ASPH, through a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Environmental Health (NCEH), announces the availability of funds to support up to six scholarships of $25,000 each for students currently pursuing their doctorate degrees.

Dr. Craig H. Blakely, associate dean for academic affairs and research at the Texas A&M Health Science Center (HSC) School of Rural Public Health, has been appointed interim dean of the school. He is the sole and final candidate for dean forwarded for approval to The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents. Dr. Blakely will work closely with the leadership of the school to continue the excellence in education, service and research for which the school is known.

Also a professor of health policy and management at the HSC-School of Rural Public Health, Dr. Blakely focuses on disenfranchised and underserved groups such as pregnant women (particularly those without health care access), juvenile delinquents, substance abusers and rural populations. He has been the principal investigator in grants totaling more than $13 million and published numerous works that include A Pound of Prevention: The Case for Universal Maternity Care in the U.S.

Dr. Blakely’s research on maternal and child health includes several major statewide studies of immunization and several crosscutting subject areas such as substance abuse prevention, maternal and child health, and community-based change. He has evaluated major initiatives that include a community-based substance abuse prevention program covering a seven-county region, a school-based prevention program targeting at-risk youth, an early state-supported maternal and child health care program providing services to non-U.S. citizens, Medicaid managed care rollouts, and major workers’ compensation reforms in Texas. He has served on numerous review panels, regularly reviews papers for a number of journals and sits on the editorial board of Journal of Primary Prevention.

Dr. Blakely obtained his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Illinois, a Master of Arts degree from Southern Illinois University, a PhD from Michigan State University and a Master of Public Health from The University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. 

The HSC-School of Rural Public Health is the first U.S. public health school with a rural focus. It has developed four masters and three doctoral degree programs, a distance education program spanning Central and South Texas and several centers of research excellence.

Comprehensive health reform proposals now before Congress could help bring health coverage to the more than 13 million uninsured young adults, ages 19 to 29, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. For those young adults who now have coverage, the reforms could also help keep them from losing it.

The purpose of the Straight Talk on Preventing HIV Program offered by the Office of Public Health and Science is to develop gender- and age-specific HIV/AIDS prevention education that is culturally, spiritually and linguistically appropriate for female teenagers at-risk for or living with HIV/AIDS.

This National Institutes of Health limited competition funding opportunity announcement is to continue the Long Life Family Study (LLFS). The LLFS was designed to determine the degree and patterns of familial transmission and aggregation of exceptional longevity and healthy survival to advanced age as characterized by a variety of phenotypic measures, with a further goal of also understanding potential genetic factors that contribute to exceptional survival.

The ACNM Foundation, Inc. is currently accepting applications for the Hazel Corbin/Childbirth Connection Grant for Evidence-Based Midwifery Care. This one-year, $4,500 grant is designed to support or augment outstanding projects that foster knowledge of the safety and/or effectiveness of midwifery practices for mothers and newborns and the application of this knowledge.

The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) is soliciting applications that promote building new interdisciplinary teams among independent investigators for basic or translational research. These teams should pursue a clear and significant scientific opportunity in an area of shared interest of relevance to NIAMS, and can undertake conceptually and technically novel approaches that would be less likely to succeed if undertaken by a more narrowly focused group of investigators.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is committed to promoting diversity in the biomedical workforce. To address this need, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), is soliciting applications that propose research partnerships between faculty at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and faculty at academic institutions with established reproductive science research programs to form the new Cooperative Research Partnerships to Promote Workforce Diversity in the Reproductive Sciences (CPDR).

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society has announced funding opportunities for Health Care Delivery and Policy Research Contracts for the: assessment of the potential impact of health care reform on people with MS); the evaluation of existing and innovative models of MS health care delivery; and investigator initiated health policy studies in multiple sclerosis. 

Unite For Sight's Global Impact Corps is an immersive global health experience for students and for professionals. All volunteers participating in Unite For Sight's international programs are Global Impact Fellows.  They participate daily with local ophthalmic nurses, local optometrists and local ophthalmologists to support and assist the clinic in outreach programs that reduce all of the barriers to health care, including financial, transportation and education barriers. 

The University of Minnesota Center for Animal Health and Food Safety and Global Initiative for Food Systems Leadership, and the Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay are presenting a program called "Farm to Table Study 2009" in Uruguay from October 25-31. Participants will explore the food system from farm-to-table in Uruguay while considering aspects of animal welfare and health, food safety and public health. 

The American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) is offering an Intensive Update Course in Clinical Tropical Medicine and Travelers' Health on October 27-28 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, immediately preceding the Infectious Diseases Society of America Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.

Doctoral students from the Boston University School of Public Health’s biostatistics department are demystifying what it means to be a biostatistician for area high-school students. As part of the Upward Bound Math-Science (UBMS) summer program offered by Boston University, School of Public Health PhD candidates in biostatistics have created an interactive curriculum to introduce the basics of biostatistics to 10 local high-schoolers.

The doctoral students led three full-day labs in July as part of a six-week summer session of UBMS, a federally funded college preparatory program for high-school students from low-income families or who have the potential to be the first generation in their family to attend college.

The School of Public Health students' goal is to give the UBMS students, who are interested in pursuing studies in math and science, an understanding of what a biostatistician does.

