SPH News July 2, 2007
SPH News is a school-wide electronic newsletter distributed to SPH faculty and staff every month during the summer. Please send news items to SPHNews@umn.edu. The next issue of SPH News will go out on Aug. 6. SPH News will resume biweekly distribution when the fall semester begins.
From the Dean
The University’s Role During Times of Controversy
I’m sure many of you have been observing the controversy involving the Commissioner of Health and her handling of data involving the high rates of mesothelioma (a deadly form of lung cancer) among Minnesota’s iron mine workers. I had the opportunity to travel to the Iron Range town of Mountain Iron last week to testify before a joint committee of the Minnesota House and Senate. I was joined by SPH Associate Prof. Jeff Mandel.
The message we delivered (and which was shared by SPH Associate Prof. Ian Greaves a few days earlier at a similar hearing in St. Paul) is this: the University is a neutral party in this controversy and we have an important role to play in illuminating the science behind the politics. Our main concern as public health researchers is the health of the mine workers. To that end, we have proposed that faculty in our division of Environmental Health Sciences undertake a broad 3-5-year research project involving the mine workers to understand the level of exposure they face and its link to disease. University President Robert Bruininks has pledged seed money to launch the research and key legislators have made the commitment to seek funding during the next legislative session to complete the research.
It is important for us all to remember the decades-long relationship we have enjoyed with the Minnesota Department of Health. It has been a collegial, collaborative, fruitful partnership that has advanced the health of Minnesotans immeasurably. The Department is staffed with hundreds of talented professionals (many of whom are our graduates!). It would be a shame if their fine work is besmirched because of this controversy. If you have colleagues there and feel so inclined, take a moment to drop them a note or give them a call and thank them for being valued colleagues and committed public health professionals. I’m sure they’d appreciate it.
--John R. Finnegan, Jr., Ph.D.
Media News
June 2007 media coverage featured the following SPH faculty and staff:
Alan Bender
Lynn Blewett
John R. Finnegan, Jr.
Ian Greaves
Bernard Harlow
Robert Kane
Rosalie Kane
Jeffery Mandel
Dianne Neumark-Sztainer
Michael Osterholm
Tatyana Shamliyan
Traci Toomey
Catherine Zimmel
Coverage was featured in local media as well as in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Arizona Republic, Business Week, and Canadian Press. Visit www.sph.umn.edu/news to read more about SPH faculty in the news and find links to the complete stories, or e-mail SPHNews@umn.edu to request hard copies of the stories.
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Faculty News
Lynn Blewett and Mike Davern authored a paper on the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) that is published in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. "Distributing State Children's Health Insurance Program Funds: A Critical Review of the Design and Implementation of the Funding Formula," discusses the formula used for distributing funding to states, a topic that is highly pertinent right now as legislators vote to reauthorize the program this year. Reprints are available by calling 4-4802 or e-mailing shadac@umn.edu.
Na Li, Kim Robien, and Baolin Wu have completed a year of participation in the Early Career Learning Community, sponsored by the University's Center for Teaching and Learning. The early career program gives faculty an opportunity to explore new instructional strategies, share insights and ideas with colleagues, and apply their knowledge in their courses.
Robert Town now holds the James A. Hamilton Professorship of Health Economics, effective July 1.
Donald Vesley was unanimously elected as Honorary Diplomate in the American Academy of Sanitarians (www.sanitarians.org). He’s the second person to be awarded this honor. He will be recognized and his name will be on display at the organization’s annual meeting, which is held in conjunction with the National Environmental Health Association annual conference.
Which community members have you worked with this past academic year, who helped enrich the SPH student experience? Whether you collaborated on a project or brought someone in as a guest lecturer, please invite your community partners to SPH's annual Community Partner event taking place on Thursday, Sept. 20. Forward the names (and any contact information you have) for your community partners to Michelle Lian-Anderson at liana001@umn.edu. Deadline: Aug. 10.
