Mr. Abdul El-Sayed, a University of Michigan medical and doctoral student, has been named a Rhodes Scholar. Mr. El-Sayed is currently pursuing both a medical degree from the University of Michigan Medical School and a doctoral degree in epidemiology from the School of Public Health, as a student in the prestigious dual degree Medical Scientist Training Program. He plans to become a neurosurgeon so he may "mend with my hands some of the defects I cannot avert through my research."

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) has been selected as one of two cancer research sites by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to help set the cancer care national research agenda and carry out accelerated practical studies examining the comparative effectiveness of cancer treatments. Dr. William Carpenter, research assistant professor in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health's department of health policy and management, will lead an initial study.

Along with the agency and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, MA, UNC will participate in a multi-center cancer research consortium called DEcIDE (Developing Evidence to Inform Decisions about Effectiveness).

Dr. Michael D. Murray is the principal investigator of the research program.  Dr. Murray is Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor and chair of the division of pharmaceutical outcomes and policy in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.

In addition to Dr. Murray and others in the pharmacy school, the UNC team includes investigators from the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

The cancer consortium is part of the agency's larger DEcIDE research network, formed to support the development of new scientific knowledge through studies on the outcomes of health-care items and services for many diseases, including cancer.  The cancer consortium will develop scientific evidence and new analytical tools to assist stakeholders - including providers, policy makers and patients - with decision making about the effectiveness, comparative effectiveness, appropriateness, safety, efficiency and outcomes of cancer-focused health-care items and services.

The consortium initially will investigate the comparative effectiveness of different chemotherapy treatments for advanced colorectal cancer. The study will be led by Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Richard Goldberg, associate director of UNC Lineberger and physician in chief of the North Carolina Cancer Hospital. To assess different treatments' effectiveness, researchers will use secondary data from multiple sources to examine patient-reported, clinically measured and claims-based outcomes.

The consortium is a multi-year endeavor. Subsequent work is likely to investigate questions in breast and prostate cancer and then other cancers.

Three University of Michigan School of Public Health faculty members have recently been named Collegiate Professors at the University of Michigan. Dr. Paula Lantz, chair of the department of health management and policy at the School of Public Health, will be the S.J. Axelrod Collegiate Professor of Health Management and Policy. Dr. Goncalo Abecasis of the biostatistics department and Dr. Neal Krause of health behavior and health education department will also be honored as Collegiate Professors for their exceptional contributions to research, teaching and service. 

Two programs in Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health’s department of health policy and management have been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation Healthcare Management Education (CAHME). CAHME is the organization that accredits individual academic programs that offer a major course of study in healthcare management and that lead to a professional master's degree. The newly accredited programs are the full-time Management Track and the Executive MPH Program. The current accreditation runs through 2011.

CAHME is a partnership between academia and the field of practice, representing an interdisciplinary group of educational, professional, clinical, and commercial organizations. Members are devoted to accountability and quality improvement in educating healthcare management and administration professionals. To meet accreditation requirements, a program must offer a continuing commitment to assess and deliver quality education in healthcare management. 

"We are delighted that we can assure our students and prospective students that we are meeting the highest quality standards in education and training in the field of healthcare management," said Dr. Sherry Glied, professor and chair of the department of health policy and management at the Mailman School of Public Health. "Because of this accreditation, our students now meet the eligibility requirements to apply for and obtain the most highly coveted fellowships and scholarships available."

CAHME is committed to promoting, evaluating, and improving the quality of graduate healthcare management education in the United States and Canada. Through its partnership between academia and practice, CAHME serves universities and programs in a voluntary peer review process in order to continuously improve graduate education. In doing so, CAHME accreditation becomes the benchmark by which students and employers are able to determine the integrity of healthcare management education and establishes the standard of measurement for the community. Students entering a CAHME accredited program are assured of appropriate content, high standards of quality, and membership in a network of professional colleagues that transcends a particular university or professional association.

The accreditation process is designed to contribute directly to educational quality as well as to monitor that quality of service to the public who depend on health services. The process itself lasts about two years and includes an eligibility phase and a year- long self study with an in-depth consultant visit.

The process concluded with a three-day site visit by the CAHME team.

Two University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine faculty—Dr. Scott Barnhart, professor of environmental and occupational health sciences and associate dean in the School of Medicine; and Dr. Amy Hagopian, acting assistant professor of health services, have penned an op-ed for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which discusses the impact of the debt crisis on the public’s health.

