Student Spotlight - Chantal Hoff

Chantal Hoff is interested in the evaluation and translation of research into evidence-based practices in the fields of psychiatric, pediatric and perinatal epidemiology. For her internship this summer, she worked at the New Haven Mental Health Outreach for MotherS (MOMS) Partnership on a mobile app smoking cessation intervention (MoMba Live Long) to help pregnant women quit smoking and continue to abstain from smoking in the postpartum period.

The opportunity allowed her to run a focus group with participants who were using the MoMba Live Long app. “I loved this experience because it gave me a chance to interact with the participants in a meaningful way and get to know them as people, while receiving constructive feedback about the intervention and suggestions for how to improve it for future iterations,”said the second-year student in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

Chantal also discovered that she really enjoys using Statistical Analysis Software (SAS) to evaluate different aspects of interventions, such as the fidelity of how an intervention was delivered and its effectiveness at translating theory.

Shown here, Chantal was volunteering the Fair Haven Strong Community Fair to inform the community about MOMS and the services we provide.