137th Annual APHA Meeting, New PBRN Sites, Public Health Law & PHSSR Conference
Filed under: APHA, Accreditation, Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness & Emergency Response, Finance, HSR Special Issue, Health Services Research (HSR), Keeneland Conference, PBRN, PHSSR Grants, Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB), Public Health Workforce, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Workforce
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
Well, time to put up a post-APHA blog entry. During the recent meeting in Philadelphia, the PHSSR team was very busy. The team members were responsible for several oral and poster presentations. We are posting all of the available presentations on the website, so that if you didn’t make it to the session you can download a copy for review. All three areas of PHSSR: The Center, Practice Based Research Networks and Public Health Finance were well represented at the 137th Annual APHA Meeting. Dr. Peggy Honoré presented on the use of financial ratios to help with public health department finance, which resulted in a spike in the number of download requests for the Ratio Analysis Spreadsheet and related materials. Interest in public health finance is growing thanks to Dr. Honoré’s tireless efforts.
Professor Scott Burris
Professor Scott Burris, who runs the National Program Office of the RWJF Public Health Law Research (PHLR), took time out of his busy schedule to meet with us. Our meeting was very productive and as a result, he and his staff are planning to attend the 2010 PHSSR Keeneland Conference. The conference would be a great place for some of the PHLR grantees to meet one another and also hold a scientific session to discuss the invaluable role public health law plays in PHSSR. We talked about public health infrastructure law and touched on the possibility of writing a joint manuscript on the issue. Professor Burris was a fine choice to head up the PHLR National Program Office. His thoughts about PHLR and the recent APHA sessions are available as a podcast via RWJF’s website.
Drs. Jim Marks, Michelle Larkin and Debra Pérez from RWJF hosted a reception on for the people involved in their public health team. Close to 100 people attended the three-hour reception. I was able to touch base with so many of my public health colleagues and distribute several copies of the special PHSSR issue of the HSR Journal. Dr. Kyu Rhee, the Chief of Public Health at Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), was there and we had a great conversation covering several important issues such as public health workforce enumeration. At the present time, Dr. Rhee is scheduled to be one of the keynote speakers at the 2010 PHSSR Keeneland Conference in April.
The PHSSR team also set up a booth in the exhibit hall during the course of the show. Researchers interested in funding opportunities, practitioners interested in the new PBRN sites and a select group of policymakers interested in the special issue of the HSR journal dedicated to PHSSR visited the exhibit booth. As mentioned above, our Call for Proposals is now open until January 14, 2010. Interested applicants should click the link above and apply online. If you are junior faculty or need support for your dissertation, we encourage you to apply. 
Scutch with Drs. Paul Erwin, Danielle Varda, Dorothy Cilenti and William Mase (L-R)
The Center for PHSSR held a session at APHA moderated by Dr. Bud Nicola to shine a spotlight on the work being done by four of our mini-grantees, Paul C. Erwin, Danielle Varda, Dorothy Cilenti and William Mase, and one of our doctoral research assistants, Tourette Jackson. Full presentations and abstracts are available on our website via our Events tab or by clicking here.
Several of Dr. Glen Mays’ presentations made news, which included the late-breaking session oral presentation that accredited health departments did a good job of H1N1 management. His podcast from APHA is also available online. The Kentucky PBRN, KPHReN, team members Dr. Dearinger, Sarah Wilding and Alex Howard gave a presentation on the lack of communication between health departments, pharmacies and primary care physicians during the early 2009 H1N1 outbreak. Dr. Mays also announced the seven new PBRNs:
· Ohio PBRN – Matthew Stefanak of Mahoning County Department of Health and Scott Frank of Case Western Reserve University will serve as co-principal investigators.
· Florida PBRN – Bill Livingood and Nancy Winterbauer of the Duval County Health Department will serve as co-principal investigators.
· Minnesota PBRN – Debra Burns and Kimberly Gearin of the Minnesota Department of Health will serve as co-principal investigators.
· Nebraska PBRN – David Palm of the Nebraska Division of Public Health and Li Wu Chen of the University of Nebraska Medical Center will serve as co-principal investigators.
· Connecticut PBRN – Jennifer Kertanis of the Connecticut Association of Directors of Health and Elaine O’Keefe of Yale University will serve as co-principal investigators.
· New York PBRN – Sylvia Pirani of the New York Department of Health and Sandra McGinnis of the University of Albany will serve as co-principal investigators.
I stayed on through the remainder of the week to attend the PHAB Board Annual Dinner and Board meeting. Congrats to Dr. Judy Monroe who was elected Chair-Elect of the Board. She will replace Dr. Bill Riley who served during the interim after Dr. Paul Halverson stepped down as Board Chair. We are all quite pleased that the beta test of the PHAB standards and process is off and running. We look forward to hosting the PHAB Research and Evaluation Committee and the Executive Committee during the Keeneland Conference and have blocked time for a scientific session dedicated to accreditation. Dr. Kaye Bender has done a spectacular job keeping PHAB moving forward. Kudos also to members of the Board for chairing key committees, such as Dr. Bud Nicola with the Beta Test Committee and Dr. Judy Monroe with the Finance Committee.