Call for proposals. The Center for Teaching and Learning Services will fund grants of $2,500 for projects that address aspects of multicultural teaching and learning in courses, programs, or departments. Instructors who are tenured and tenure-track faculty, professional and administrative educational staff, and full-time adjunct/lecturer instructors are invited to submit proposals for these grants. Deadline: July 17.
• Download the RFP /view projects pursued by previous fellows
Faculty volunteers needed for the SPH booth at the Minnesota State Fair. Raise public awareness about public health, inform hundreds of Minnesotans about your research, recruit individuals for a study, and have fun to boot at the Minnesota State Fair. The Dean's Office will support your efforts by offering creative ideas for approaching fairgoers (infectious disease trivia, anyone?), creating memorable literature and handouts (how about nutrition facts on a stick?), and/or purchasing fun trinket items (improve indoor air quality by planting SPH forget-me-not seeds). Bonus: Free tickets to the fair and a free T-shirt for all booth volunteers. SPH day at the fair will be Tuesday, Aug. 28. For more information, please contact Michelle Lian-Anderson at liana001@umn.edu.
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Student News
SPH students are blogging about their international field experiences. To read entries posted from around the world, go to: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/sphpod/notes07/.
CHE student Isaiah Brokenleg and SPH intern Andrew Ranallo presented at the Indian Health Service Research Conference in Phoenix. They presented on the American Indian Community Tobacco Project, which is directed by SPH professor Jean Forster.
Jim Winkle, a graduate student in public health, explores the debate of the Sex Ed and the State in his debut documentary that follows the progress of a comprehensive sex education bill through Minnesota's legislature during the 2006 session. In the film, Minnesota lawmakers, advocates, opponents, educators and others debate the best strategy to fight adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. The documentary was shown June 7 at Oak St. Cinema. See the City Pages review at: http://www.citypages.com/movies/detail.asp?MID=9030.
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School News
Public Health Moments from June include SPH faculty talking about topics such as summer food safety, prostate cancer screening, and seat belts. Listen here: blog.lib.umn.edu/sphpod/moment/.
The SPH Center for Public Health Preparedness (CPHP) has released "Disaster in Franklin County: A Public Health Simulation." In this free online training tool the learner will assume the perspective of various public health professionals responding to a natural disaster. They will make decisions on behalf of a county public health director, a public health nurse, an environmental health specialist, and other public health professionals.
• Learn more online
Does a high glycemic index diet increase risk of colorectal cancer? See what SPH assistant professor Andrew Flood says about it in SPH Research Brief at www.sph.umn.edu/brief.
Integrated Health Interview Series (IHIS) data released. The Integrated Health Interview Series (IHIS) is a set of data based on the public use files of the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), the richest source of data on health and health care for the U.S. population from 1963 to the present. IHIS is a five-year funded collaboration of the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC) in the SPH and the Minnesota Population Center, a University-wide interdisciplinary cooperative for demographic research. The data release was announced on June 20 by Pamela Johnson, SHADAC research associate at the 40th Annual Meeting of the Society for Epidemiologic Research, held in Boston. SPH assistant professor Mike Davern, SHADAC research director, also announced the release at the National Health Interview Survey's 50th Anniversary Commemorative Conference, held June 25 in Maryland.
• View their presentations
Meet the SPH Alumni Society Board. This group of 15 individuals, whose graduation years span a 35-year timeframe and cross numerous majors, will be the conduit that connects alumni with students, staff and faculty, the University of Minnesota community, and community partners. The 2007-2008 SPH Alumni Board members are:
James G. Anderson
Judy Beniak, president
Amos Deinard
Mary Hunt
Cynthia Kenyon
Cecilia Kramer
An Liu
Linda Olson Keller
Richard Person
Brigid Riley, president-elect
Mary Sheehan
Michael Trujillo
Gizaw Tsehai
Gita Uppal
Brenna Vuong, secretary
SPH Student Senate Representative: Stephanie Ball
• Learn more online
Presentations from the joint symposium of the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) and the Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) are now available online. "Partnerships for Preparedness: Future Directions for Schools of Public Health and Colleges of Veterinary Medicine" focused on how these two fields can partner on research, education, policy, and workforce training. SPH faculty were well represented at the meeting. Deb Olson and Will Hueston presented in a session on joint degree programs, Marguerite Pappaioanou presented on both workforce training and avian influenza, and John Finnegan participated in a discussion on future directions of the field.