"We want to give them a 'big picture' introduction to what biostatistics is," said Ms. Vanessa Xanthakis, a PhD candidate who is coordinating the UBMS sessions on biostatistics. "We also map out our own paths to the field—how we all got into biostatistics and the kind of work we're doing now."

For the labs, the PhD candidates take turns leading modules on the fundamentals of biostatistics, covering topics such as calculating probability, determining correlation, analyzing data and creating surveys. The subjects are highlighted with hands-on activities for the high-school students, which—above all—are meant to be fun. 

"Because the UBMS students do not always know what to do with their interest in math and science, the program gives them an idea of some of the options that are available," said Dr. Lisa Sullivan,  associate dean of education and chair and professor of biostatistics. 

"We're trying to show them a career that ties the two together," Dr. Sullivan said. "It's also a great opportunity for the doctoral students. They get valuable experience teaching, and they really enjoy it."

As a final project for the summer program, the high-school students have the opportunity to share their favorite facets of biostatistics with their teachers, making group presentations on the topics they found most interesting. They have the option of either presenting a poster or analyzing a paper on the subject of their choice.

For the Boston University School of Public Health’s biostatistics department, this is the first summer doctoral students have coordinated and led intensive science and math labs for students from the UBMS program. During the previous school year, biostatistics professors and students had held Saturday morning sessions on biostatistics as part of the program. The department plans to continue both school year and summer programs, Dr. Sullivan reported.

The Boston University School of Public Health doctoral candidates participating in the program include Ms. Audrey Hendricks, Mr. Sean Lacey, Ms. Alisa Manning, Ms. Rachel Hunter Merrill, Ms. Jacqueline Milton, Ms. Carlee Moser, Ms. Vanessa Xanthakis and Ms. Robin Young. Dr. Sullivan and Dr. Josee Dupuis, professor of biostatistics at the School of Public Health, are advisors to the program.

The University of South Florida (USF) system has asked its dean of the College of Public Health to lead and mobilize the university's strategic initiatives in global affairs. After extensive study by a faculty task force, USF President Dr. Judy Genshaft has appointed Dean Donna Petersen as the interim executive director of USF World and of the Patel Center for Global Solutions. Dean Petersen is dean of the USF College of Public Health and will launch the new role. She will make recommendations for a permanent position.

"Today's university is a global university," Dr. Genshaft said. "Every goal in USF's strategic plan includes global engagement, and what faculty told us is we need to mobilize, organize and advance opportunities for education and research on an international scale.

"I'm deeply pleased that Donna Petersen has agreed to launch the USF World initiative. Her experience in public health gives her a critical perspective for international education, research and service."

The interim executive director of USF World and the Patel Center for Global Solutions is charged with the responsibility of exhaustively assessing the opportunities and the existing assets for internationalizing the University of South Florida and from that assessment, devising and recommending the necessary infrastructure, systems, policies and procedures to support the University's strategic plan around global initiatives.

"It's impressive how many people at USF want to be part of a global university," Dean Petersen said. "I'll work with USF's faculty, deans and chairs to create the most efficient and effective structure for present and future global initiatives. We'll put together a communication plan, a rigorous risk management system, and begin the process of carrying out the recommendations of the USF World Task Force."

USF World is an umbrella initiative that captures USF's strategic efforts to provide opportunities for USF students to study abroad, for international students to come here, for faculty to do research and create sustainable projects around the world, and to bring ideas of globalization into the classrooms and laboratories of the university.

Dean Petersen also will direct the Patel Center for Global Solutions, a unique center aimed at applying knowledge to solve problems around the globe. It was launched with gifts from Drs. Kiran and Pallavi Patel, and recently broke ground on a building near the front of USF's Tampa campus.  Dean Petersen will remain dean of the College of Public Health.

Today, the University of Maryland School of Public Health (SPH), in collaboration with the SPH Alumni Chapter and numerous sponsors, is hosting its sixth annual Wrenn Scholarship Scramble, a golf tournament to benefit the Jerry P. Wrenn Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship Fund. Since 2004, proceeds from the golf tournament have been able to award $27,500 in scholarships to 32 academically qualified seniors with financial need. The tournament will host more than 88 golfers at the University of Maryland Golf Course.

Ms. Gloria Friedgen, alumni and outreach coordinator for the Maryland SPH, stated she hopes that despite the deepening recession, they will be able provide ten $1,000 scholarships this year, nearly matching last year's total of $11,000 to 12 students.

The tournament and endowed scholarship is named for Dr. Jerry Wrenn, a former dean and faculty member of the College of Health and Human Performance, the precursor to the Maryland SPH. Dr. Wrenn is noted for his commitment to undergraduate education—his vision helped create the Student Services Center, which helps SPH students stay on track through their education and prepares them for careers in public health. In celebration of his work with students, the Jerry P. Wrenn Undergraduate Scholarship was established in June 2003 to commemorate his retirement from the School.

For more information on the tournament and scholarship fund, please visit http://sph.umd.edu/.

