on a live brief with industry partner Health Through Walls to come up with innovative ways for improving the nutritional value of meals for prison populations in Haiti

Their solutions are now being evaluated and costed by the Health Through Walls team

What is Health Through Walls?

Health Through Walls is based in the United States and has been focused on projects to improve health in prisons for the past 20 years. The organisation delivers healthcare in prisons across several low-resource countries, including Haiti, Dominican Republic, Mozambique, Central African Republic and Malawi.

“We deliver healthcare in prisons in low-resource countries and all of our work is outward-facing,” said Chief Executive Officer Ivan Calder. The organisation is focused on the identification and treatment of infectious diseases, including HIV, AIDs and TB in prison systems, as well as the health and nutrition of incarcerated people.

Our students rose to the challenge, conducting in-depth research on Haiti's prison system and developing innovative, low-cost, and actionable strategies to improve inmates' nutrition.

The NUTR2008A Special Populations Project

Our students were tasked with a demanding live brief to develop a public health campaign. The campaign aimed to raise awareness about the nutrition and health challenges of prisoners in Haiti, while also proposing sustainable food solutions. This project required students to rapidly gain in-depth knowledge about Haiti's prison system and devise low-cost, actionable strategies.

This wasn’t just an academic exercise – it was a chance to impact lives directly. Haiti’s prison system faces severe nutritional challenges, with most inmates receiving only a cup of beans and a cup of rice daily. Deaths across Haiti’s 17 prisons have been occurring due to malnutrition in the absence of any other health conditions.

Student experiences developing a public health campaign

The challenging nature of the brief pushed our students to apply their classroom knowledge to real-world problems. Two of our students shared their experiences:

Ashleigh Smith emphasised the importance of thorough research: "It was really essential to research as much as possible about Haiti and other developing countries in order to brainstorm functional strategies. This seemed overwhelming at first, however meeting with the industry partner helped immensely."

Ellen Baker highlighted how the project allowed her to apply her academic knowledge practically: "I was able to draw on my knowledge of nutrient-dense food sources that could be best suited for the deficiencies faced throughout the Haitian prisons. I was also able to utilise my skills to be able to effectively advocate for the prisoners and population of Haiti to their government."

Impact and innovation: The CEO's perspective

Ivan Calder, CEO of Health Through Walls, was impressed by the students' approach and the outcomes of their work. He noted that the students shed preconceived notions and asked insightful questions about the realities of Haiti's prison system.

The students' innovative thinking led to unexpected solutions. Calder shared, "They ultimately came up with ideas that the Health Through Walls team had not considered, including establishing insect farms to grow insects to add nutritional value to prisoners' existing diet of beans and rice.”

This idea caught the attention of the Health Through Walls team in Haiti. "We're costing this idea at the moment. The team in Haiti have picked up this idea and thought, 'wow, this is incredible'," Calder explained. "It's something that we're scaling up. And if the students hadn't suggested this, we would have been ignorant of it. This idea will make some very real difference.”

Calder also emphasised the value of working with students on live briefs: "What they did for this project was just fearlessly trod through a wealth of literature and explored possibilities that on a good day I don't have the opportunity to do.”

This collaboration allowed Health Through Walls to access fresh perspectives and thoroughly researched solutions that could be implemented in the field.

Public health work experience through work-integrated learning

The Special Populations Project exemplifies how Torrens University Australia's Bachelor of Nutrition program provides students with invaluable public health work experience through work-integrated learning, preparing them to tackle real-world challenges and make meaningful contributions to global health from the moment they graduate.

Ashleigh shared how the project impacted her outlook on her future career: “Improving a population’s health can sometimes feel like a daunting, unachievable task, however this experience with Health Through Walls has encouraged me to feel less overwhelmed for my future career in public health as even the most challenging tasks are achievable with small steps and passion.”

“The opportunity to speak with the industry partner gave me advantageous experience in communicating with a real stakeholder,” Ashleigh said.

 Ellen emphasised how the project enhanced her skills: "The real-life setting of this project has prepared me to be a more out-of-the-box thinker when it comes to creating successful public health interventions. The experience gained from this has been invaluable and having the opportunity to work with an international organisation was much more than I could have ever achieved independently as a student.”