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In Brief

Amassing a cancer army
Health students taking action
Key faculty appointments
BOOKSHELF: A sampler of recent faculty works
Worldwide AIDS report
“Unbelievable Improvement, Unbelievable Inequities:”

The research dean
Kutner leads biostatistics
Happy Anniversary
Tech transfer to Georgia's children
New doctoral programs on the horizon


Amassing a cancer army

“Nearly every family in the state has been touched in some way by cancer,” says Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue. However, the Governor has a dream: a day when cancer’s place is in the history books, when the disease is no more than a memory.

Georgia came one step closer to fulfilling that dream in February when the Georgia Cancer Coalition (GCC) welcomed 32 leading cancer researchers to its Distinguished Cancer Clinicians and Scientists program.

Two of the recent appointees include faculty members from the Rollins School of Public Health. Jack Mandel, a cancer epidemiologist whose research has focused on prevention and etiology, is chair and professor of the Department of Epidemiology and associate director of the Winship Cancer Institute. Karen Glanz, recently recruited from the Cancer Research Center of Hawaii, is professor of Behavioral Science and Health Education. Her area of specialty is cancer communication, education, and social epidemiology.

Through its eminent scholars program, the GCC is amassing a force that will boost the amount of federally funded cancer research in Georgia. So far, it has brought 66 renowned scholars to Georgia, on the way to its goal of recruiting 150 scholars in all.

It has awarded $11 million to strengthen cancer research and clinical oncology expertise in Georgia. This investment of state dollars has yielded more than $77 million in new grant funding to Georgia.

The GCC is a comprehensive public-private partnership that joins foundations, pharmaceutical and biotech firms, universities, and corporations to fight cancer. Regarded as a national model for collaboration by scientists, physicians, and other health professionals, it is Georgia’s mobilizing force against the disease with which 13,000 Georgians are diagnosed each year.


Health students taking action

According to US Census figures, the number of people without insurance increased by the largest margin in a decade. Health students at Emory have decided to do something about it by forming a nonprofit organization, Health Students Taking Action Together (H-STAT), directed by Dana M. Lee (far right). Current advocacy focuses on child obesity and proposed budget cuts in Georgia’s PeachCare for Kids. Jeff Koplan (far left), vice president for academic health affairs at the Woodruff Health Sciences Center and joint professor at the RSPH, is an adviser to H-STAT, whose student leaders include Arun Mohan and Dorothy Wadsworth.


Key faculty appointments

As part of its strategy to build strength in key areas, the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH) recently has made significant faculty appointments.

Robin Bostick, recruited from the South Carolina Cancer Center, is a seasoned cancer epidemiologist who joins the RSPH as professor of epidemiology and the Emory School of Medicine as professor of hematology and oncology. He holds an MD from the Medical University of South Carolina, where he completed a residency in family practice, and an MPH from the University of Minnesota.

Bostick is a molecular epidemiologist and physician whose research focuses on colon and prostate cancer biomarkers and nutrition and genetic cancer risk. He has NIH backing in several ongoing research trials, including a study of colorectal chemoprevention to see if supplementation with calcium and/or vitamin D will reduce recurrence of adenomas of the large bowel.

With more than 100 publications to his credit, Bostick serves on the editorial board of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention


Recent faculty appointments in epidemiology and
environmental and occupational health include (l to r):
Scott Bartell, Michael Goodman, and Robin Bostick.

Michael Goodman, a pediatrician and researcher of environmental exposures on the incidence of several kinds of cancer, also joins the Department of Epidemiology as assistant professor. Goodman earned his MD from Kaunas Medical Academy in Lithuania and his MPH from Johns Hopkins. He is board certified in both preventive medicine and pediatrics.

At the RSPH, Goodman’s research will focus on cancer epidemiology, children’s health, and molecular and genetic epidemiology. Previously he was senior managing scientist at Exponent, Inc., a health group in Washington, DC, where he oversaw multiple research projects, including clinical trials of vaccines, investigations of infectious disease outbreaks, and a review of lead neurotoxicity.

Scott Bartell, formerly a research associate at the University of Washington School of Public Health, joins the RSPH as assistant professor of environmental and occupational health. He holds a PhD in epidemiology from the University of California, Davis.

Bartell is frequently published in peer-reviewed publications on such topics as risk assessment and screening strategies for beryllium exposure and the effects of exposure to methylmercury.