On Wednesday, August 5, the University at Albany School of Public Health hosted a community forum designed to help emergency preparedness officials understand the special needs of three vulnerable populations—elderly adults, residents of isolated rural areas and persons with physical disabilities—during a large-scale emergency.  Representatives from organizations serving these populations met to discuss how people in these groups would access essential services in the event of a widespread public emergency such as a blizzard or pandemic flu.

The University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has been awarded a $7.2 million federal grant to establish the UIC Center of Excellence in Eliminating Health Disparities. The new center, funded by a five-year grant from the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities of the National Institutes of Health, will focus on health disparities in prostate and colorectal cancer, community-based breast cancer initiatives, and training and educating the next generation of health disparities researchers.

A team of researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Institute for Global Health and Infectious Diseases has received a $3.5 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, to study HIV prevention methods among people with acute HIV infection (AHI). Co-principal investigators of the study are Dr. William Miller, associate professor of epidemiology, and Dr. Audrey Pettifor, assistant professor of epidemiology, in the Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Dr. Miller is also an associate professor of medicine in the UNC School of Medicine.

The four-year study will involve developing a new program that identifies and informs people with acute HIV infection, and implementing and evaluating combined behavioral and antiretroviral therapy interventions. The research will be conducted at UNC Project, the Institute's research, care and training facility in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Acute HIV infection is the period between infection and detection of HIV antibodies and lasts up to 12 weeks. During this brief window of time, the virus replicates rapidly, and the probability of transmission is very high. People in this stage of the disease may be responsible for a substantial proportion of onward transmission of HIV infection, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, Miller said.

"There is no 'magic bullet' to prevent HIV infection," said Dr. Miller. "Successful prevention programs will require combining prevention strategies. In this study we will try to reduce transmission from newly infected people."

Dr. Pettifor said identifying people with AHI and intervening to reduce onward transmission represented a tantalizing--but, until now, untested and unproven—opportunity for HIV prevention.

"If we find that acute infection contributes considerably to the spread of HIV, then a combined behavioral and biomedical intervention has the potential to significantly reduce new infections," Dr. Pettifor said.

This week, undergraduate students from across the country—New Mexico, Louisiana and elsewhere—gave their culminating research presentations and became the first graduating class of the University of Maryland Summer Training and Research (UM STAR) program, which is offered through the University of Maryland School of Public Health. UM STAR is designed to give traditionally under-represented minority undergraduate students career development activities in the areas of the biomedical and behavioral aspects of cardiovascular disease.

Funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, the program hosts students for 10 weeks over two summers, immersing them in advanced research and preparing them to enter and complete graduate or medical school.

Ms. Minh-Phuong Huynh-Le (pictured above), one of the graduates of UM STAR, has long had an interest in health because she hopes to someday become a doctor. She studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology during the year, but over the summer, wanted to return home to Maryland and expand her understanding of public health to prepare herself better for medical school. She found that opportunity through UM STAR.

Dr. Jim Hagberg, an exercise physiology professor and one of UM STAR's directors, believes that the program can help bring greater diversity to university faculty and Ph.D. programs.

"A lot of our disciplines are not very diverse," Dr. Hagberg said.

During this summer, students spend their days working side by side with Maryland graduate students and faculty on research projects. Mr. Ubong Obot, a senior biology major at the University of Maryland, studied how exercise affects cognitive decline, particularly in relation to a specific gene that's been linked with Alzheimer's disease. In measuring the working memory of patients with the gene, he found that those who exercised showed markedly less cognitive decline than those who were more sedentary.

"This is like being in grad school," Mr. Obot said of UM STAR, adding that he appreciated the opportunity to work closely with his mentors every day. He plans to attend graduate school for biomedical engineering next year.

For some students, the UM STAR program was their first exposure to in-depth public health research. Mr. Merije T. Chukumerije, a biology/pre-med student at Xavier University of New Orleans, focused his research on the effects of exercise on gene and cell expression, and was amazed at the vastness of the research opportunities he found.

"There's so many places you can go," with his particular research area, Mr. Chukumerije said, adding the myriad of research interests of his fellow students—from smoking cessation to childhood obesity--present untold possibilities for further exploration.

Mr. Chukumerije added, "I didn't realize the effect of public health" before beginning the program. He plans to look for research opportunities at Xaiver in the fall, and is considering a combination MD/PhD program for his graduate studies.

Beyond research, UM STAR students had the opportunity to tour Capitol Hill and the National Institutes of Health as well as teach elementary school students from the Washington DC Higher Achievement Program about flexibility, vital signs, balance and BMI.

As the first class graduates, Dr. Hagberg sees the program as a success, noting that one of the students will be attending Harvard Medical School this fall. Looking ahead, he sees UM STAR as one step of an ongoing process to increase diversity in public health--this will not happen overnight, he says, and hopes to begin educating high school students in these fields of study in the near future.

"The sooner you can start, the better," Dr. Hagberg said.

Researchers from the Prevention Research Center at Tulane University will examine whether hair stylists and barbers can improve their clients’ health with The Shop Talk Program, an initiative to train staff in 25 urban barbershops and beauty salons to talk to clients about eating habits, getting more exercise, managing blood pressure and making other healthy choices. The PRC has produced 2,600 copies of a 28-page, full-color Feel Good Guide: How to Stay Healthy. The book will be prominently displayed in 19 shops at the beginning of the program and explains how 10 small dietary and lifestyle changes can make a big difference in health.