• View the presentations
Kirk Allison, director of the Program in Human Rights and Health, spoke at the Universities of Chicago and Wisconsin in May on organ harvesting, transplantation and human rights in China. In June he participated in a related discussion on "A Public Affair" (89.9 FM WORT, Madison,Wisconsin) with Erping Zhang, and spoke in Minneapolis at Fredrikson & Byron, PA, on the nexus of health and human rights in a session titled "Challenged to Provide Health Care for All" for the series “Respect for Human Rights in the US: The Challenge of the 21st Century,” cosponsored by Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights.
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SPH Events & Courses
Summer Public Health Mini-Institute: July 17-27, Bismarck, North Dakota. The Summer Public Health Mini-Institute provides students with a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in a chosen field of study -- for a single course or for two weeks. Courses are designed for those practicing or studying in public health or related fields.
• Learn more online
The National Maternal Nutrition Intensive Course will be held July 25-27 in the Cowles Auditorium at the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute. This continuing education program focuses on the improvement of maternal and infant health through the delivery of risk-appropriate, high-quality nutrition services.
• Learn more/register online
Functional Exercises will be held August 7-8 at the Ramada Minneapolis Northwest in Brooklyn Park. Step-by-Step Functional Exercises Design from Concept to After Action Report/Improvement Plan. Whether you are working with a consultant or designing your own exercise, you need to be aware of how a functional exercise is developed, constructed, and evaluated using Homeland Security Exercise Evaluation Program guidelines. The course is free of charge, however early registration is recommended due to limited space.
• Learn more online
UPCOMING CPHEO COURSES
July 12: Incident Management Systems Awareness
August 9: 8 Hour Hazardous Materials Emergency Response Refresher
• Learn more/register
Other Events
The Grant Institute: Certificate in Professional Program Development and Grant Communication will be held at Northwestern University July 9 through July 13. All participants will receive certification in professional grant writing from the Institute, as well as 3.5 CEU units.
• Learn more online or call
(888) 824-4424
Early-bird registration and a call for abstracts for the Unite for Sight Fifth Annual International Health Conference: Building Global Health for Today and Tomorrow is July 15. The conference will be held at Yale University in April 2008.
• Learn more online
The U's Center for German & European Studies will host Germany's minister of health and her delegation for a two-day trans-Atlantic forum. The American and German "Healthcare and Innovation" forum will be held on Monday, July 16 and Tuesday, July 17.
• Learn more/register online
A professional grant proposal writing workshop will be held in August at North Dakota State University. The Grant Institute's Grants 101: Professional Grant Proposal Writing Workshop will be held August 1 - 3.
• Learn more online or call (888) 824-4424
Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is sponsoring an educational event in Minneapolis' Loring Park from Sept. 27-Sept. 30. The event, "A Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City" is an outdoor, interactive educational exhibit made up of the actual structures and materials you would find in a real refugee camp. The exhibit asks visitors to imagine experiencing what it is like to be one of the world's 33 million refugees or internally displaced persons forced to leave their homes because of war or conflict. The exhibit is free and open to the public.
• Learn more online
Save the date! Make plans to attend the capstone event of Minnesota Public Health Association’s year-long centennial celebration. Famed environmentalist and explorer Will Steger will be the keynote speaker at the Oct. 25 event held at the McNamara Alumni Center.
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• Events on the AHC Web Site
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Last modified on Friday Jun 29, 2007