At RSPH, he is working to establish an independent risk assessment research program as well as to provide statistical and epidemiological support for a research consortium studying PCBs and health effects in Anniston, Alabama. In addition to his research, he will teach risk assessment, biostatistics, and epidemiologic methods.


BOOKSHELF: A sampler of recent faculty works

A Courtship After Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families, by Jennifer Hirsch
Immersing herself in the lives and cultures of 13 families in two countries, Hirsch has assembled a detailed portrait of the impact of migration from rural western Mexico to America on love and courtship. She interviewed women in two small towns in Mexico as well as their sisters or sister-in-laws in Atlanta about marriage and sex. She also talked with their mothers. What she found was a narrative of generational changes in love and marriage.

The younger women expressed a desire for a marriage in which both partners participate in decisions and share sexual intimacy. By contrast, the mothers of these women expected their men to make the decisions, and they viewed sex as an obligation.

The implications of the trend toward a marital ideal centered on companionship go beyond the specific Mexican case, Hirsch says. They help explain declining fertility rates in the developing world in this century. Courtship demonstrates how gender inequality and cultural transformations in sexuality combine with economic and demographic change to shape the social context of reproduction.

Community-Based Health Research: Issues and Methods,
ed. by Daniel Blumenthal and Ralph DiClemente
“Community-based research is where medicine, public health, and science meet,” writes former Surgeon General David Satcher in introducing this 2004 volume. “Put another way, community-based research gives medicine the information it needs to serve communities as well as individuals and gives public health the science base that it has needed for so long in the field of health promotion.”

In this book, Blumenthal and DiClemente, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Public Health, identify key concepts of successful community-based research beyond the aspect of location. Through the contributions of scholars across the nation, its contents range from a prevention focus and population- centered partnerships to multidisciplinary cooperation and cultural competency.

Health Issues in the Black community, 2nd ed.,
ed. by Ronald Braithwaite and Sandra Taylor

This landmark book, first published in 1992, brought attention to the gap in health status between blacks and whites in the United States. Those gaps have not disappeared and now in an updated and revised edition, Braithwaite (professor of Behavioral Science and Health Education) and Taylor present an in-depth examination of the most pressing health problems confronting the black community today.

“The truth hurts but silence kills,” writes Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu in reviewing this edition. Health Issues in the Black Community issues “a wake-up call to us all. All nations must wake up and deal with the health disparity gap with truth, dignity, and equity.” The edition covers health status, social, mental, and environmental challenges, chronic diseases, lifestyle behaviors, and ethical, political, and economical issues.

Emerging theories in health promotion practice and research: Strategies for improving public health,
ed. by Ralph DiClemente, Richard Crosby, and Michelle Kegler
The application of theory is critical to finding ways to improve the health of not only individuals but also the public at large. Emerging Theories–– edited by three professors in the Department of Behavioral Science and Health Education ––is a comprehensive overview of understanding and applying theory in health promotion practice and research. Now in its third edition, the book focuses on the three perspectives: individual, interpersonal, and community.

The emerging theories presented in the volume “open the way for more participatory research,” suggests Lawrence W. Green of CDC’s Public Health Practice Program Office, “in which practitioners can be co-researchers rather than merely subjects or intermediaries in theory building for health promotion.”


Worldwide AIDS report

The Emory Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) recently hosted the National Science Symposium of the NIH CFARS. Here are conference highlights from around the globe.

United States. Cases of AIDS now exceed 880,000 with cumulative deaths of more than half a million. That amounts to more deaths than in battle for all of the wars of the 20th century combined. Yet there is some good news––a steady decline in deaths: in 2002, there were fewer deaths from AIDS than at any point since 1986. However, 42,000 new cases of AIDS were diagnosed in 2002, an increase of 2.2% over the previous year. Men who have sex with men (MSM) still have the highest absolute number of cases, but the new “face” of AIDS is that of an African-American young woman.

Prevention strategies include making voluntary testing for HIV a routine part of primary medical care, implementing new models for diagnosing HIV outside of clinical settings such as in bars and hair salons, increasing prevention funding for programs targeting HIV-positive people, and decreasing perinatal transmission even further. ––Harold Jaffe, director of the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, CDC

Among MSM, the problem of HIV is getting worse after years of getting better. Although it is relatively hard to transmit, HIV also is relatively hard to prevent. Ideas for prevention among MSM include (1) addressing the complexities of drug use and abuse among illegal as well as legal drugs (such as Viagra and alcohol), (2) reducing disparities in treatment and prevention, (3) integrating prevention into clinical practice, and (4) emphasizing research on barrier technologies and the use of the Internet in prevention counseling. ––Thomas Coates, professor of medicine, University of California––Los Angeles

Brazil. The AIDS epidemic in Brazil began in the early 1980s in coastal areas among college-educated people. It has now spread inland with cases occurring most often among those without college education or wealth. Of transmission in Brazil, 80% is sexual, and roughly 50% of new cases are among women.