Save-The-Date, Today!!! The 2010 PHSSR Keeneland Conference is approaching quickly. Planning has begun and rooms can be reserved online now. Registration will open in early January, but the Call for Abstracts has been extended until Thursday, January 7th, 2010. We anticipate a crowd of over 300 this year. Not only are the scientific sessions tentatively penciled in for Wednesday, but also the ancillary meetings scheduled for Tuesday morning, include our colleagues in the preparedness centers, our public health workforce advisory committee and the PBRN advisory committee. Don’t forget to put it on your calendars today and make plans to attend.
Scutch
HSR Special Issue Dedicated to PHSSR, Funding Opportunities and 2009 APHA Meeting
Filed under: APHA, AcademyHealth, HSR Special Issue, Health Services Research (HSR), PBRN, PHSSR Grants, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Yale PHSSR
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
The beginning of the academic year is upon us all. I know that many of you in academia are incredibly busy with students back; we certainly are.
A few things have happened that you should know about in the PHSSR community. First, during the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting in Chicago, Dr. Paul Cleary, Dean of Public Health at Yale, had a panel on PHSSR, which focused on the interface between practice and research. A copy of the précis of that panel is available from Dr. Cleary’s office- email Tara Liptak at tara.liptak@yale.edu. I believe many of you will find the panel discussions and conclusions interesting, particularly as much of the discussion revolved around the need for a mechanism to increase and improve evidence-based practice of public health.
Secondly, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation released their Call for Proposals for PHSSR. This solicitation is being run by the National Network of Public Health Institutes, and full details are available on their website: www.nnphi.org/phssr. They will be holding a web conference on Thursday, September 3, 2009 at 1:30 p.m., ET. This is an excellent opportunity to attain financial support for PHSSR related projects, and I would encourage those of you who are interested to participate in the teleconference and review the website carefully.
I am particularly excited to announce that the special PHSSR issue of HSR is now available on the web. An early view will be available online until the end of September at http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120120473/issue. The papers have been assigned DOI numbers, so they are fully citable. We hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to review those that may be of particular interest to you. A couple will be available on our website in full text as “teasers”, so watch for those. My appreciation goes out to RWJF who funded the issues, and to Dr. Nicole Lurie who served as co-editor with me on the issue. I also want to thank the leadership of HSR for their foresight in helping us publish this special issue.It should provoke, we hope, interest in the field and prompt more submissions for the RWJF funding mentioned above.
Some quick response money was released to the existing public health Practice Based Research Networks to act quickly to explore the early summer/late spring outbreak of H1N1 flu. The money is intended to promote efforts to uncover any problems departments encountered during the first round, and to uncover possible solutions that can be put in place before the fall flu season begins. Drs. Angela Dearinger and Glen Mays have both been working closely on that project with the members of the PBRNs. In addition, the final selection of the 10 new PBRNs has been completed, and we should know more about the new sites in September. Full details of the funded sites will be available on the PBRN section of our website at www.publichealthsystems.org/PBRN.
Many of you attended the ARM and Public Health Systems Interest Group at AcademyHealth this past June. Several things discussed during those sessions may be of particular interest to you. First, a draft of a PHSSR monograph on needs assessment was released at that meeting. The draft of the monograph is available online or through Megan Ix at AcademyHealth for those who would like to read it. In addition, some of the advisory committee meetings suggested creating subgroup discussions about PHSSR activities and opportunities. Megan has in mind a conference call followed by some additional activities in four areas of concern: Information Sharing, PBRNs and practice/research interface, outcomes research and sustainability. If anyone is interested, contact Megan Ix at AcademyHealth, megan.ix@academyhealth.org.
APHA 2009
Stay tuned for the next blog post where there I will be notifying you about a bunch of PHSSR sessions at APHA. The Center will be in booth #1153 near the CDC exhibit. Please make a point to stop by and pick up some of our new materials. Click here to view an interactive floor plan of the Exhibit Hall planned for the 2009 APHA Conference in Philadelphia.
Scutch
AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting, NALBOH and PHSSR EndNote Library
Filed under: AcademyHealth, Keeneland Conference, NACCHO, NALBOH, PHSSR Grants, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
The 2009 AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting and the PHSSR Special Interest Group Sessions have come and gone. PHSSR had a great presence at meeting. AcademyHealth scheduled several PHSSR panels during the regular sessions and then the Special Interest Group held meetings during the Tuesday and Wednesday at the end. Wednesday’s session was dedicated to PHSSR Methods, Data and Research Questions. The Center staff had several oral presentations and posters accepted for both the meeting and the special sessions.