Dean Robert S. Gold of the University of Maryland School of Public Health was featured on Thursday, August 6, in the "Maryland Voices" section of the Baltimore Sun. In an opinion piece for the paper, titled "An ounce of prevention for the debate on health care reform," Dean Gold advocated that prevention must be included in the efforts to reform America's health care system, and specifically that investments in prevention will pay off in the long term.

Nearly four years after the Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf region, Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness (NCDP) at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and president of the Children’s Health Fund (CHF) testified to Congress that the unresolved conflicts among state, federal and health sector players have paralyzed the decision-making process while families wait for vital medical services to get up to speed.

Dr. Redlener testified to the Ad Hoc Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that is chaired by Senators Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday, August 4 at the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

In his dual role with NCDP and CHF, Dr. Redlener spearheaded "Operation Assist" within days of Hurricane Katrina. The program began as a clinical response effort to provide assistance with the acute medical and mental health response for survivors and evacuees. It has since transitioned to permanent projects in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Biloxi-Gulfport, becoming integral components of the still recovering health care systems in the region. Thus far, the clinical programs have provided more than 60,000 medical, mental health and special services encounters to children and adolescents.

"There is a misunderstanding that recovery from large-scale disasters is a ‘local problem’ to be solved and managed by states and local jurisdiction," Dr. Redlener said. "The destruction at the level seen in the Gulf post-Katrina and Rita and the flooding of New Orleans was –and is –a national problem. The well-being of the affected states is highly material to the well-being, the economy and security of the United States."

Further, Dr. Redlener highlighted the following:

• The lack of access to health care for children and others in the region. Four years after the storms which destroyed much of New Orleans’s health system, including Charity Hospital, there is still no final plan to rebuild the hospital or restructure the health care system;
• Understanding the needs of children in all aspects of disaster response planning, mitigation and recovery;
• The continued need to address the significant number of displaced children and the mental and physical health as well as educational impact it can have on the approximately 30,000 persistently displaced children in the two principle states in the Gulf; and
• The lack of national recovery strategy remains a serious challenge for the new administration.

In an emergency, when electricity, clean water and infant supplies may be unavailable, breastfeeding becomes even more important than ever.  This is a reason why public health advocates support the theme "Breastfeeding: A Vital Emergency Response - Are you ready?" for the 2009 World Breastfeeding Week (WBW), August 1-8. "Children, especially infants, are extremely vulnerable in emergencies," said Dr. Miriam Labbok, professor of the practice of public health and director of the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute (CBI) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health.

On Tuesday, July 21, Dr. Stefano Bertozzi, founding director of the Division of Health Economics and Policy at Mexico’s National Institute of Public Health (or Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública, INSP), presented a plenary session at the Fifth International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, in Cape Town, South Africa.

University of North Texas Health Science Center (UNT HSC) professor Dr. Terrance B. (Terry) Gratton has received the 2009 Walter F. Snyder Award for outstanding achievement in advancing environmental health by NSF International (NSF International, The Public Health and Safety Company) and the National Environmental Health Association (NEHA). Given in honor of NSF’s co-founder and first executive director, this award is presented annually to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the environmental health field.

Dr. Olivia Carter-Pokras, an associate professor in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Maryland School of Public Health (SPH), was featured in the July 24, 2009 edition of the Washington Hispanic, a Spanish language newspaper in the DC Metropolitan area. In the article, Dr. Carter-Pokras discusses the recently-passed law which will allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, in partnership with two other NIH Institutes—the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI)—are jointly collaborating with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), on a seven million dollar funding opportunity announcement to support research on substance abuse and associated problems among U.S. military personnel, veterans and their families. NIH is the leading scientific agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

"Without research, we wouldn't have breakthroughs. It's not about discovery for the sake of discovery, but for the sake of better health and saving lives," said Senator Tom Harkin (IA) at a Capitol Hill event Tuesday honoring him, Senator Arlen Specter (PA) and Senator Edward Kennedy (MA). The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation and Research!America recognized the senators for their leadership for research and for highlighting the importance of a shared commitment to making research for health a high national priority.

The awards ceremony at the Russell Senate Office Building was emceed by Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, former National Institutes of Health director, and was attended by distinguished scientists, Nobel laureates, members of Congress and other leaders in health research community, including Dr. Francis S. Collins,nominee for NIH director, and Nobel Laureate Dr. Joseph Goldstein.

Dr. Zerhouni recognized Dr. Collins and said, "There couldn’t be a better person to handle the NIH stimulus funding than Francis, and it couldn’t be better timing. Francis, do good work."

In his remarks, Senator Harkin said he was all but certain that Dr. Collins’ nomination would be approved in the Senate before its August recess. He then spoke of his own commitment to NIH.

"I have always believed that it is a prime responsibility of the federal government to support the National Institutes of Health," he said. "In the six decades since World War II, the United States has been the global leader in science, biomedical research and technological innovation. We have been respected, admired, even held in awe for our dazzling advances and breakthroughs. But our work is not over yet, which is why I will continue to work to fund medical research."

