SPH News Nov. 26, 2007
SPH News is a school-wide electronic newsletter distributed to SPH faculty and staff every other week during the school year. Please send news items to SPHNews@umn.edu. The deadline for submission for the Dec. 10 issue is 9 a.m. on Dec. 5.
Research News
Primary Investigator |
Project Title |
Award Amount |
Funding Agency |
Jon Christianson |
Regional Market Pilot Initiative: Aligning Forces for Quality
|
$18,162
|
Pennsylvania State Univ. |
Lois Cutler |
State Regulatory Trends and Evidence for Nursing Home Construction Standards
|
$32,340 |
The Amer Inst of Architects |
Ellen Demerath |
The Genetics of Infant Growth and Later Obesity
|
$355,694 |
NIH National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
|
Sue Duval |
Minneapolis Heart Institute Data Analyst Assistance |
$22,509 |
Mpls Heart Inst Fdn
|
James Hart |
North Central Public Health Leadership Institute
|
$52,209
|
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) |
Rhonda Jones-Webb |
Policies to Restrict High Alcohol Content Beverages
|
$446,805
|
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) |
Jeffrey Mandel |
Health Evaluation of Taconite Workers |
$81,000 |
Mn Dept of Health |
Jeffrey McCullough |
The Financial and Clinical Efficacy of Mirena in State Medicaid Programs: An Investigation of Cost-Offsets Derived From the Effect of Mirena on Pregnancy Prevention |
$15,500 |
Med Univ of South Carolina |
Sarah Rybicki |
Minnesota Statewide HIV Adherence Network Pilot
|
$80,000 |
Mn Dept of Human Svc
|
Robert Kane |
Minnesota Area Geriatric Education Center
|
$432,000
|
HRSA Health RSRC and Svc Admin
|
Robert Kane |
Shared Decision Making for LTC: Pilot Phase
|
$80,724
|
Retirement Res Fdn
|
Rosalie Kane |
Small-Nursing Homes and Alzheimer's Disease |
$239,992 |
Alzheimer's Assn
|
Jose Suarez |
Effects of Secondary Occupational Pesticide Exposure on Childhood Growth and Neurobehavioral Development
|
$37,800 |
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) |
Nancy Sherwood |
Food, Attitudes, and Body (FAB) Study
|
$180,346
|
University of California, San Diego
|
Bill Toscano |
Reducing Waste from Medical Device Manufacturing
|
$51,782 |
Environmental Health Sciences
|
Faculty News
J. Michael Oakes has been named a McKnight Presidential Fellow by the University of Minnesota. The fellowship program is for the most promising faculty who have been newly granted tenure and promotion to associate professor, to recognize their accomplishments and support their ongoing research and scholarship.
The SPH Fall Semester Faculty Meeting is scheduled for Thursday, Dec. 13, in room 3-100 Mayo. Refreshments will be available beginning at 8:45 a.m. and the meeting begins at 9 a.m. An agenda will be sent in advance of the meeting. A brief meeting of Tenured Faculty (P) for Voting on Promotions/Tenure will be held immediately after the semester faculty meeting. Parking for these meetings will be validated for the Washington Avenue Ramp or East River Road Garage. Bring the ticket to be validated.
Kirk Allison presented on stem cell politics and Minnesota physicians’ attitudes toward three health care financing systems and chaired a session on research ethics at the annual American Public Health Association meeting earlier this month. He also presented at the University of Hawaii on organ transplantation and human rights in China in October.
School News
The "Barry Bonds" of Turkeys. Richard Portnoy's quest to find and prepare a 72-pound turkey made local and national news this weekend. Portnoy, an administrator in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, was driven to win a family competition on who could cook the biggest bird.
• Read the Star Tribune article
Violence Against Teachers in Minnesota is the topic of the November issue of Research Brief. SPH professor Susan Goodwin Gerberich discusses her study of the magnitude and consequences of physical and non-physical threats to elementary and secondary teachers.
• Read the brief
The NIH is reminding health professionals engaged in biomedical and behavioral research to apply online for a loan repayment award before the upcoming annual deadline Saturday, Dec. 1. NIH will repay up to $35,000 annually of qualified educational debt for health professionals pursuing careers in one of the five Loan Repayment Programs (LRPs): Clinical, Pediatric, Health Disparities, Contraception and Infertility, and Clinical Research for Individuals from Disadvantaged Background.
Learn more/access application Questions? Call 1-866-849-4047 or e-mail lrp@nih.gov.
