April 2017 - IAPHS - Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science

April 24, 2017

April Roundup: Population Health in the News

IAPHS Staff

Want to catch up on the last month of population health news? We’ve got a bunch of reads for you! Wondering what’s going on around the world? Trump recruits controversial Bush-era global health official (Science, 3/27/2017) The campaign to lead the World Health Organization (NY Times, 4/3/2017) Trump pushes historic cuts in global health aid, stoking fears of new disease outbreak and diminished US clout (LA Times, 4/10/2017) Survivors of the gas attack in Syria face long-term illness (Scientific American Guest Blog, 4/12/2017) They’re just hiding: Experts say Puerto Rico may be underreporting Zika-affected births (STAT, 4/18/2017) Or how we are faring here in the US? Poor, sick, and addicted: Inequality’s effect on population health (Huffington Post, 3/31/2017) Don’t expect politics to derail population health, value-based care (Healthcare IT News, 4/3/2017) Cosas del estado: How immigration raids lead to avoidance of care (Pacific Standard, 4/5/2017) How communities are testing new strategies to address social determinants of health (AcademyHealth Blog, 4/7/2017) Why it’s a bad idea to space out your child’s vaccination shots (Washington Post, 4/17/2017) Population health improvement (A story on Maine Public Radio, featuring Ron Deprez of the Public Health Research Institute, Barbara Leonard of the Maine […]

April 21, 2017

RWJF Pioneering Ideas Brief Proposals

Sue Bevan

Sue Bevan

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation seeks out and supports pioneering ideas and innovative solutions to foster a Culture of Health in America.

April 17, 2017

Bringing Population Health into Medical Education: Q&A with Mark Schwartz of NYU School of Medicine

Elaine Meyer

Elaine Meyer

By incorporating population health into medical education, educators are aiming to bring together medicine and public health, which over the past hundred years or so have taken different approaches. The goal is to unite medicine’s focus on the individual doctor-patient relationship based in the healthcare system with public health’s interest in creating policies and programs for health prevention. Population health acknowledges that we spend the majority of life outside of the healthcare system — at work, at home, in our neighborhoods — and that our health is influenced by a host of factors in our lives, ranging from nutrition to early childhood education to discrimination. For these reasons, the healthcare system needs to incorporate public health approaches. “What I discovered in mid-career, is that policy-makers welcome and need insights and advice from physicians. I wish I learned in medical school about how the health policy apparatus works.” ~Mark D. Schwartz, MD, FACP In the past, most doctors learned little if anything about population health in medical school, but that is changing. This past fall, for example, NYU School of Medicine made population health a core part of the curriculum for all medical students, integrating it into all stages of their degree programs. […]

April 11, 2017

Dreams to Nightmares: Food and Health in Communities Displaced by ISIS

Anna Grace Tribble

Anna Grace Tribble

I first visited Iraqi Kurdistan in 2015. An NGO focused on human rights observation was leading delegations to Iraqi Kurdistan to educate the public about realities on the ground in Iraq. During this time, I learned about the health of communities internally displaced by violence from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. IDPs (Internally Displaced People), like refugees, are forced from their homes. However, they flee without crossing any international borders. IDPs are even more vulnerable than refugees because they are subject to fewer protections under international law, remain closer to conflict zones, and often lack access to healthcare, food, and other necessities. That initial visit to Iraqi Kurdistan gave me Ideas for my anthropology dissertation even before beginning my PhD. One particular meeting with the sheikh (leader) of a Yazidi community in a local camp inspired deeper thought. My delegation visited the sheikh in his tent. The NGO partners interviewed him and translated while I sat in and observed. We learned about the family’s experience escaping from Mt. Sinjar and their subsequent life in the camp. In a small tent, surrounded by his wife and two young daughters, the sheikh recounted the suffering, disease, and death […]