In closing, Senator Harkin called on advocates: "The next great challenge is solid funding for 2011. We’re going to need all of your advocating in the next year so we dont fall off the (funding) cliff. Redouble your efforts!"

Dr. Alfred Sommer, Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation chair, said, "Senator Harkin's prioritization of our investment in medical research, including embryonic stem cell research, and his unwavering support for NIH has helped to ensure the future of basic science and the promise of cures through clinical advances."

Senator Specter, in his acceptance remarks, spoke about federal funding for embryonic stem cell research and his plans for future NIH funding. "I am honored to be recognized, along with my esteemed colleagues Senator Harkin and Senator Kennedy, for my work in the Senate to advance health and medical research, he said. Health is one of our nation's greatest capital assets and I will continue to fight to increase funding for the National Institutes of Health and to press forward in seeking cures for the maladies of the world."

The Honorable John Edward Porter, Research!America chair, said, "During his 30-year career as a senator, Arlen has been a tireless advocate for research to improve lives, exhibiting a masterful ability to translate medical research and scientific advances into language that leaders and the public can understand."

Although Senator Kennedy was unable to attend, his lifelong friend and FNIH board member Mrs. William McCormick Blair accepted on his behalf.

"Teddy deeply appreciates the award and has deep respect for the impact of Research!America. He loved Mary Lasker, and he created the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health," she said. "As a nation we have an extraordinary scientific imagination. We can change the major causes of death, disease and disability and enhance our quality of life.

Dr. Charles A. Sanders, FNIH chair, said, "Senator Kennedy has set the stage for realizing the hope for a healthier nation with his courageous support of NIH and other federal research agencies, embryonic stem cell research and mental health, and his advocacy for reducing health disparities."

On Monday, August 3, The Associated Press reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is going to plan more broadly for children and their needs as the government prepares for disasters. Most disaster plans are crafted around adult populations, and people with specific needs—such as children—are often an afterthought, FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate stated in an interview with The Associated Press.

"Children are not small adults," he said.

A new FEMA working group will work with the congressionally mandated National Commission on Children and Disasters, created in 2007. The FEMA group will focus on specific guidance for evacuating, sheltering and relocating children; helping childcare centers, schools and child welfare programs prepare for disasters; and making disaster preparation part of the Homeland Security Department's grant programs.

The working group's findings could mean changes to the country's blueprint for disaster response, known as the National Response Framework, Mr. Fugate said.

The Bush administration rewrote this national disaster plan after Hurricane Katrina. The new 82-page plan, issued in January 2008, does not include the word "children," but it does mention pets. That plan, however, is supplemented by more than 200 pages of annexes, which do address children's needs, though not in depth.

"Let's look at children not as something we're going to deal with after we write the plan," Mr. Fugate said.

He said he intends to draw more heavily on existing federal, state and local programs that already deal with children "in every community every day."

Over the past few months nine college undergraduates have gotten a taste of what public health is all about and public health leaders hope the experience means they have recruited at least nine new future public health workers. The students were part of an internship program made possible by a "Pathways to Public Health" grant that the New York State Department of Health received from the Association of Schools of Public Health and the Association of Public Health Laboratories. The program received 81 applications from students across the state for the nine available slots.

The goal of the program is to encourage students to consider careers in public health and to recruit a new generation of public health employees.

Five of the students worked with researchers at the Wadsworth Center Laboratories. Each student was assigned to a different laboratory and investigated topics related to infectious disease.

Four students interned in the environmental health programs in the Broome, Dutchess, Erie and Cattaraugus county health departments. They shadowed public health sanitarians, engineers and research scientists as they inspected restaurants, camps and swimming pools, regulated the water supply and conducted research.

Students also had the opportunity to attend various seminars and complete online trainings in public health and environmental health science.

A 2006 study of local health departments across the state done by the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany’s School of Public Health found only 11 percent of the public health workforce is under 35. The largest group is in the 43-54 age range at 37 percent while a quarter of the workforce is between 55-64 years of age.

Twenty percent of the youngest workers said they are planning on leaving the field of public health sometime in the next five years. Combine that with an older-than-average workforce, many of whom are planning for retirement in the near future, and the major challenge of assuring a public health workforce in New York State becomes clearer.

A survey by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the Council of State Governments found that the public health workforce in the U.S. is rapidly aging; the average age is 46.6 years. In many states, including New York, as many as 45 percent of the public health workforce may be eligible to retire in the next five years.

At a recent "Culminating Presentation Session" for the internship program Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines told the students, "...there are many different paths to careers in public health...and once you arrive, you’ll find an incredible variety of endeavors within it."

"Public health at all levels needs everyone: epidemiologists; public policy experts; finance and budget number crunchers—we need to make convincing arguments about return on public investment in public health; and individuals out in the field testing water, protecting children from lead paint exposure, and doing community outreach and education – just to name a few," he added.

"Our hope is that this internship program will contribute to making that path clearer and easier to navigate for talented young people like you," Dr. Daines continued. "We want individuals like you to be part of the expanded public health workforce for a new generation of challenges."

The internship program and other public health workforce activities are coordinated in the department by the Office of Public Health Practice in the Office of Public Health.