Many of you are aware that we award mini-grants to do dissertation research and provide some start up for junior faculty members. We have given out 27 mini-grants, 7 this year. We are so proud of our recipients. Dr. Danielle Varda was awarded the 2009 Article of the Year during the AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting PHSSR Special Interest Group Session. At this meeting, one of our mini-grantees, Natalie Privett was also a PHSSR Student Scholarship recipient during the Interest Group Poster program. Congrats to both of these excellent scholars. PHSSR mini-grantees also had posters and oral presentations at the meeting and interest group session:
· POSTERS
o George Avery, Ph.D., M.P.A.-Medical Civic Acton: Using Health Policy to Stabilize Failing Nations
o Erin Carlson, M.P.H.-An Examination of Insurance Status Across Race, Ethnicity & Hispanic Nativity in Predicting Emergency Department Utilization
o Tamar Klaiman, Ph.D., M.P.H.-State Health Department Structure’s Impact on Pandemic Preparedness
o William Mase, Dr.P.H., M.P.H.-Employee Trust as a Proxy Measure for Workforce QI Initiatives
o Natalie Privett, Ph.D., B.S.-Investigating the Effect of Partnerships on Local Public Health Agencies
o Hector Rodriguez, Ph.D., M.P.H.-The Reliability of Profiling Medical Group Performance on Clinical Quality Measures
· ORAL PRESENTATIONS
o Erin Carlson, M.P.H.-Frequent Emergency Department Users: A Comparison of U.S.-Born to Foreign-Born Patients by Race & Ethnicity
o Paul Campbell Erwin, M.D., M.P.H.-Measuring Change in Health Outcomes Over Time: A Comparison of Three Methods
Center staff also had 5 posters and several oral presentations during the special interest group, including one by yours truly. These materials will be available on our website for download, too.
Drs. Dana Patton and Jeff Jones from the Center attended the NALBOH meeting. They, along with the Deputy Director of NALBOH, Dr. Chuck Moon, presented the early data from the 2008 NALBOH survey. Both Drs. Patton and Jones reported the NALBOH session was well attended and the content was on target. They both were pleased to finally be working with the NALBOH data. The new NALBOH survey is the first out of the chute to be “harmonized” with the new NACCHO and ASTHO
As you read this blog, be aware we have over 900 folks on in our email database, of those 300 have signed up to become members of the online PHSSR community. In the last year, the site has had over 11,000 daily visitors. One of the best online resources for researchers is our PHSSR EndNote reference library. The library has close to 500 references for researchers to cite in their papers. The two best ways to stay informed on PHSSR events is to join the community and follow this blog.
I have it on good authority that the NNPHI will be doing a call for the new PHSSR RWJF proposal in August. It is likely to be posted on our website, as well as theirs, so keep up with our newsletters and blogs. This is the annual call for new 2 year $200,000 grants for PHSSR. We are also continuing to plan for the 2010 PHSSR Keeneland Conference. Put it on your calendar now, April 20-22, 2010 in Lexington, Kentucky.
Scutch
New CDC Director, H1N1 and Upcoming Meetings
Filed under: AcademyHealth, CDC, COTPER, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness & Emergency Response, HSR Special Issue, Health Services Research (HSR), Keeneland Conference, Office of the Chief of Public Health Practice, PBRN, Public Health Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), TRAIN, The White House, TrainingFinder Real-time Affiliate Integrated Network
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
Well, the PHSSR team has mostly recovered from the 2009 Keeneland Conference. 
Since we are committed to quality improvement, we want evaluations from those of you who attended. Please take a moment to complete the online survey. I encourage you to ’save-the-date’ now for the 2010 Conference, also. Keeneland will be a little later in April next year; we have it slated for April 20-22, 2010. These days do not conflict with Passover, Easter, Public Health Week or spring break. Mark your calendar now and make sure to subscribe to our mailing list for future updates
Many of you have asked me about the Preakness. Yes, I did have the winner. She won the Oaks with such élan that was impossible not to bet on her. My choice was not a particularly difficult one, considering the jockey, Calvin Borel, who won both the Oaks and Derby went with Rachel Alexander. I do hope you watched the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby. I didn’t pick the winner that day, but wish I had!
The H1N1Flu (Swine Flu) outbreakhas made life interesting. Dr. Glen Mays and I both feel that using the public health practice based research networks (PBRNs) might prove to be a cost effective way to evaluate the results of flu pandemic planning currently in place. We have drafted a brief protocol and have distributed it to organizations interested in funding the research. The intended use of a PBRN is to effectively collect data to provide to practitioners and researchers. Hopefully, funding can be found to support further development of the network.
Dr. Thomas Frieden
All are now aware of the appointment of Dr. Thomas Frieden as Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director. No one is quite sure of where he stands on issues related to PHSSR. We do know that he has the tools and background to understand using evidence and science to drive decision-making. He was with the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) and gained international experience while running a major agency. We welcome him to the job and hope that he will have the opportunity to learn about PHSSR. Many of his units are using these new research tools to evaluate program issues. As most know, both Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness & Emergency Response (COTPER) and the Office of Workforce and Career Development (OWCD) have been linked to efforts in PHSSR, to join forces with the work being done by the Office of the Chief of Public Health Practice (OCPHP).