The U.S. Administration on Aging in the Department of Health and Human Services recently awarded Dr. Marcia Ory, Regents Professor in the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health, a $900,000 grant to develop a nationwide evaluation of evidence-based programs for seniors. The three-year evaluation will provide the Administration on Aging with a recommended plan to use in collaboration with the National Association of State Units on Aging, National Association of Area Agencies on Aging and aging services provider organizations throughout the country.

"Our intent is to mobilize key stakeholders to define and implement a nationwide evaluation effort with input from the aging services network, public health arena and health care sector, ultimately leading to the enhancement of seniors’ health and well-being," Dr. Ory said.

These activities will be coordinated with the Healthy Aging Research Network, a public health and aging research network supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Under the leadership of Dr. Joseph Sharkey, associate professor in the Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health, the Health Science Center is home to one of nine networks in the nation working to identify, test and disseminate effective community-based programs for research translation and dissemination.

The national evaluation will be helpful in guiding future policy decisions and will focus on assessing evidence-based programs, identifying strengths and gaps in reaching aging populations with these programs, recommending a nationwide evaluation plan and identifying key players/areas of expertise.

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is creating a new inter-disciplinary research network to help America prepare for the challenges and opportunities posed by our aging society, and named Dr. John W. Rowe (Jack), professor of health policy and management at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and former chairman and CEO of Aetna, as chair.

Dr. Richard Palmer and colleagues at the Florida International University’s Robert Stempel School of Public Health have been awarded the opportunity to evaluate the implementation and assess the impact of the Health Foundation of South Florida’s five-year $7.5 million Healthy Aging Initiative.

The initiative will fund evidence-based health promotion and prevention programs for older adults in Miami-Dade, Broward, and Monroe Counties. Data collected by Dr. Palmer and colleagues will be used to assure program implementation and reach of programs within South Florida. The evaluation will also measure changes in community attitudes toward issues surrounding healthy aging in South Florida.

University of Michigan School of Public Health assistant professor of health behavior and health education Dr. Mark Padilla is a co-winner of the 2008 Ruth Benedict Prize for outstanding scholarship on a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender topic (single-author book category). The award was presented for his ethnography Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality and AIDS in the Dominican Republic (University of Chicago Press, 2007) at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting by the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists (SOLGAS) on Saturday, November 22.

Telephone counseling may be just as successful as face-to-face counseling in helping people maintain weight loss, according to a report by University of Florida researchers.  The study is the first to demonstrate the effectiveness of telephone counseling for long-term management of obesity in rural communities. Dean Michael G. Perri of the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions was the lead investigator. The findings appeared in the November 24 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

In the study of women in underserved rural areas, those who received phone or face-to-face counseling following an initial weight-loss program did a better job of keeping the weight off than those in a control group.

"We found that the participants who received extended care were able to maintain their weight loss at higher levels than those participants who only received printed health education materials as a follow-up," said Dean Perri. "The success of telephone counseling gives us a cost-effective alternative to face-to-face visits that is more convenient for rural residents who may need to travel long distances for care."

Study participants included 234 obese women, ages 50 to 75, who live in rural communities in northern Florida. After completing a six-month weight-loss program, women in the study lost an average of 22 pounds. One year later, participants who had received phone or face-to-face counseling after treatment had regained less weight (2.5 pounds on average) than those in the education control group, who regained an average of 8 pounds.

Long-term care is an important component in weight-loss maintenance, reported Dean Perri, who has argued for the acceptance of obesity as a chronic condition that requires continuous care. Previous studies have shown that in the year following treatment, participants regain one-third to one-half of the weight lost.

During the first phase of the study, the women participated in a weight-loss program that combined a low-calorie diet with daily 30-minute walks and an emphasis on learning problem-solving skills to overcome barriers to weight loss. The women met in weekly group sessions in six rural counties.

"We also addressed special issues of concern for women in rural areas, such as low-calorie preparation of traditional ‘Southern’ dishes, strategies for coping with a lack of family support for weight loss and techniques for healthful eating away from home," said Dean Perri.

After the weight-loss portion of the study, participants were randomly assigned to one of three 12-month follow-up programs to help them keep the weight off: face-to-face group counseling, phone counseling or a comparison group that received written educational materials. Participants were encouraged to use weight-control strategies and asked to log food intake on at least two weekdays and one weekend day per week.