Dr. Timothy Hoff, associate professor of health policy and management at the University at Albany’s School of Public Health, is collaborating with researchers from Harvard Medical School and the Veterans Health Administration to examine the new U.S. government nonpayment policy for hospital-acquired infections (HAIs) and how it affects practices and patient safety outcomes. The study, "Nonpayment for Preventable Complications: Impact on Hospital Practices and Health," is among the first in the nation to review the decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to no longer pay for certain HAIs. The two-year, $275,000 project is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Examples of HAIs include catheter-associated urinary tract infections and surgical site infections.  Studies show approximately two million HAIs occur annually in U.S. hospitals, causing nearly 100,000 deaths.  The annual economic cost of HAIs to the health care system is in the tens of billions of dollars.

"HAIs are one of the most costly medical errors in terms of reduced quality of life, financial expense, and lives lost, so it’s critical to improve safety in this area," said Dr. Hoff. "The government’s approach is novel since quality improvement policy up to now has been aimed at rewarding institutions like hospitals that achieve certain improvements in care and patient safety, rather than penalizing them for performing poorly.  What we will examine are the consequences—intended and unintended—of a government policy that shifts the emphasis from 'paying for good performance' to 'not paying for poor performance.'"

The study consists of two separate research phases.  In the first, Dr. Hoff will oversee interviews with a national sample of infection prevention staff and intensive care unit nurses to better understand how the non-payment policy affects hospital practices related to infection prevention and rates of infection.  The data will be fed into a second phase involving a national survey of infection prevention personnel in order to generalize and expand on initial findings.

Men who have a regular, ongoing relationship with a health care provider are more likely to receive prostate cancer screening and less likely to be diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, regardless of their race, according to a University of North Carolina study published in the current issue of the journal Cancer. Dr. William R. Carpenter, research assistant professor of health policy and management in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health and a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, authored the paper.

The study compared the experiences of black and white men over age 50 and newly diagnosed with prostate cancer in North Carolina and Louisiana. The goal was to find underlying reasons why African-American men have a higher incidence of prostate cancer and a higher rate of death from the disease than their white counterparts.

"We found that Caucasian (white) men tended to be seen regularly by the same physician, which appears to be associated with greater trust in their doctors and in physicians in general," Dr. Carpenter said. "They were also more likely than their African-American counterparts to get regular prostate cancer screenings and to get all their medical care at a physician's office."

The study enrolled 1,031 black and white men, age 50 and older, within weeks of their prostate cancer diagnosis. A study nurse conducted a structured survey and acquired biological specimens in a home visit and obtained other medical information from each patient's medical records.

In this study, the stage of prostate cancer at diagnosis was similar between races, but the mean Gleason scores, an indication of the aggressiveness of the disease, were higher for blacks than for whites. Blacks were less likely than whites to report participation in prostate cancer screening prior to diagnosis. Men without a prior history of screening were more likely to be diagnosed with advanced disease and/or more aggressive forms of prostate cancer. However, when men of either race had established relationships with a health care provider, the differences in prostate cancer stage at diagnosis went away.

"This evidence leads us to think that encouraging African-Americans to establish an ongoing relationship with a regular care provider may encourage more appropriate use of prostate cancer screening, and thus reduce racial disparities in prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment, which, by extension, may reduce disparities in prostate cancer deaths," Dr. Carpenter said.  

Dr. James Mohler, chair of the department of urology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, and principal investigator of the study, said, "The goal of the study was to gain a deeper understanding of the role of racial disparities in prostate cancer outcomes.  These findings suggest that differences in screening result from inconsistent or poorer quality interaction between an African-American man and the American health care system.  If the interaction is poor, the care giver may not get around to discussing or offering preventive health care, such as prostate cancer screening. Improving the interaction between all men, and especially African-American men, and their primary care givers should reduce prostate cancer deaths in all men and decrease the racial disparity in prostate deaths in African-American men."

Dr. Mohler is also a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Dr. Carpenter added, "Factors in health care systems, including setting and continuity of care, may hinder the development of physician-patient relationships, and possibly preclude discussions beyond the immediate medical issue at hand, including discussions of preventive health and preferences in use of early detection. These factors and relationships can influence whether there are discussions beyond the immediate medical issue at hand, including discussions of preventive health and preferences in use of health care services such as prostate cancer screening."

Other UNC authors include Dr. Paul Godley, professor of medicine and adjunct professor of epidemiology in the schools of medicine and public health; Dr. Jeannette Bensen, research assistant professor of epidemiology; Dr. Merle Mishel, distinguished professor in the School of Nursing; and Dr. Timothy Finnegan in the School of Medicine.

Other authors include the study's co-principal investigator, Dean Elizabeth Fontham from the Louisiana State University Health Science Center in New Orleans.   

The research was supported by the U.S. Department of Defense and the National Cancer Institute.

Hiring the nearly 800,000 workers needed to eliminate the staggering shortage of health care professionals in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015 will cost $2.6 billion a year, or 2.5 times the annual funds currently allocated for health worker wages in the region, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and collaborators from the World Health Organization (WHO) and The World Bank.

"To say that generating the funds needed to alleviate the shortage will be difficult is a gross understatement," said lead author Dr. Richard Scheffler, professor of health economics and public policy at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health and director of the school's Global Center for Health Economics and Policy Research.