Dr. Nicole Lurie
I also welcome Dr. Nicole Lurie to the role of Assistant Secretary for Preparedness. She understands the importance of PHSSR and served as co-editor with me on the supplement of special issue of Health Service Research. My guess is that she has not yet been provided a phone or an office, so we haven’t shopped the PBRN proposal to her yet! The supplement is almost complete. We are waiting on one final review and commentary to open the issue. The manuscripts are impressive, as are the commentaries. We appreciate the support of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in putting together this issue, too. I believe it will prove that PHSSR has arrived as a real scientific discipline and has earned credibility in the broader HSR community.
The National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) meeting in New Orleans was good. Many of you are aware that NNPHI will be issuing a call for proposals for grants related to PHSSR. We spent valuable time with our colleagues, helping them firm up details for the call. We are committed to being as helpful as we can to make sure that the members of our online PHSSR community are aware of their efforts. Our experience with the oversight of the RWJF mini-grants may be useful to them. We also visited with Ron Bialek, from the Public Health Foundation, in New Orleans, about TrainingFinder Real-time Affiliate Integrated Network (TRAIN). There is some incredible potential data to come from this database and we continue to explore how best to mine the data.
Speaking of meetings, AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting and the PHSR Special Interest Group meeting is on our calendars from June 28-30, 2009 at the Hilton Chicago. Looks like a great program, both for public health related materials presented at the main ARM meeting as well as the Special Interest Group. Our PHSSR team has several posters and a presentation or two on the program. We will be exhibiting at booth #317, please make sure to stop by and say hello. This is always a great meeting, with so many good presentations and programs. Hats off to Kate Papa and Megan Ix for their fine work with AcademyHealth, thanks ladies for all you do for the field!
Well, more blog entries to come. Summer is a bit more relaxed. Maybe we can get some of the manuscripts written and out the door. Sometimes, the administrative work causes us to lose sight of the need to write up the research we are presenting. But, it is on the agenda. Be well, stay in touch with us here at the Center for PHSSR.
Scutch
2009 PHSSR Keeneland Conference A Success!
Filed under: Accreditation, Keeneland Conference, PBRN, PHAB, Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB), Public Health Textbooks, Public Health Workforce, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), University of Arkansas for Medical Science, Workforce
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
Well, another Keeneland Conference has come and gone. We will be posting an online survey on the website so we can get feedback from you, so please take a moment to share your thoughts. The UK Center for Public Health Systems & Services Research team will be taking a well-deserved breather to catch up with work and update the website with conference highlights, materials and presentations. Downloads of the materials are available at www.keenelandconference.org or by clicking the green USB drive at the right, make sure you check it out!
Michelle Larkin, J.D., the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Public Health Team Leader was a hit; her talk was inspirational and is posted on both the RWJF and PHSSR websites. She certainly challenged those of us in public health to take advantage of a once in a lifetime opportunity. With the new political administration and leadership, we have an open window to move in several areas and get our work in front of the public eye. I believe she once again reiterated the support and encouragement that RWJF is providing. Even with the corpus of their endowment in same place as my 401(k), they stand by their commitment to making an investment in public health. They still believe, fervently, that this commitment will make a difference in the health status of our nation. The Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) is a classic example of that continued commitment and a stake in the ground in our effort to improve public health. It is up to those of us in vineyards to provide the brains needed to power this effort.
Debra Perez, Ph.D., Senior Project Officer at RWJF and our visionary leader in PHSSR did a wonderful job at the lunch plenary tracing the past, present and future of the field. Her chronology of how we got here, why and where we are going was a tour-de-force of the PHSSR trail. She spoke of RWJF’s continuing commitment to PHSSR and announced that the National Network of Public Health Institutes (NNPHI) will lead the new round of funding proposals in PHSSR. NNPHI will issue a Call for Proposals in the early part of Summer 2009, so put on your thinking cap! She finished with a challenge by quoting a line from the textbook Dr. Bill Keck and I wrote, Principles of Public Health Practice, regarding the future of public health and PHSSR. That was spontaneous; we didn’t pay her for the commercial, but do appreciate it.
Plenary presentations by Carolyn Clancy, M.D., and Steve Schoenbaum, M.D., were very well received and prompted a lot of discussion throughout the conference, especially during Thursday morning’s roundtable session about how PHSSR can relate to the notions both of the stimulus funding and the new efforts at health systems reform.
Many stated that they thought the scientific presentations this year were excellent. Most know that Glen Mays, Ph.D., has suggested that we are beginning to move from observational studies to more inferential work. I think that was more in evidence this year, reflecting a maturity of the discipline. I believe both the mini-grantees’ presentations and contributed papers reflect that development.