The Brazilian response to HIV is considered internationally to be the gold standard. Civil society and the government have been actively involved since the beginning. In a conservative Catholic country, the public media has presented very direct prevention messages. Brazilians receive free universal access to Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy, aka the antiretroviral “cocktail.” An aggressive program for development and distribution of generic drugs is bringing down the cost and increasing availability of treatment there. ––Mauro Schechter, senior research scientist, National Research Council, Brazil

South Africa. Eight times as many teachers die of AIDS here each year as can possibly be trained in the existing infrastructure. Employers now have rules in place that employees may not miss work more than one day a week to attend funerals. Exacerbating the problem, the South African president was initially resistant to spending government funds to distribute antiretrovirals due to his belief that HIV was not the cause of AIDS. In August 2003, the South African cabinet requested the ministry of health to develop a detailed treatment protocol. As this plan is rolled out, the national CFARs are looking for ways to assist in promoting meaningful HIV research and clinical care. ––Bruce Walker, director of the Division of AIDS, Harvard, and Philip Onyebujoh, WHO

Rwanda and Zambia. Married couples are the largest risk group for AIDS in Africa, with 60% of new infections acquired from a spouse. A field study offers Couples Voluntary Counseling and Testing (CVCT) at two sites, which includes group discussion, joint consent for testing, a rapid test for HIV and syphilis, lunch, joint post-test counseling, and money for transportation and child care costs. CVCT is proving the most effective prevention strategy for this risk group. It should be expanded based on its feasibility and popularity. ––Susan Allen, professor of international health, Rollins School of Public Health


“Unbelievable Improvement, Unbelievable Inequities:”

Those are the words that Presidential Distinguished Professor Emeritus William Foege uses to summarize the recent history of global health. Least fall Foege presented the Overton and Lavona Currie Lecture in Law and Religion, “Children: Will we ever get it right?” Not yet, apparently, as these excerpts show:

“It was only a few years ago that we were talking about 40,000 deaths a day in children under 5, or almost 15 million a year. Now we are ‘down’ to less than 12 million a year, a million a month, perhaps 33,000 a day. It is progress and yet it is still obscene. We now know what it is like to lose 3,000 people in a single day because of 9/11. Would you believe that this is happening every day for children under the age of 5? Would you believe. . . it is actually happening 10 times a day? But it doesn’t fit on a television screen. We have trouble seeing the faces.

“We now know that every gradation down the income scale leads to an increase in health problems. It is dose related. Poverty is the slavery of our day. And every one of us in this room is a master. The poor subsidize us. We get bargains on fast food because there are people working at minimum wage. The poor in this country subsidize us, as do poor countries.

“Despite our emphasis on children and our investment in Head Start, President Carter points out in his book, The Virtues of Aging, that for every $12 spent on people over 65 the federal government spends only a single dollar on children under 18. For all our rhetoric on prevention and children, it is not where we put our money.

“Don’t miss the point that money spent on the Iraq war and reconstruction, if applied to children born this year in the United States would provide an individual trust fund of $40,000 per child born.

“We don’t need more information to act immediately. We already know that it makes logical sense to protect children from malnutrition, unnecessary illness, social upheaval, war, and instability. We already know the value of educating all children.”

Foege called on his listeners to plan deliberately for child development, to capture “political commitment” and the feeling that “we are all in this together.” He left the audience with a charge: to create a society committed to parenthood and equity, with an adequate educational system and child care and economic stability. “We need young people learning to use the law to make such things happen.”


The research dean

Claire Sterk, Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education, has a new title to add to her resume: Associate Dean for Research at the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH). The newly created position recognizes her in-depth understanding of research across campus and her valuable contributions to the RSPH. Since 2001, she has chaired the Research of Emory Commission.

As Associate Dean of Research, Sterk will work with faculty and administrators to facilitate research excellence and growth not only within the RSPH but also throughout the university. She also will continue to serve as department chair, to teach, and to conduct research.