"We project that sub-Saharan Africa will only have one-third of the health care workers they need by 2015," he said. "Specifically, 240,000 more doctors and 551,000 more nurses and midwives are needed to fill the gap. The numbers we are providing are a first step in helping policymakers make decisions about where to put their resources."

In addition, the cost of scaling up the entire health system in the region is projected to be $19 billion per year, which exceeds the annual aid for health worldwide by $2 billion, noted co-author Dr. Brent Fulton, a health services researcher at the Global Center.

The paper, published Thursday, August 6 in the journal Health Affairs, is the first attempt to quantify and forecast the shortage of doctors, nurses and midwives in 31 sub-Saharan African countries in the context of government spending on wages there, the authors said.

While global aid is necessary, it will not be enough to fill the enormous gap in need, the researchers said. To buffer the effects of the shortage, the researchers recommend that government leaders in sub-Saharan Africa take the following steps:

• Change the skill mix to allow utilization of health workers with less training, such as mid-level and community health workers, for certain tasks;
• Provide worker incentives to improve motivation and morale; and
• Increase the capacity, quality and efficiency of training for health care workers, perhaps through creative partnerships with established schools in developed countries.

Changing the workforce mix is a particularly promising avenue to reducing labor costs, the researchers said.

"If we take the tasks physicians do that don't really require physician training—such as giving vaccinations or conducting health interviews—and shift them to nurses or community health workers, we can then free up doctors to do more complex tasks," said co-author Dr. Chris Brown Mahoney, who conducted the research while she was a post-doctoral scholar at the Global Center. "We see this concept of task shifting in the United States, where patients are increasingly seen by nurse practitioners. Here, it's happening primarily for money reasons. In Africa, there are so few physicians, it would be more efficient for them to focus on more serious health needs."

"A large increase in the number of mid-level and community health workers is a more cost-effective policy," added study co-author Dr. Mario Dal Poz, coordinator of human resources for health at the WHO. "This is especially true when you consider that they require less training and are more likely to stay in their own countries, and practice in traditionally underserved rural communities."

The consequences of insufficient health resources are dire. Every year, 500,000 women die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth, three million babies are stillborn and 2.9 million people die from HIV/AIDS, according to figures from WHO.

"Without intervention, many African countries will take until 2030 to reach the health-related (United Nations) Millennium Development Goal targets," said co-author Dr. Alexander Preker, head of health investment policy and lead economist at The World Bank. "Billions of dollars currently spent on global public health priorities would be wasted if the human resources crisis is not given a higher priority on the development agenda."

The study was supported by WHO and the Global Center. The National Institute of Mental Health provided funding for Mahoney's post-doctoral research.

Researchers have identified a gene variant that carries nearly twice the risk of developing an increasingly common type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a group of cancers that develops in the immune system's white blood cells. In a study led by investigators at the University of California (UC), Berkeley and at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Arizona, a common variant in a gene called C6orf15, or STG, was linked to susceptibility to follicular lymphoma, which accounts for 20 to 30 percent of all non-Hodgkin lymphoma cases.

It is the first genome-wide association study of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The mutation, a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) called rs6457327, was found among the more than 3 billion base pairs in the human genome.

The results were published July 20, 2009 in the journal Nature Genetics.

"What's exciting about this study is that we found a target in the genome influencing the susceptibility to follicular lymphoma, which helps us discern between three major types of lymphomas," said study co-lead author Dr. Christine F. Skibola, an associate adjunct professor of environmental health sciences at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health. "That had not been done before on a genome-wide scale. It is our hope that this research may someday be useful in helping develop prevention, early detection and treatment of this disease."

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma, the fifth most common type of cancer in the United States, is newly diagnosed in about 66,000 Americans each year, and annually kills nearly 20,000, according to the National Cancer Institute. Overall, the annual incidence of non-Hodgkin lymphoma has doubled since the 1970s, and is the most common type of blood cancer in the United States.

The researchers looked at variations in the gene and found that the presence of the G allele of SNP rs6457327 was actually protective against follicular lymphoma, occurring less frequently among people with the cancer. In contrast, the presence of the A allele was predictive of an increased risk of developing follicular lymphoma. Brown said individuals who had the A allele were nearly twice as likely to develop follicular lymphoma.

"There's clearly a genetic component to the disease. The hope is to one day be able to take these results, combine them with other tests, and turn them into an individualized assessment of disease risk," said the study's co-lead author Dr. Kevin M. Brown, an associate investigator in the Integrated Cancer Genomics Division of TGen, a non-profit biomedical research institute based in Phoenix, AZ. "This is a starting point."

Dr. Skibola said more studies would be needed to determine the biological importance of other mutations linked to rs6457327 that might change the function of the gene. This could help determine how they might influence risk of the disease.

The scientists said future studies should further investigate whether genetic susceptibility to follicular lymphoma is associated with:

• Environmental factors, such as exposure to the sun;
• Conditions such as psoriasis, a chronic, autoimmune skin disease closely associated with a similar region of the genome; and
• Exposure to viruses. Follicular lymphoma is associated with HIV infection, occurring in as many as 10 percent of all HIV-positive patients, according to the Lymphoma Research Foundation.