Another delightful development is the broadening of the circle surrounding PHSSR to include other public health entities interested in collaborating with our team. Our colleagues at the preparedness centers have recognized the importance of PHSSR to their efforts to enhance our preparedness activities. The practice based research networks and their advisory committee were very involved in the meeting this year, bringing the academic/practice partnership to the meeting in a major way. The meetings of both the Data Harmonization Work Group and the Advisory Panel to our Center of Excellence in Public Health Workforce Research and Policy were incredibly productive. We will be posting some of the results of our efforts on the website, so join the PHSSR community to make sure you receive the email updates.
Well, the ponies ran true to form. The big winners, I believe, belonged to Michael Caldwell’s family. Michael traveled with his family to Kentucky for their spring vacation. In addition to catching a Cincinnati Reds baseball game, rumor has it that his daughter’s picks at Keeneland were among the best going. I broke even, which is a good day for me. We had sunny skies, temperatures in the mid-60’s and our seats were on the finish line. I noticed that there were several folks who enjoyed Keeneland’s prize bread pudding which is soaked in a special Maker’s Mark Bourbon Sauce.
We are already planning next year’s Keeneland Conference. We and our colleagues at RWJF will both be debriefing this next week or so and will be getting the word out about next year. I suspect it will be bigger and better! We had nearly 300 people this year, double the number in attendance in 2008, and look forward to 2010 to being even better!
Scutch
Board of Education vs. Board of Health
Filed under: CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Community Health Status Indicators, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
The recent 20/20 presentation on Appalachian Kentucky has created the usual stories and editorials in the media. There is a problem with many of the thoughts and ideas provoked by the TV show. Generally, with these sorts of Appalachia eruptions, there is a call to action to work on some major health problem in the hills. There is a concern about diabetes, tobacco use, drug abuse, oral health, obesity, and so on. This is bolstered by a litany of statistics about how bad things are. And then there is the call to address whatever problem seems to be the most pressing. Frequently it is not a specific program or treatment prescribed but the notion that “something must be done about (you name it)”. Or, conversely, the notion is “we need to educate the children”, a remedy that for health behavioral problems has not been very successful.
Unfortunately, each problem is seen as independent of each other and unrelated. That is simply not the case. These problems are not only related but have common pathways and antecedents. There is a common pathway to disease and death. Tracing it backwards, it begins with the disease, then to the risk factor or behavior that is “bad”, tobacco for lung disease, or junk food and lack of exercise for obesity. However, it is imperative if you are going to do something and be successful with an intervention, you need to look for the problem behind the problem. Attacking smoking and sedentary life style are very difficult to do successfully and the scientific literature is replete with examples of very good,risk focused programs that, frankly, just don’t work. The poster child for this notion is “abstinence education”.
The problem behind each of these health behaviors and their antecedents are related directly to the nature of the situation in which people find themselves, their socioeconomic environment, their home environment, and their family and community environment. There is a great deal of evidence indicating that an education is the best prevention for risk factors. High school graduates smoke less than those with a diploma, and college educated folks smoke less than high school graduates and so on. As you progress up the socioeconomic chain, disease incidence falls; risk factors decline, morbidity and mortality improve. The same is true of income, regardless of other factors; lower socioeconomic individuals have more risk factors, and more disease. These findings are independent, in most studies,of a relationship with medical care access. Even if everyone had health insurance the same diseases would remain problematic.Even if there were more doctors, hospitals, dentists, it does not get at the root issue.
That being the case, the solution to the plethora of problems and issues developed by every new investigation of problems in Appalachia is essentially the same. Indeed, it is likely that many of the poor population’s health issues and their antecedents are related to problems in other areas such as crime, child abuse, and other social problems that are more prevalent in the hills. That solution is to improve the socioeconomic status of the residents of Appalachia. That can be done with education, though there is no state supported four year university in the deep highlands of Kentucky Appalachia. Higher education, like coal, is an extractive industry in the mountains. We extract the best minds, educate them in Central Kentucky and they rarely return to the hills. The Mountain Parkway’s four lane highway ends at Campton and the road to Hazard and Prestonsburg is two lanes, and a rough one at that. There is has been little attempt to harness the potential jobs in Appalachia to the skills and capacity of the mountain’s workforce. Coal is energy, the mountains have a tremendous potential for energy production and transmission, but no effort is made to attempt to capitalize on that fact. Frankly, I would rather have a nuclear power plant than a prison in my community; it attracts a better set of residents, nuclear physicists- not criminals.
One of our best minds, Ron Eller, in his most recent book has cited the issues and how, based on the experience of history, they might be addressed. Rather than isolate and try to deal with specific issues that are more problematic and prevalent in Appalachia, it is time to seek the root causes that prompt the problem and begin to address them. It is not going to get any better in the face of a major economic disaster, and perhaps the impetuous to get the nation rolling again can be extended to the mountains which I came from and love. Let’s look for root causes and quit attacking symptoms. Sometimes as a faculty member you learn from your students or they suddenly grasp a concept that is riveting to them. One of my students observed that perhaps working with the board of education was likely to be more successful in improving health than working with the board of health. I believe he may be on to something.
