June 2017

Registration is now open for Improving Population Health: Now, Across People’s Lives, and Across Generations to Come in Austin, Texas October 2-4, 2017.   View the agenda and register here. Registration is free, but required. The conference will run from 9:30 AM October 2 to 3:45 October 4.  The program features four keynote panels: The Politics of Population Health – featuring Kathleen Sebelius, Former U.S. Secretary for Health & Human Services and Governor of Kansas; Mark McClellan, Director, Robert J. Margolis Center for Health Policy and Margolis Professor of Business, Medicine & Health Policy, Duke University and former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ; and Joshua Sharfstein, Director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative & Associate Dean for Public Health Practice and Training at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and former Secretary of the Maryland Department of Health & Mental Hygiene Opportunities and Challenges for Advancing Population Health in Urban Areas – featuring Jo Ivey Boufford, President, The New York Academy of Medicine; Steven Woolf, Director, Center for Human Needs, Department of Preventative Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University; Rachel Kimbro, Professor and Founding Director of […]

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Every Monday since its launch on February 6, a new post has gone up on the IAPHS blog.  Readers have treated themselves to a rich range of topics, from the effects of debt on health to gossip as data in health research.  And more is coming every week! We have our Blog Editors and the many committee members and writers who have worked with them to thank for this excellent record.  As the blog enters its fifth month of operation, IAPHS celebrates (and thanks!) its Blog Editors and Managers: Kristin Harper, who led development of the vision for the blog as chair of the IAPHS Communications Committee from May 2016-January 2017 and continued as Blog Editor until early May. Kristin is President of Harper Health & Science Communications and a scientist-turned-science writer with a deep commitment to population health. She and her colleagues worked tirelessly to plan the blog and recruit a rich set of excellent posts to launch it.  We interviewed Kristin recently about her experience in this critical volunteer job – read the interview here. Sarah Burgard, our new Blog Editor, who took over seamlessly from Kristin Harper in early May. Sarah holds Associate Professor appointments in both Sociology and Epidemiology […]

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Kristin Harper, who led the development of the IAPHS blog and brought it to life in February, talked with Executive Director Christine Bachrach recently about her experience volunteering with IAPHS. Chris: Kristin, thanks for taking the time to share your experiences with me.  Tell me first about your own career trajectory.  You started your professional life as a biologist. What drew you into science communications? Kristin: I actually started out picturing myself as writer when I was in high school, but I fell in love with biology as a freshman in college.  Biology was a whole new world for me.  But even as I went through graduate school in biology, I kept writing.  And along the way, I also got interested in anthropology, thanks to an adviser who chaired the anthropology department.  That led me to the RWJF Health & Society Scholars program, which enabled me to combine both.  Ultimately, science writing let me pursue my interests in both writing and science. Chris: What challenges did you face designing the IAPHS blog, and how did your committee contribute to this task? Kristin: The biggest challenge was starting with a blank slate!  We could do anything, and we needed to find […]

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