The analysis was conducted using DNA from population-based, non-Hodgkin lymphoma case-control studies led by researchers from UC San Francisco. Follow-up validation studies included independent case-control studies from Canada and Germany.

To reduce the potential for complicating factors, the more than 3,000 samples in the UC Berkeley-TGen study were from individuals who were HIV negative. Brown said future studies could include HIV-positive individuals, if enough samples were made available.

The pooled genome-wide association study used by the UC Berkeley-TGen investigators allowed them to screen more than 500,000 SNPs. The nearly 90 most significant SNPs were then genotyped to more closely examine their association with lymphoma.

This same pooling technique has been pioneered by TGen to screen for genes in other studies. Additional collaborations between UC Berkeley and TGen are planned.

Other co-authors of the study include researchers from UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, the British Columbia Cancer Agency in Canada and the German Cancer Research Center in Germany.

CD Publications, founded in 1961, is reducing the price of Community Health Funding Report, a continuously updated online grant leads and news service. This service offers full contact information, all deadline dates, web sites, dollar amounts available, geographic limitations and award cycles. The offer also includes access to a free grant directory.

Abstracts are currently being accepted for the Global Health & Innovation Conference, which will be held April 17-18, 2010 at Yale University in New Haven, CT. Presented by Unite for Sight, the conference will challenge students, public health professionals, educators, doctors, scientists, lawyers, universities, corporations, nonprofits and others to develop innovative, effective solutions to achieve global goals.

Nominations are currently being accepted for the Peter H. Rossi Award, which honors the lifetime achievements of Dr. Peter Rossi by recognizing important contributions to the theory or practice of program evaluation. The award may be for a recent paper or publication or for an entire body of work. The awardee receives a plaque and recognition at the annual Fall Research Conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM), reimbursement for travel expenses to the meeting and a cash award in the amount of $1,000.

The ASPH Friday Letter invites members of the ASPH-community to submit entries for its Photo-of-the-Month Contest. Each month staff will choose a photo that depicts a public health experience of students, faculty and staff of ASPH-member schools or affiliates of ASPH partners. Photo submissions should capture an experience, such as a school/community event or service project, faculty or student research experience, a fellowship/internship experience or a new public health initiative.

On Wednesday, August 26, the Office of Public Health Practice at the University of Michigan School of Public Health is hosting an upcoming workshop titled "Public Health in the Spotlight: a Health Risk Communication Introduction," which will also be available as a web cast. This three-part workshop will show participants how to deliver accurate and timely information to health care providers, the media, and the general public.  

On Thursday, September 17 at 10 a.m. (Eastern), Ms. Molly Eggleston, deputy executive director of the National Board of Public Health Examiners (NBPHE), will present on experiences with the Certified in Public Health (CPH) exam and share testimonials from public health employers, faculty and CPH professionals.  She will also take questions on the upcoming exam (August 2010).

From September 21-22, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Center for Public Health and Disasters is convening a two-day workshop, titled "National After Action Workshop on a Federal Public Health Emergency: The Novel Influenza A H1N1 Epidemic of Spring 2009," to review the key actions taken as this epidemic unfolded, seeking to identify those strategies that were effective and those that could have been handled differently.

The World Health Care Congress fourth Annual Obesity Congress will be held September 30-October 2 in Alexandria, VA, and will gather a diverse set of leaders from the private and public sectors to discuss both the implications of the obesity epidemic and solutions to help employers and providers to improve the health, productivity and life style of individuals.

AcademyHealth’s annual Health Policy Orientation offers an in-depth understanding of formal and informal policymaking processes and the players who shape health policy. With a one-to-one ratio of faculty to participants, the orientation features rxpert presentations, group discussions, hands-on tutorials and a congressional site visit. The seminar will take place October 26-29 at the Barbara Jordan Conference Center in Washington, DC.

The clinical pre-meeting course, "The Highly Prevalent Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs): Update on Clinical Aspects and Novel Approaches to Control," precedes the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 58^th Annual Meeting, to be held November 18-22 at the Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, DC. The course will be held November 17-18 at the Marriott Wardman Park.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, Division of Blood Disorders, in partnership with the Health Resources and Services Administration, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the American Society of Hematology will host the National Conference on Blood Disorders in Public Health from March 9-11, 2010 at the Crowne Plaza Ravinia in Atlanta, GA.

Dr. Alexander Garza, a 2003 graduate of Saint Louis University School of Public Health, has been nominated by President Barack Obama to the position of Assistant Secretary for Health Affairs and Chief Medical Officer of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. In this position, Dr. Garza would lead the country as it faces public health threats ranging from disease epidemics to biological, radiological and environmental hazards. Dr. Garza could also play a key role in the nation's preparations for possible swine flu outbreaks this fall, pending timely confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

Please mark your calendars for the upcoming "Meet the Author!" web cast sponsored by Public Health Reports (PHR), which will take place on Tuesday, September 15 at 2:30 p.m. (Eastern). Dr. Kevin Sullivan, associate professor in the department of epidemiology and global health at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, will discuss his recently published research in PHR, "Multivitamin Use in Pregnant and Nonpregnant Women."