Scutch
Keeneland Conference, Workforce Research and HCFO Grantees…
Filed under: Accreditation, COTPER, Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness & Emergency Response, Finance, Health Care Finance Org. (HCFO), Keeneland Conference, National Library of Medicine, PBRN, PHSSR Grants, Public Health Workforce, Workforce
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
My how time flies, when you are having fun! This last week tried the patience of those of us who live in Kentucky. Yes, I was without electricity for a week. The ice storm downed several large trees and branches around my farm. One of our horses wandered off through a hole in the fence, created by a falling tree. We finally found her at the neighbors, mooching some hay and oats. She is obviously the Houdini of Horsedom. We had a long, hard week. But, we managed with a resilient community. Many of you will remember my musings at Dr. Jeff Levi’s presentation last year during the Keeneland Conference about those communities and the relevance of social capital to resilience. This continues to interest me.
Speaking of Keeneland Conference, another reminder to save-the-date; it is scheduled for April 7-9 this year in Lexington, Kentucky. The registration form is on the website. We hope that you will come. The program is coming together with many excellent presentations, both plenary and breakouts. We have expanded the number of presentations this year. There will be some new faces and new ideas. One of the benefits of this conference is that it offers a venue for related meetings.
Several meetings will be held in conjunction with the Keeneland Conference. These range from meetings associated with the new PBRNs, to Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response (COTPER) grantees discussing PHSSR and preparedness to our Center for Excellence in Workforce Research and Policy Advisory Committee. Additional benefits of attending this meeting are the potential for new ideas to be generated and formation of teams to collaborate on a national scale. The networking opportunities at this conference will be incredible. We are warming the seats at Keeneland Race Course for Thursday afternoon once the conference winds down. Our conference coordinator, Rebecca Brown, secured a limited number of seats in the Lexington Room overlooking the finish line. For those who are unaware, Dr. Glen Mays, who we all know, hit a long shot last year and cashed a nice winner’s ticket. You may want to come so that you can bet with Glen. If your lucky, he may share his handicapping skill with you. Get an idea of what an afternoon of racing can be at Keeneland by visiting their website.
Health Care Financing Organization (HCFO) recently announced four new awards in PHSSR. Many are old friends of the PHSSR community. Dr. Paul Erwin, a previous RWJF PHSSR minigrant recipient, received funding for his project, Improvements in State Health Outcomes: State Public Health Systems Performance and State Health Department Responses to America’s Health Rankings. Dr. Mary Davis, who leads the accreditation efforts of the North Carolina Public Health Institute, received funding for her project, The Influence of Accreditation on Local Health Department Performance in NC. Dr. Peter Jacobson, who is one of the pioneers in the field, received his second award from HCFO for his project, Public Health Entrepreneurship and Dr. Tamara Dubowitz , from RAND, received her award for Mapping the Gaps: Enhancing Local Health Departments Capacity to Match Services to Health Needs. Dr. Dubowitz’s project involves using GIS to improve local health department service delivery. I suspect several of them, if not all will attend the Keeneland Conference, so you will have a chance to discuss the projects with them individually.
On the workforce front, we have been seeking to identify existing databases related to public health personnel. We started by looking at specific professions, prompted heavily by the work that Dr. Matt Boulton at Michigan has begun with the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) on the epidemiology workforce. We have uncovered several other workforce data bases: maternal child health, nutrition, state public health dental workforce and so on. Dr. Paul Erwin asked recently about any state workforce surveys that we were aware of; again Dr. Boulton came to the rescue with several of those surveys and reports. We are now in process of finding out where we can acquire data and instruments for state public health workforce studies. As we get those we are, of course, adding them to our HSRR/PHSR NLM website. This is an area in need of much work. We salute our pioneers here, folks like Drs. Kris Gebbie and Hugh Tilson and call forth a new group to stand on their shoulders to further this important issue.
Well, much more in the mill, but another blog will be forthcoming from me, sooner rather than later.
Scutch
Gearing PHSSR up for 2009!
Filed under: HSR Special Issue, Keeneland Conference, National Library of Medicine, Office of the Chief of Public Health Practice, PHSSR Grants, Public Health Workforce, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Uncategorized, Workforce
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
Goodness, how time flies. I obviously owe you another post! First, let me visit a minute about the meeting that Dr. Tim Van Wave held in early December at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Tim asked Dr. Glen Mays, Dr. Paul Halverson and I to make presentations about Public Health Systems & Services Research to the science directors of the various units of CDC. You may also download a copy of my presentation from our PHSSR website. We were to speak in the morning and then the science folks had an afternoon session facilitated by Dr. Les Beitsch about how the various units of CDC could consider incorporating PHSSR in their programs. Two folks didn’t need much of a start to do just that. Dr. Mildred Williams-Johnson of Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness & Emergency Response (COTPER) has already used PHSSR as the backbone of the new grants for preparedness centers. She made some great comments in the meeting about the utility to their unit of PHSSR. She also caught me at the break to talk about bringing the grantees together at the Keeneland Conference for their meeting and to encourage them to attend sessions that they may be a part of or where they might pick up some ideas. Dr. Carol Crawford was there, as well. Obviously, she knows the important relationship of workforce issues in PHSSR.