Adherence to the behavioral weight control program, as measured by the food intake records, was significantly higher in the phone and in-person groups.

"The completion of written self-monitoring records was the single best behavioral predictor of weight change," Dean Perri said.

Although phone and in-person counseling were equally effective in helping participants maintain weight loss, program expenses per participant for phone counseling were half the cost of face-to-face counseling—$397 on average for in-person counseling versus $192 for those in the phone group. Phone counseling also offers other benefits for people in rural areas, researchers stated.

The study has significant implications for behavioral weight management programs, stated Dr. John P. Foreyt, a professor and director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Baylor University’s College of Medicine.

"The study demonstrated that telephone counseling is an inexpensive, effective strategy for helping people to maintain their weight losses," Dr. Foreyt said. "Dr. Perri’s findings will have a major effect on the delivery of future weight management interventions. His results are a major breakthrough in the development of effective approaches for helping people to maintain healthier body weights."

Dean Perri is leading a new study called Rural Lifestyle Intervention Treatment Effectiveness Trial, or Rural LITE, supported by a $3.6 million grant from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The researchers hope to determine the minimum intensity of treatment required to produce clinically meaningful, long-term weight loss in rural men and women.

A new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) suggests text messaging via cell phones could be used to reduce children's chances of becoming overweight or obese later in life by helping them monitor and modify their own behaviors now. Study co-authors from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health include Drs. Robert M. Hamer, Dianne Ward and Cynthia M. Bulik.

Recent studies show that approximately 19 percent of youths aged 6 to 11 are overweight, and that 80 percent of overweight adolescents become obese adults.

"Self-monitoring of calorie intake and expenditure and of body weight is extremely important for the long-term success of weight loss and weight control," said Dr. Jennifer R. Shapiro, assistant professor of psychiatry in the UNC School of Medicine and principal investigator of the new study, which is published in the November/December 2008 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

"Unfortunately, both children and adults who are trying to lose weight often do not adhere to self-monitoring," Dr. Shapiro said. "They tend to be good about self-monitoring at the start of a weight-loss effort, but then their adherence drops off over time."

Traditionally, paper diaries are the tool most often used for self-monitoring. People trying to lose weight write down how many calories they consume, how many calories they burn in exercise and how much they weigh. While a paper diary can be very effective, Dr. Shapiro and her colleagues believed the same concept might work better in children if they could report their self-monitoring via cell phone text messaging and receive feedback messages in return.

"Cell phone text messaging is something that's very familiar to most children now, since they've grown up with it," Dr. Shapiro said. "By using this technology, we were hoping to make self-monitoring seem more like fun to them and less like work."

Fifty-eight children aged five to 13 and their parents participated in Dr. Shapiro's study, which was conducted at UNC Hospitals, and 31 families completed the study. The families took part in three group education sessions (one session weekly for three weeks), which aimed to encourage them to increase physical activity, decrease "screen time" (time spent watching television) and reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages. All of the children were given pedometers to track the number of steps they took each day, as well as goals to meet for the number of steps taken, minutes of screen time and number of sugar-sweetened beverages consumed per day.

The participating families were randomized into three groups: one that reported self-monitoring via cell phone text messaging, another group that reported self-monitoring in a paper diary, and a no-monitoring control group. The text messaging and paper diary groups answered three questions each day: (1) what was the number on your pedometer today?; (2) how many sugar-sweetened beverages did you drink today?; and (3) how many minutes of screen time did you have today?

Each family in the text messaging group was given a cell phone to be used only for study-related messages. They were instructed to send two messages per day (one from the parent and one from the child) reporting their answers to the three questions. Each time a message was sent, the sender received an immediate, automated feedback message based on what the sender reported. The researchers generated hundreds of feedback messages for the study. One example was, "Wow, you met your step and screen time goals - congratulations! What happened to beverages?"

The study results show that children in the text messaging group had a lower attrition rate from the study (28 percent) than both the paper diary (61 percent) and the control group (50 percent). They also had a significantly greater adherence to self-monitoring than the paper diary group, 43 percent versus 19 percent.

The study concludes that cell phone text messaging may be a useful tool for self-monitoring of healthy behaviors in children, and suggests more broadly that novel technologies may play a role in improving health.

