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In April, James Hughes, director of the National
Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID) at CDC and an Assistant Surgeon
General in the U.S. Public Health Service, joins Emory University School of Medicine
as a professor of medicine and the Rollins School of Public Health
as professor of international health. He will direct the Emory Center for
Global Safe Water as well as develop a new program in Global Infectious
Diseases. At CDC, Hughes directed the Hospital Infections Program from 1983
to1988, was deputy director of NCID from 1988 to1992, and served as director
of NCID from 1992 to 2005. His many awards include membership in the
Institute of Medicine, fellowship in the American Association for the
Advancement of Science and the American College of Physicians, and
Distinguished and Meritorious Service Medals and the Surgeon General's
Exemplary Service Award from the U.S. Public Health Service.
The Department of Biostatistics has added eight new members to
its faculty, including:
- Andre Rogatko, professor of biostatistics and associate director of
biostatistics in the Winship Cancer Institute (WCI), applies Bayesian
methods to cancer clinical trials design, genetic epidemiology, and risk
prediction.
- Mourad Tighiouart, research assistant professor and a collaborator with
Rogatko at WCI, works with Bayesian multilevel modeling, adaptive designs in
cancer phase I clinical trials, and nonparametric Bayesian survival
analysis.
- Eugene Huang, associate professor of biostatistics, works on theory and
methods for censored outcomes, such as survival data and contaminated
covariates.
- Lily Zhang, assistant professor, focuses on the design and evaluation of
medical tests and predictive markers studies that may be used for prognosis,
diagnosis, and disease screening.
- Mary Kelley, research assistant professor, is a collaborating statistician
with extensive experience in both psychiatry and health services research.
- Ying Guo, research assistant professor, develops new statistical methods to
characterize and model agreement among survival times, and she works with
medical researchers in the areas of psychology, epidemiology, and oncology.
- V Jose Binongo, lecturer, conducts research in stylometry -- the statistical
analysis of literary style -- and is particularly interested in techniques for
classification.
- Jennifer Favaloro-Sabatier, associate faculty, is a biostatistician in the
Biostatistics Consulting Center.
Other new faculty appointments at the RSPH include Kristin Dunkle, research
assistant professor, behavioral sciences and health education (BSHE); Laura
Salazar, research assistant professor, BSHE; and Rob Stephenson, assistant
professor, global health.
Congratulations to the following faculty who have received
promotions: George Cotsonis, senior associate in biostatistics; Ann
DiGirolamo, assistant professor of global health; Cam Escoffery, clinical
assistant professor of BSHE; and Mitchell Klein, research assistant
professor of environmental and occupational health.
The first students in two new doctoral programs at
the RSPH will arrive on campus this fall. The BSHE PhD program will teach
the application of behavioral and social sciences to promote healthy living,
prevent disease, and improve the quality of life of persons with impaired
health. The PhD in Health Services Research and Health Policy (HSRHP),
offered by the Department of Health Policy and Management, will train
students in the field of health services research, encouraging original
research and communication skills for teaching and disseminating research
findings. Applications for the BSHE program came from 72 students across the
United States as well as South Africa, India, China and Taiwan, Colombia,
Canada, and Puerto Rico. Applicants' backgrounds included psychology,
environmental health, global health, minority health, HIV/AIDS training, and
epidemiology. The HSRHP program drew 25 applicants from the United States as
well as China and Taiwan, France, Korea, and Senegal with backgrounds in
English, anthropology, elementary education, biochemistry, psychology,
public health, health care management, and other fields. The RSPH also
offers three additional PhD programs: Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and
Nutrition and Health Sciences (the latter, a collaborative program between
RSPH and the Graduate Division of Biological and Biomedical Sciences).
Presidential Distinguished Professor of International
Health, Emeritus William H. Foege has received the most prestigious award
given by the National Academy of Sciences, its Public Welfare Medal.
Established in 1914, the medal is presented annually to honor extraordinary
use of science for the public good. The Academy chose Foege for his
dedication to eradicating global disease and his leadership in redefining
the scope of public health policy in the United States. Foege also has
received additional recognition this spring as the recipient of the Thomas
Francis Jr. Medal in Global Public Health from the University of Michigan.
Several RSPH faculty have played instrumental leadership roles
in recently published reports and ongoing projects at the Institute of
Medicine on a variety of topics, from childhood obesity and uninsurance to
AIDS therapies and public financing of HIV care.