Sterk joined the RSPH in 1995 and was named department chair in 2000. She is the author of three books including Tricking and Tripping: Prostitution in the era of AIDS and Fast Lives: Women who use crack cocaine, as well as more than 100 articles. Sterk is known internationally for her research in drug use, HIV, sexual risk-taking, and mental health.

Active in professional and governmental service in science and public health, she is currently a member of the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse at NIH. She also actively participates in campus service, including serving as president of the University Senate from 2000–2002.



Kutner (left) collaborates with researcher David Wolf.

Kutner leads biostatistics

Mike Kutner is the newly appointed Rollins Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH).

It is not the first time Kutner has served the school. When the RSPH was formed in the early 1990s, Kutner was director of biostatistics and associate dean for academic affairs. He left in 1994 to build the epidemiology and biostatistics department at the Cleveland Clinic.

Kutner, who holds a PhD in statistics from Texas A&M University, has since returned to the RSPH and most recently served as interim chair of Biostatistics and director of the Biostatistics Consulting Center.

His research involves linear statistical models, and he is the co-author of two popular textbooks. He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and member of the International Statistical Institute.


Happy Anniversary

The Emory Center for Injury Control is 10 years old and going strong. In the decade since it was founded by Director Arthur Kellermann, also chair of Emory’s Depart-ment of Emergency Medicine, the center has tackled a number issues from helmet safety and firearm-related violence to child fatalities and safety belts. It has garnered grants from the CDC, the NIH, the National Highway Traffic Safety Board, and others to conduct injury prevention research. Current research priorities include prevention and treatment of traumatic brain injuries, a collaboration with local law enforcement and prosecutors to reduce firearm violence, screening for mental health symptoms and exposure to domestic violence among emergency department patients, and participation in a WHO program to develop sound guidelines that promote cost-effective, pre-hospital care of injured victims in nations with limited resources. At an anniversary celebration last fall, the center recognized outstanding individuals and organizations who work in injury prevention and public health with the presentation of 13 career achievement awards. Among the recipients are Kathleen Toomey, director of the Division of Public Health for the state of Georgia, J. Thomas Morgan, DeKalb County district attorney, Joey Ledford, a columnist for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and Safe Kids of Georgia.


Andrew Barclay is giving new meaning to the term technology transfer. Barclay, a doctoral student in biostatistics, is transferring his statistical and technical expertise to a variety of initiatives that support Georgia’s children. In recognition of his volunteer service, Barclay was one of a select group of students selected campus-wide to receive the 2004 Emory Humanitarian Award.

Barclay and his wife, Michelle, in partnership with Emory’s School of Law, founded and endowed the Barton Child and Law Policy Clinic, which is dedicated to effecting systemic policy and process changes for the benefit of children in Georgia’s child welfare system. The clinic provides multidisciplinary, child-focused research, training, and support for practitioners and policy makers charged with protecting Georgia’s children.

Barclay also works as a volunteer technical consultant, giving technological and statistical support to Georgia nonprofit and governmental agencies. Additionally, he frequently provides information technology assistance on a variety of projects at the Rollins School of Public Health from database management transfer of juvenile court data to designing and developing websites for Georgia Kids Count and the Georgia Child Fatality Review.


New doctoral programs on the horizon

Soon students interested in pursuing indepth studies in behavioral sciences and health education or in health services research will have an opportunity to do so at the Rollins School of Public Health (RSPH). The RSPH will begin recruiting students for two new doctoral programs in the fall of 2004.

The first degree program is a doctorate of Behavioral Sciences and Health Education (BSHE), offered by the Department of BSHE, and the second is a doctorate of Health Services Research and Policy (offered through the Department of Health Policy and Management.) Plans call for the first students to be admitted in the fall of 2005.

The RSPH already offers three doctoral programs: in Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Nutrition and Health Sciences. The new degree offerings will increase the cadre of RSPH doctoral students, enabling many of the school’s best MPH and MSPH graduates an opportunity to continue their doctoral studies right where they are.


Spring 2004 Issue | Dean's Message | Two Sides of the AIDS Coin | The Straight Story
Disease Detective | Instamatic Informatics | Veteran Epidemiologist | The Human Strain
Expelling the Fiery Serpent | Corps Class | Class Notes | Rollins School of Public Health

Copyright © Emory University, 2004. All Rights Reserved.
Send comments to Rhonda.Mullen@emory.edu.