In addition to Dr. Shapiro, authors of the study are Drs. Stephanie Bauer and Hans Kordy, both from the University of Heidelberg in Germany; and UNC researchers Dr. Robert M. Hamer, professor of psychiatry in the School of Medicine and research professor of biostatistics in the Gillings School of Global Public Health; Dr. Dianne Ward, professor of nutrition in the Gillings School of Global Public Health; and Dr. Cynthia M. Bulik, William R. and Jeanne H. Jordan Distinguished Professor of Eating Disorders in the School of Medicine's psychiatry department, professor of nutrition in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and director of the UNC Eating Disorders Program.

Two recent studies supported by The Commonwealth Fund provide additional evidence that racial disparities in health care continue to be a serious concern. The findings suggest that any comprehensive health reform effort seeking to improve both access and quality will need to address the problem head-on.

The Community-Campus Partnerships for Health is inviting applications for its Faculty for the Engaged Campus project. The project aims to strengthen community-engaged career paths in the academy and is supported by a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education in the U.S. Department of Education.

The New Investigators in Global Health (NIGH) program is a competitive abstract submission and selection program designed to highlight exemplary research, policy and advocacy initiatives of new and future leaders in global health, and empower participants with global health advocacy skills. The program also provides the selected participants with the opportunity to make a presentation at a major international conference.

The Association of University Programs in Health Administration (AUPHA) invites proposals for concurrent sessions at the 2009 AUPHA Leaders Conference, which will be held March 24, 2009 at the Hilton Chicago/Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, IL. The deadline to submit proposals is Friday, December 5.

The American Legacy Foundation is accepting nominations for two awards that recognize uses of tobacco industry documents to benefit the public. The Sybil G. Jacobs Adult Award for Outstanding Use of Tobacco Industry Documents and the Christine O. Gregoire Youth/Young Adult for Outstanding Use of Tobacco Industry Documents recognize research, policy and advocacy contributions that result in tangible, positive actions from traditional or innovative use of tobacco industry documents.

The 4^th International Conference on Birth Defects and Disabilities in the Developing World, titled "Translating Research into Cost-effective Services for the Care and Prevention of Birth Defects, Preterm Birth and Consequent Disabilities," will be held October 4-7, 2009 in New Delhi, India. The conference will be organized around five central themes, which focus on the presentation of successful models of care and prevention around the world. Abstract submissions are currently being accepted.

To honor World AIDS Day 2008, the Pitt Men’s Study at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health is sponsoring a multi-faith service at 7:30 p.m. (Eastern) on Monday, December 1 at Heinz Chapel in Oakland, PA. Spiritual leaders from various religious traditions working on behalf of people living with HIV will lead the remembrance of lost family and friends, and celebrate those living with HIV/AIDS.

During World AIDS Day, established by The World Health Organization in 1988, individuals and organizations around the world come together to bring attention to the global AIDS epidemic. The commemoration coincides with the 25^th anniversary of the Pitt Men’s Study, part of the national Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, one of the longest-running studies of AIDS. Since 1983, more than 3,800 Pittsburgh men have volunteered for the study.

The service is free and open to the public. Doors open at 7:10 pm. For more information, call (412) 383-1676.

On Monday, December 8 from 1-2:30 p.m. (Eastern), the National Association of Local Boards of Health (NALBOH) and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) will present a webcast on "Attacking the #1 Cause of Preventable Death and Disease: Using CDC’s Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs."

A memorial service in honor of Dr. Allan Rosenfield, dean emeritus of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, will be held on Wednesday, December 10 in Alumni Auditorium, 650 West 168^th Street, New York City, NY beginning at 12 p.m. (Eastern). The service will allow people to come together to pay tribute to Dr. Rosenfield who, over the course of his 22 years as dean of the Mailman School, transformed a small school of public health into the leading academic institution that it is today. Dr. Rosenfield will occupy a singular place in the school’s history as a pioneer in public health at the Mailman School, as well as in both the domestic and global public health arenas.  

On Friday, February 27, 2009 from 2-3:30 p.m. (Eastern), there will be an Internet and satellite broadcast of the 11^th Annual William T. Small, Jr. Keynote Lecture by Dr. Barbara Wallace, professor of health education at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, titled "Our World, Our Community: Building Bridges for Health Equality." The lecture is the highlight of the 30^th Annual University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health Minority Health Conference, presented by the school's Minority Student Caucus.