April 11, 2017

Call for Suggestions: IAPHS Nominations 2017

IAPHS Staff

IAPHS Staff

This summer, IAPHS will hold an election to choose additional Board members and a new president-elect. The Nominations Committee, chaired by current Board member Sarah Stoddard, invites suggestions for nominees. Please email your suggestions to Sarah at sastodda@umich.edu by April 30. For each of your suggestions, indicate the position and provide a website or email address. About the positions: The President-elect serves IAPHS for three years and will lead the organization as President in 2019. In 2018, s/he will begin planning the 2019 conference. In 2020, s/he will serve as chair of the Nominations Committee. Board members provide overall leadership and strategic direction to the organization. During their three-year terms, they participate in monthly conference calls and in some cases serve on committees. The Student Board Member represents the interests of students on the Board. This individual serves a two-year term; nominees must anticipate remaining enrolled in a graduate program during 2018 and 2019; post-doctoral trainees are not eligible. IAPHS will also appoint a new Treasurer to begin a three-year term in 2018. Suggestions, including self-nominations, would also be appreciated for this post. The Treasurer is the custodian of IAPHS funds and works with the Executive Director on financial […]

April 11, 2017

Report from the IAPHS Board

IAPHS Staff

IAPHS Staff

The new IAPHS Board has met three times since it took office in February, and it’s done a great job of moving the organization ahead. Under President Sandro Galea’s direction, it began by setting up a number of essential committees: A Membership Committee, co-chaired by Hedy Lee and Anjum Hajat, has enlisted an outstanding group of people to develop a membership campaign. The goal is to double IAPHS membership (individuals and institutions) by the end of the year! Tiffany Green is chairing a Communications Committee that will oversee our new blog as well as the newsletter, website and social media. The Committee is still being staffed, but has already developed a plan to ensure that the blog will remain active for the foreseeable future. Sarah Burgard and Kristin Masters, a communications specialist in Dallas, Texas, have agreed to serve as co-editors starting in May, when current editor Kristin Harper will step down. We are deeply grateful to Kristin and our blog manager Liz Ayerle for getting the blog off to a great start. Our President-Elect Bruce Link got off to a great start by recruiting the Program Chair for the 2018 IAPHS Conference. Thanks to Bob Hummer for agreeing to […]

April 11, 2017

Changes coming to IAPHS News

IAPHS Staff

IAPHS Staff

IAPHS is going to make its newsletter easier to use and richer in its coverage of material related to IAPHS population health and population health professionals! You may have noticed that the IAPHS website now has sections devoted to: announcements (job, training, and funding opportunities; conferences and webinars; and more); resources (teaching, data, research guidelines, etc); as well as a blog featuring news and commentary about population health science. With these additions, we can make the newsletter leaner and more agile. From now on, we’ll be sending out two kinds of newsletter – the IAPHS Blog Update and IAPHS News & Notes. Watch for IAPHS Blog Update towards the end of every month. It will provide highlights of the posts published over the course of the month and links that enable you to read more. IAPHS News & Notes will continue to arrive about every other month, but in a more concise format that provides the key messages in our stories as well as links to the IAPHS website more complete information. The announcements and resources that have appeared in our newsletters are now posted at https://iaphs.org/tools/announcements. We’ll highlight some of the most recent in both the […]

April 3, 2017

Population Health Lessons from the Black Death

Sharon DeWitte

Sharon DeWitte

The Black Death, an outbreak of bubonic plague (caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis), killed tens of millions of people in 14th-century Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. This epidemic has inspired novels, movies, even Black Death “tour” tee shirts, but what real relevance does it have for us now? The Black Death occurred over 650 years ago in an ecological, social, economic, and political context that might seem very different from that of today. However, it does provide a startling example of the consequences that arise from highly contagious and deadly disease and other disasters. It may also reveal factors that produce extraordinarily high epidemic mortality. Understanding the context and effects of the Black Death might benefit living populations given that: Our species will continue to face old and new diseases for the foreseeable future; Conditions at the time of the Black Death persist or are at least possible today; and Increasing globalization connects far-flung human populations, making diseases that occur anywhere on the globe relevant to us all. (This is true regardless of how much you care, or don’t, about the well-being of strangers.) Bioarchaeology of the Black Death Research using the skeletons of people who died in […]

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Monthly Archives: April 2017