Call to Post…for the 2010 PHSSR Keeneland Conference Presenters and Attendees
Filed under: AcademyHealth, CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness & Emergency Response, Keeneland Conference, NACCHO, National Library of Medicine, PBRN, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), Uncategorized, Workforce
Dear Friends & Colleagues,
Well, the aficionados of horse racing saw Bucky, the bugler at Keeneland Race Course, sound the “call to post” on Friday, April 2 for the opening of the spring meet. The forsythia is almost neon in color, which can only mean that the Keeneland Conference is just around the corner. Our third year is shaping up as the best yet.
The Keeneland Conference has evolved into the “go-to” event for those interested PHSSR. We welcome groups affiliated with PHSSR to hold meetings in conjunction with the conference. Our colleagues who run the Preparedness and Emergency Response Research Centers, Practice Based Research Network, Center of Excellence in Public Health Workforce Research and Policy, Data Harmonization and Integration project, and Public Health Law Research program will be holding ancillary meetings on Tuesday before the Opening Dinner. The number of exhibitors increased this year, as several new folks want to share their resources with our attendees. I am most pleased with the number of abstracts we received, which prompted us to increase the number of scientific sessions.
These sessions will cover topics from practice-based research, public health law, workforce, finance and organization. Our team wanted to make sure every component of PHSSR was represented. Needless to say, we have also allotted ample time and opportunity for networking. We know networking is one of the most valuable aspects of Keeneland Conference. We will close the conference on Thursday afternoon with a trip to the Historic Keeneland Race Course. Many of you know that one of the things we provide is Southern hospitality to our guests while they are in Kentucky, this year will be no different!
Judith A. Monroe, M.D., FAAFP
I am so excited about our keynote speakers. Dr. Judith Monroe will be giving her first major address since assuming her new role as the Deputy Director of State, Tribal, Local and Territorial Support at the CDC. We look forward to hearing the vision she has for her new office. We have long enjoyed wonderful partnership with the National Library of Medicine, whose Director, Dr. Donald Lindberg, will be the keynote during the opening dinner on Tuesday evening. Drs. Kyu Rhee and David Lawrence round out the group of keynote speakers. Dr. Rhee serves as the Chief Public Health Officer at the Health Resources and Services Administration and will share his expertise with us on Wednesday afternoon’s plenary. Dr. Lawrence, the Chief Executive Officer Emeritus of the Kaiser Foundation Health Plans will serve as the closing plenary speaker. Our plenary sessions are also going to be jam packed with information and new direction for PHSSR.
Some of you may be aware of the authorization in the new health system reform legislation which will potentially supply future funding for public health research. The Senior Public Health Policymaker Panel on Thursday will likely explore what this new legislation means for the field. Both Dr. David Helms of AcademyHealth and Dr. Jeffrey Levi, at Trust for America’s Health are on the panel, will join Dr. Paul Jarris of ASTHO and Dr. Bruce Dart of NACCHO for the panel discussion. I am excited about that authorization and look forward to hearing more about what it means for the field. My guess is that it will also be a hot topic along corridors of the meeting.
I’m sure you can sense my excitement. You should be excited, too. We have come so far with the field in such a short time. This year’s conference will allow us to reflect on our success and think about the future, as the discipline approaches its adolescence. We look forward to seeing you here in Kentucky. Those of you coming for the first time, please join us at the races on Thursday. I can guarantee you some heart-pounding fun as your horse breaks around the clubhouse turn for the run down the stretch.
If there is anything we can do to help you prepare for the conference, please contact us via the website, www.keenelandconference.org. We are here to make sure this is a wonderful time for you and hope you will leave knowing why the PHSSR Keeneland Conference is the premier event for the field.
Lastly, during the conference, this blog will be fielding some additional blog posts from the program officers of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation engaged in PHSSR research, and various RWJF grantees. In addition to these guest posts, which will appear over the course of the conference, Fran Kritz, editor of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Public Health page, will post updates for each conference day. She will also provide links to several podcasts with key conference presenters.
We’re making every effort to keep you in the loop!
Until next time, keep moving and see you at Keeneland!
Click the image below to visit the conference website and download a copy of the final program.
Scutch
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
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
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.