Sample initiatives — from design and proposal development to engagement and field contribution — chosen to offer an example of not just what was built, but what changed for the community it was designed to reach.
As program director, I designed and led a mobile, saliva-based testing initiative — free, walk-in, deployed at trusted neighborhood sites. Roughly 100 local leaders and organizations informed the design before a single van deployed.
123 community events across Connecticut
54% of participants identified as BIPOC
59% reported household incomes under $25,000
79% found the service easy to access and use
The program was built around how people actually live. Participants said it was the only reason they got tested — that without it coming to them, they simply wouldn't have gone. One recurring site became a mutual referral point: people arrived for testing and connected with food pantry services; pantry visitors stopped for a test.
Inviting trusted community partners to shape the program before launch — not as outreach, but as design partners — meant the work met people where they already were, on terms that already worked for them.
As Director of Site Operations and Director of Community Engagement, I held senior leadership roles across two functions of a statewide testing and vaccination program built to reach Coloradans across rural, urban, school-based, and community settings.
Directed operations across 40+ sites and 500+ staff and volunteers
Personally designed half of Colorado's mass vaccination sites
Reduced physical infrastructure costs by 80%, NPS above 90
Built mobile, pop-up, and fixed-site models for equitable access
The strategy was built on a premise: organizations with existing trust in their communities drive participation more effectively than any amount of external messaging. Rather than asking those organizations to share our materials, we resourced them to lead their own. The result was a network of 87 partner organizations — promotoras holding one-on-one conversations with immigrant families, cultural centers hosting clinics, food networks tucking vaccine information into boxes arriving at people's doors.
We tested two models head to head: professional canvassing versus microgrants to trusted community organizations. The microgrant approach cost roughly 10% of the canvassing investment and yielded 10 times the engagement impact.
Resourcing organizations with existing community trust to lead their own engagement — rather than asking them to amplify external messaging — produced ten times the participation impact at a tenth of the cost.
I designed and facilitated a multi-country roundtable convening public health and laboratory leaders across five African nations and the United States — built not to validate a model already decided, but to let real-world conditions shape the design from the start.
Infection prevention is foundational, not supplementary
Standardized frameworks must adapt to local infrastructure
Policymakers and frontline workers engaged together, early
A phased, whole-system approach is essential to sustainability
Building on that engagement, I led the full development of a cross-national NIH R21/R33 proposal — the narrative, specific aims, study design, governance structure, and partnership architecture across five countries.
Convening implementers and policymakers together — before the proposal narrative was set — surfaced what would actually work locally, so the funded design fit the ground reality of every country it would reach.
Choate B., et al. (accepted). Increasing access to diagnostic testing for underserved and uninsured individuals through lab-in-a-van partnerships. AJPM Focus. View →
Wyllie A.L., Choate B., et al. (2024). Scalable solutions for global health: the SalivaDirect model. Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology. View →
Salzano L., Narayanan N., Tobik E.R., Choate B., et al. (2024). Diagnostic testing preferences and implications for future health systems design. PLOS Global Public Health. View →
Tobik E.R., Kitfield-Vernon L., Thomas R., Choate B., et al. (2022). Saliva as a sample type for SARS-CoV-2 detection: implementation successes and opportunities around the globe. Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics. View →
Additional publications, conference presentations, and examples available on request.
If something here resonates with where you are, share a few sentences about what you're working on — we'll take it from there.
Start a conversation