Let me digress a bit at this point. We have established an advisory committee for the Center of Excellence in Public Health Workforce Research and Policy. I have reported on our efforts with this activity before. In addition, we will be holding an advisory committee meeting in conjunction with the Keeneland and will be holding session dedicated to workforce and PHSSR. Look for more info on that as we proceed with our research. Additionally, we have identified a number of databases on workforce already in existence. Our colleagues in epidemiology, as you might imagine, have some good workforce data, as do the nutrition folks, the state dental directors, maternal & child health researchers and public health laboratories. We are posting info about these databases, as we find them, on the NLM HSRR/PHSSR website.
Well, activities are heating up, even in the cold weather. We are in process of announcing and promoting the mini-grants for PHSSR. As you know, we make available a series of small $10K grants for junior faculty (within 3 years of their initial appointment) and dissertation research. The announcement and the application, on line, are available at www.publichealthsystems.org. Please apply online, if you are eligible and share this with someone who would be interested. While it is modest, new folks to the research area would find this money useful, I believe.
In addition, while it is cold, remember that Keeneland Conference is coming. We are, as you know, already making plans. We have issued a formal call for proposals and officially opened registration. This is rapidly shaping up to be a major session this year. We have several colleague organizations that are joining us in the Spring to hold concurrent meetings and to provide attendees the opportunity to listen to presentations, network and enjoy the races! Please consider sending us an abstract and begin making travel plans now. Abstracts must be submitted by Friday, January 16, 2009. The cost to attend the conference is nothing! Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is anxious to promote the PHSSR agenda and their graciousness allows us waive the registration fee. While we are aware that travel budgets are tight, this will be money well spent. The material and networking gleaned is priceless.
Many know that my colleague, Dr. Bill Keckand I have written a book, the Third Edition of Scutchfield and Keck’s Principles of Public Health Practice is essentially done. That is my Christmas present. Having that out of the way has allowed me to turn my attention to the manuscripts waiting to be cleaned up and submitted, it also allows me to work to get the HSR Special Issue on PHSSR ready. I’m also looking forward have time with family during the holidays. Please know, from all of us here at UK that you are in our hearts during this holiday season. Please have a wonderful time with family and friends. Be careful traveling and know that we are thinking of you.
‘Till next time.
Scutch
APHA Presenations, Posters and Receptions!
Filed under: APHA, Finance, Health Care Finance Org. (HCFO), Health Services Research (HSR), Keeneland Conference, Nat'l Center for Health Statistics, Office of the Chief of Public Health Practice, PBRN, PHAB, PHSSR Grants, Public Health Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), University of Arkansas for Medical Science
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
Guilty as charged, things have just been too hectic and I owe you a new blog posting, so here it is, drafted post-APHA in San Diego. Some of the news obviously involves the conference, but other things are on the agenda as well. The “Founding Five” public health practice based research networks were selected by our friends at University of Arkansas Medical School (UAMS) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The Kentucky Public Health Research Network, otherwise known as KPHReN, is proud to be one of those founding five alongside Washington State, Colorado, Massachusetts and North Carolina. Several new grantees attended the PBRN networking reception at APHA and were joined by the next round of applicants. I believe that UAMS will announce their new timeline shortly, focusing on a new group in the spring of 2009.
Speaking of new grant awards, the new round of our mini-grants is open for submission of proposals. Remember there are two categories, junior faculty (within three years of appointment), and dissertation awards. Grantees will be awarded $10,000 each and brief proposals should be easy to prepare. If you have any questions, the resident gurus here are Tourette Jackson and Donna Schmutzler who are responsible for overseeing this round of submissions. During APHA, we had a panel of mini-grantees that Dr. Torrie Harris chaired. I am pleased by the excellent presentations of our initial grantees. We have implemented a paperless submission process with the help of RWJF. Potential applicants can complete the online submission process and the deadline is January 2009.
There were several PHSSR presentations and receptions at APHA. The Journal of Public Health Practice Management (JPHPM) honored Dr. Peggy Honore’s and her contribution to the special issue on Health Disparities now available online with a reception at APHA. Dr. Honoré, along with Drs. Joxel Garcia, the Assistant Secretary of Health and Garth Graham, Deputy Assistant Secretary are responsible for the release of a new statement on public health quality initiatives, . The consensus statement is available for review online, also. Kudos to Dr. Honoré for her successes in this effort over the last year. Many may also take advantage of Dr. Honoré’s continued work on public health finance through the PHF resources section of the web site.
Dr. Glen Mays and his colleagues gave several presentations at APHA. In addition to his work with PBRNs, he also continues to collaborate with the team conducting typologies research. Many of the PHSSR and HCFO grantees also presented their work at APHA on topics ranging from typology to professional relationships between public health workers. All in all, it was a very good show for public health systems and services research.
