ST. JOHN’S, Antigua and Barbuda – April 15, 2026 – Public health non-profit Scrub Life Cares, an organization focused on expanding menstrual equity, advancing evidence-based reproductive and sexual health education, and designing community-centered public health solutions, has been named the 2026 Applied Practice Experience (APE) Site of the Year by Georgia State University’s School of Public Health.
The award was officially conferred during the school’s annual Celebrating Student Excellence ceremony, an event that spotlights host organizations that deliver exceptional, hands-on learning opportunities that move beyond theoretical training to create tangible public health impact for public health graduate and undergraduate students.
Today, Scrub Life Cares operates as a multifaceted public health entity that sits at the intersection of community outreach, public health education, original research, and policy-informed programming. Its core work spans five critical focus areas: addressing menstrual equity and ending period poverty, delivering comprehensive reproductive and sexual health education, supporting maternal and child health outcomes, designing and implementing community-led public health programs, conducting public health research and translating data into accessible public knowledge, developing policy briefs and supporting advocacy initiatives, and managing strategic public health communications.
Through its APE internship placement program, Scrub Life Cares has enabled students to contribute to high-stakes research and advocacy work at both local and global levels, including key contributions to programming for the International Association for Adolescent Health World Congress. Key student contributions to date include supporting large-scale research projects examining menstrual health inequities and gaps in reproductive and sexual health education across Antigua and Barbuda, the broader Caribbean region, and the Southern United States. Students also played a central role in drafting policy briefs, creating advocacy resources, and translating research findings for public and stakeholder audiences to elevate underaddressed public health issues.
Notably, the work of APE students informed a formal motion that was successfully passed at the World Congress, accelerating global dialogue and actionable policy around adolescent health and menstrual equity. When the conference shifted to fully virtual participation in response to Hurricane Melissa, APE interns stepped in to support logistics and session coordination, ensuring that the global knowledge exchange process continued without disruption.
These hands-on opportunities underscore Scrub Life Cares’ core mission: not just training entry-level public health practitioners, but nurturing the next generation of researchers, policy advocates, and thought leaders who can drive systemic change. A defining strength of the organization’s model is its integrated research portfolio, which directly informs its programming, shapes policy debates, and guides global advocacy work. For students, this means placements do not just involve shadowing or administrative work – they get direct experience shaping conversations about health equity, access, and systemic transformation.
For Scrub Life Cares Founder and CEO Tanya Ambrose, MPH, the award carries both personal and professional meaning, rooted in her own history with the university.
“Signing the memorandum of understanding to partner with Georgia State University as an APE host site was a full-circle moment for me and our whole team,” Ambrose said in a statement following the ceremony. “Scrub Life Cares was actually founded when I was an undergraduate student at Georgia State, after a study abroad trip to Uganda opened my eyes to the deep, systemic global health inequities that shape outcomes for women and girls around the world.”
Ambrose added: “Our APE students don’t just help run community programs – they contribute to cutting-edge research, draft policy frameworks, create advocacy tools, and shape global public health conversations. That’s the point of this work: we’re building professionals who understand that public health isn’t just textbook theory. It’s about centering people, building fair systems, leaning on evidence, and taking intentional action.”
The honor comes as Scrub Life Cares marks five years of transformative public health work, and the organization is already leveraging this recognition to expand its APE placement model across the Caribbean region. Over the past half-decade, Scrub Life Cares has delivered evidence-based programs across Antigua and Barbuda, the Caribbean, and the United States; integrated rigorous research into every stage of program design, advocacy, and policy engagement; contributed to peer-reviewed public health research and global health dialogue; reached hundreds of women, girls, and families through direct education and free resource distribution; hosted its annual flagship Grow With the Flo Women & Girls Health Expo, which is now entering its fifth consecutive year; and built cross-sector partnerships with academia, healthcare systems, and local community organizations.
Through this work, the organization has challenged long-held assumptions about grassroots public health nonprofits, proving that community-led groups can deliver both exceptional direct services and world-class research excellence. The 2026 APE Site of the Year award further cements Scrub Life Cares’ standing as a leading training ground for emerging public health leaders, a research-driven and policy-engaged contributor to local, regional, and global health discourse, and a trusted community partner focused on advancing sustainable, people-centered health outcomes. In a field that demands both innovative problem-solving and deep compassion for the communities served, Scrub Life Cares stands as a powerful example of what can be achieved when education, research, policy, and community impact are intentionally aligned.
### About Scrub Life Cares
Scrub Life Cares is a non-profit public health organization dedicated to advancing menstrual equity, expanding access to comprehensive reproductive and sexual health education, and improving access to life-saving essential health resources for women, girls, and families across Antigua and Barbuda, the Caribbean, and the United States. Through a combination of community education, policy advocacy, and original research, the organization works to advance health dignity, informed personal decision-making, and health equity for all.