- Jeffrey P. Koplan was the lead co-editor on Preventing Childhood Obesity:
Health in the Balance, which provides a broad-based examination of the
nature, extent, and consequences of obesity in U.S. children and youth,
including social, environmental, and dietary factors responsible for its
increased prevalence.
- I was the lead co-editor on Scaling Up Treatment for the Global AIDS
Pandemic: Challenges and Opportunities. In recent years, many HIV-infected
patients in wealthy nations have enjoyed significantly longer, good-quality
lives as a result of antiretroviral therapy (ART). However, most infected
people live in the poorest regions of the world, where ART is virtually
nonexistent. This IOM report is an independent review and assessment of
rapid scale-up ART programs, including identification of the components of
effective implementation programs.
- Arthur Kellermann co-chaired the Committee on the Consequences of
Uninsurance, producing Insuring America's Health: Principles and
Recommendations. This report is the sixth and final in a series that
synthesizes what is known about the consequences of uninsurance and
communicates the extent and urgency of the issue to the public.
- David Holtgrave participated in the committee that prepared Public
Financing and Delivery of HIV/AIDS Care: Securing the Legacy of Ryan White.
The report examines the current standard of care for HIV patients and
assesses the extent to which the system currently used for financing and
delivering care allows people with HIV to actually receive it. It recommends
expanded federal funding for the treatment of people with HIV, administered
at the state level.
- Gary Gunderson is part of a currently active IOM committee that is
examining the feasibility and usefulness of creating a volunteer corps
related to scale-up of antiretroviral treatment for people with HIV/AIDS in
severely affected countries. A successful response will require
mobilization of funding as well as addressing serious human resource
shortages in these countries.
On a cold, rainy, and foggy day in February, 30 students from the RSPH and 12 from Emory's medical school took
to the streets of Fulton and DeKalb Counties to take a census of the
homeless population. While the numbers are still being tallied, the count
already passed 2,000 people living on the streets. Brandie Haywood, who
coordinated the 2005 Homeless Census Project, recently wrote to thank these
students for being "punctual, positive, conscientious, and very kind to
their homeless enumerator partners. The contribution that the Emory students
made to this project is very significant, and we are grateful." A report of
the census will soon be available at www.pcni.org.
A team of researchers, led by Kenneth Thorpe,
chair and professor of Health Policy and Management, has found that rising
obesity rates accounted for 27% of the growth in health care spending from
1987-2001. The study, published in the October 20, 2004, issue of Health
Affairs, attributes the increase to treatment costs for obesity-related
conditions such as diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and heart disease. The
researchers also found that health care expenditures were also affected by
the rising prevalence of gallstones, some forms of cancer, and other
obesity-linked diseases.
Congratulations to 2004-2005 Who's Who awardees from the RSPH:
Lara Hendy (global health), Ardaman-Pal Shergill (epidemiology), Aaron
Wallace (global health), Nidhi Prakash (health policy and management), Tarun
Gulrajani (biostatistics), Darren Collins (career MPH), and Jenny Clayton
(global environmental health).
The O.C. Hubert EIS 50th Anniversary Fellowships enable
students to participate in a CDC elective rotation, providing experience in
applied epidemiology through a global public health problem. Two Emory
MD/MPH students are recipients of the fellowships this year: Krista Powell
and Sasapin (Grace) Prakalapakorn. Three RSPH students also were among 12
fellows selected for the 2004 Association of Schools of Public
Health/Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental Health Fellowship
Program. They are Kirstin Crowder, Ami Parekh, and Ritu Tuteja. The goal of
the program is to provide professional training and opportunities for
early-career public health professionals in current and emerging
environmental health needs. During this year, the fellows are working on
projects at EPA research and development offices in Washington, DC, and
Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
- Jay Bernhardt (BSHE) was elected vice chair of the Executive Board of the
American Public Health Association in November 2004 for a one-year term.
- Ralph DiClemente (BSHE) and Gina Wingood (BSHE) received the Prevention
Pioneer Award in HIV/AIDS from the Morehouse School of Medicine and the
Georgia Department of Community Health, Office of Minority Health.
- A BBC World documentary on pneumococcal disease, which aired in January,
featured the research of Keith Klugman (global health) in South Africa.
James W. Curran, MD, MPH
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