Last year’s mini-grantees will present their work at the 2nd Annual Keeneland Conference. The conference is slated for April 7-9, 2009 in Lexington, Kentucky. A number of events will be held in conjunction with the conference:
- ‘Founding Five’ Public Health PBRNs initial meeting
- Board of Directors meeting for the Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB),
- Data Harmonization committee meeting and
- others to be announced.
We are excited about the speakers already committed to the conference, including Drs. Carolyn Clancy, Director of Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and Ed Sondik, the Head of National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Our colleagues at RWJF wanted to develop the premier national meeting for PHSSR and I believe we have exceeded their expectations. Make travel plans to attend the Keeneland Conference now. Online registration will open in December and there is no cost to attend. I ran into a colleague at APHA who enjoyed it so much last year and they plan to bring their family with them for Spring Break in Kentucky.
The special issue of HSR continues to take shape. Dr. Nicki Lurie and I are serving as co-editors and several of our colleagues have submitted manuscripts for peer review. We give many thanks to our colleagues who agreed to review manuscripts for the issue. Reviewing for journals is a lot of work, so please know that we appreciate your time and dedication. All familiar with the speed in which we publish journals realize this one will not be released until the fall 2009, at the earliest. Nevertheless, we feel this is an important contribution to the field of PHSSR, which will link our efforts with those made by our colleagues in health services research.
The PHAB Board of Directors met immediately following APHA in San Diego to organize, redo bylaws, gear up to hire a new CEO, straighten out finances and evaluate financial arrangements. Mostly down and dirty organizational work, but necessary for success. Some may be aware of the series of folks conducting an alpha test of the standards, a desk audit of sorts. The results are not available yet, but we believe it will help guide the organization to further enhancement of standards. We are moving forward at a reasonable pace now that the working pieces have come together.
There are a lot of other projects in the works for the final months of 2008. Dr. Tim Van Wave from the Office of Chief of Public Health Practice (OCPHP) has called a meeting in December to discuss the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) role in PHSSR and a recent CDC & Public Health Foundation (PHF) contract will enable the University of Kentucky College of Public Health to evaluate the public health workforce. I will include more information about these two items in my next post. Take care and start planning to spend spring in Kentucky.
Scutch
Onward and Upward…Progress Is Made!
Filed under: APHA, Accreditation, Community Health Status Indicators, Keeneland Conference, Nat'l Center for Health Statistics, PBRN, Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB), Public Health Foundation, United Health Foundation, University of Arkansas for Medical Science
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
Dialing back a week or so. We had a meeting of the Kentucky Public Health Practice Based Research Network (KPHReN), to go over our submission to the University of Arkansas for Medical Science (UAMS). I don’t know how many were submitted or who was asked to submit full proposals. I do know that they plan to let folks know this week or next who was selected to receive funding and will become part of the “Founding Five”. I am excited; even if we are not successful ourselves. The excitement of having these new networks begin some good practice based research is thrilling. We will be having the first KPHReN Board Meeting in conjunction with Keeneland Conference this year and anticipate some interesting stuff!
I have written about PHAB, the Public Health Accreditation Board, which recently held a conference call for the members. We have extended an invitation for PHAB to have their spring meeting in conjunction with our Keeneland Conference. Our goal is to start a dialogue on the relationships of standards, quality improvement, research data from both of those and the evaluation of accreditation efforts. Dr. Bill Riley, the interim executive director of PHAB, is also interested in scheduling a PHAB research and evaluation committee meeting in Lexington in December. We are working with him to ensure the success of that meeting.
I was in Atlanta recently at a conference on development of community health indicators. The conference was sponsored by National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and Dr. Ed Sondik did an excellent job pulling some good folks together. The notion here is that “what gets measured, gets done” and that we need community health indicators, like the United Health Foundation Score Sheet to focus attention on what we need to move indicators on. The conference was excellent, a workshop really, and consisted mostly of small groups working to identify: the top-level indicator, domains that lend themselves to consideration, indicators in those domains and how to link indicators to evidence based programs for modifying them. Michele Bohm at CDC has the power points and will be posting the results of the meeting soon, her email address is evd5@cdc.gov.
One of the staff at the meeting, Marilyn Metzler, talked about Community Health Status Indicators, these were previously on the web in the 90’s, and disappeared. They are back; click here for a preview. As you can see, this provides county level health data and compares it with benchmarks including peer counties. Many will remember Norma Karnack at Johns Hopkins now, formerly of the Public Health Foundation (PHF) as the Godmother of CHSI. She was in attendance and excited about the release of this new iteration. There are a lot of bells and whistles on this one that were not on the original. You will definitely want to bookmark the site in your browser. One of the most interesting parts of Marilyn’s presentation discussed the modification of these indices. Enjoy!
We are trying to put together here a list of all the PHSSR events scheduled for APHA, so that you can catch as many of the sessions, posters, presentations, panels as possible. If you have events you would like for us to include, please be in touch with Kara Richardson, via email kara.richardson@uky.edu. We have three pages of activities, but I suspect there is more. Once the list is ready, we will have it posted at our site.
‘Til next time,