SPH Match Game at the All-School Winter Reception. On Thursday, Dec. 13, the SPH will host the All-School Winter Reception at the Weisman Art Museum. During the festivities, the Match Game will be played (based on the popular 1970s game show). The panel will be made up of faculty, staff and students with the audience helping the contestants. Everyone's help is needed to have a fun and exciting SPH Match Game so please submit fill-in-the-blank questions that are either public health or SPH-related to www.sph.umn.edu/matchgame by Thursday, Dec. 6. Most questions will be used for the game. One lucky question-maker will receive a SPH gift package. For more information, go to www.sph.umn.edu/matchgame or contact Nichole Marthaler at 6-9303 or mart1047@umn.edu.
Health policy and the presidential election, rural emergency room staffing challenges, and the health benefits of coffee are the topics of the latest installments of Public Health Moment.
• Listen to Public Health Moment
SPH Events & Courses
The Hennepin-University Partnership present on the 2006 SHAPE Survey by the SPH and Hennepin County, with opening comments by Dean John Finnegan and Todd Monson, Hennepin County Public Health division director. This meeting is being offered to increase interest in possible research initiatives and student projects using SHAPE data and to provide information about how to access the data. The meeting will be held Tuesday, Nov. 27, 1:30 to 3 p.m., in Mayo D-199. SHAPE 2006 is the third in a series of nationally recognized surveys collecting information on the health of Hennepin County, Minnesota residents, and the factors that affect their health.
• Learn more online Register by writing to BIEL0032@umn.edu.
Yanni Zhu, a masters candidate in biostatistics, will discuss, "Identifying the Association between SNPs and Acute Rejection in Kidney Transplant Recipients: A Comparison of Logistic Regression and Logic Regression." The Plan B presentation begins at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 27, in A434 Mayo. Refreshments will be served prior to the presentation.
"Analysis of Recurrent Event Data Under the Case-crossover Design with Applications to Elderly Falls," will be the topic of a seminar presented by Xianghua Luo. The seminar will be held Wednesday Nov. 28 at 3:30 p.m. in 1-450G MoosT. A social tea will be held at 3 p.m. in A434 Mayo. All are welcome.
• Learn more online or call 4-4655
“Unbiased Estimation of Rates of Decline of CD4+ Cell Counts in the Presence of Censoring,” is the topic of Qi Wang’s Plan B presentation scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 30. the presentation will be held in A434 Mayo. Refreshments will be served prior to the presentation.
MPH students interested in pursuing an Interdisciplinary Concentration Area are invited to attend an information session on Friday, Nov. 30 from 9 to 11 a.m. in 1250 Mayo. There will be presentations, discussion, time for questions and treats. The SPH offers four interdisciplinary concentration areas for MPH students -- Complementary and Alternative Medicine; Global Health; Health Disparities; and Public Health Policy.
• Learn more online
Register online for the SPH All-School Winter Reception and "Be Sweet to Yourself." The reception is Thursday, Dec. 13, 2:15-4:30 p.m., at the Weisman Art Museum. Register at www.sph.umn.edu/reception/ by Thursday, Dec. 6. Questions? Contact Nichole Marthaler at mart1047@umn.edu or 6-9303.
• View the poster!
Dana Goldman will present "The Cost of Quality Improvement" on Dec. 13, 1:30 to 3 p.m., in A110 Mayo. The relationship between quality and costs in hospitals is important yet not well understood. Goldman, who holds the RAND Chair in Health Economics at UCLA, will shed some light. The seminar is free and open to the public. Questions? Call 4-6151.
Save the Date: Kick-off event for the launch of the National Children’s Study, Ramsey County Location. The event will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 16. at the McNamara Alumni Center and will provide information about the study and serve as an occasion to get acquainted. Members of the study’s Community Advisory Board, the Investigator Advisory Board, Research Team and other supporters will attend. Call Pat McGovern for questions at 5-7429.
CPHEO Announcements
Upcoming CPHEO Courses
Respiratory Illness in Animal Feeding Operation Workers—90 minute presentation – will be held on Tuesday Dec. 18 from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at Rice Memorial Hospital. Dr. Steven Kirkhorn will present on the health effects of workers in confined animal feeding operations. To register, please contact Carol Gerlach at 320-564-5015 or carol.gerlach@mnwest.edu
Evacuation Coordination Train the Trainer will be held on Thursday, Jan. 17. For more information and registration visit http://cpheo.sph.umn.edu/niehs
A public health emergency training on isolation and quarantine examines the concepts and history of isolation and quarantine, and explains when and how these restrictions are used in a public health context.
• Learn more online
• 8-Hour Emergency Response Refresher, Dec. 6
• View a detailed course listing
• Register online
Other Events
Representatives from Velos will meet with AHC investigators on Tuesday, Dec. 4 from 1 to 2:30 p.m. to conduct a series of demonstrations and discussions about their eResearch software for clinical data management. This software is similar to the “Enterprise Research Management” version of Oncore from PrecipEnz Technologies currently used by the Cancer Center. The session will be held in the conference room 105 at 717 Delaware St. S.E.
• Learn more about Velos