Minutes from the April 2005 Business Meeting

Present: Geraldine Allen Perry; Judith Baigis; Olivia Cater-Pokras; Hossein Bahrami; Carol Korenbrot; Suzanne Kupiec; Lillian Mood; Joshua Mott; Harry Perlstadt; Kathleen Russell; Deborah Prothrow-Stith; David Wegman; Stan Weiss

Absent: Alan Trachtenberg, Adnan Hyder, Letitia Davis

APHA Staff: Barbara Hatcher; Charlene Royal; Monica Lathan; Omari Keeles

Opening: The Spring meeting was called to order at 9:15 a.m. by the new chair, Geraldine Allen Perry with introduction of the attendees and the welcoming of our newest student member, Hossein Bahrami.

Approval of Agenda: Medicaid White paper was moved to Tuesday near the end of the meeting. Carol to pull the comments together and submit by April 29 th. Group A policies were moved to the end of the meeting on Tuesday since Hossein and Deborah can’t be here until then. Administrative Issues – JPC Assignments to just before the end of that group.

Approval of Minutes: Education Board minutes were received and reviewed. David Wegman suggests that committee reports be included in the minutes. Science Board Fall minutes were received, reviewed and approved with no changes.

Old Business

Reports

CDC Research Agenda: Harry Perlstadt, the APHA Science Board representative to CDC Research Agenda setting briefly discussed the progress of the work group, it is made up of several partners and they function as advisors to the overall process.

Comments: The question was asked, "Are we working on a CDC research agenda or a public health research agenda?" If CDC is to be the leading public health agency, then a broader agenda setting is needed. If it’s clear it’s a CDC research agenda, then perhaps APHA or someone should consider talking about a public health research agenda for the nation. And if CDC won’t take responsibility for that then APHA could.

Action: Submit comments by May 2 nd to Harry for him to forward to the CDC committee at the May meeting in Atlanta.

DHHS: International Human Subjects – Federal Registry, March 25, 2005.

Protection of human subjects. Each individual researcher at each individual IRB will be responsible for verifying that their partners in the other countries were meeting NIH or US standards. Some of this will mean that places like Michigan State who has projects all over the world, the IRB would be backed up for years trying to make sure that every site was up to date. NIH ought to once a year for each country basically say that this country has national program of human research protection, that these institutions seem to have IRBs that are verified, certified or accredited, and that they have been reviewed and look okay. The local IRB would be able to look at the list and check it off and if anyone had questions, they could raise them. There are issues related the U.S. acceptable practices, for example, documented informed consents. Some places for example Africa, Central Asia and some Eastern Europe countries, people will not sign documented informed consent. Researchers and the IRBs can make recommendations on how to handle these known cases.

Comments: Do we want to take a position on this? Opportunity to express the Science issues.

Action: Comments should be forwarded to Chair by April 29 and follow-up with a conference call to summarize comments before the May 18 th Executive Board meeting. Chair to bring the concerns of the board up at the Executive Board meeting in May to talk about how APHA want to handle this.

Health Disparities Database: Health Disparities database that APHA has set up and invited to submit projects and reports that they have done to deal with health disparities. APHA decided that we should review them for validity, scientific merit and other things. An evaluation committee was formed and a list was circulated with people who were selected to be on the committee. A face-to-face meeting is scheduled for June and criteria will be set up on how projects will be reviewed.

Comments: Since this is a minority health issue, one of the concerns is that the committee should have diversity; and that the African American male is not left out. If David Williams wasn’t available then another African American male should be appointed to the committee as his alternative. Ron Braithwaite, Bill Jenkins and Lou Allen were suggested names for alternatives.

Annual Meeting Session

Addressing the annual meeting theme “Evidence in the Policy Process” fell into 2 categories: (1) more focused on the issue of evidence – what is public health evidence how do we understand the determinants of it and the other category was (2) the use of evidence in the policy process which has to do more with how do we determine what might be considered evidence-based in public health and how does this evidence-based information actually gets utilized in the public policy process. Debate on how science gets used in the public policy process. David Wegman will coordinate the plenary session and Carol Korenbrot will coordinate the Science Board session on Setting a Public Health Research Agenda.

New Business 

2007 Annual Meeting Themes

The following themes were suggested for 2007. (Bullets to Chair on relevance of topic.)

Creating powerful partners; getting fair funding and resources for public health

Late 2007, when the annual meeting takes place, will be a time in which the nation’s attention and that of the public health workforce will be turned toward the impending 2008 national elections. The meeting will be held in our nation’s capital, and this theme would serve as timely acknowledgment of the importance of politics as one of our key partners in achieving public health’s goals. It could also serve as guidance in the selection of our opening and closing keynote speakers. Speakers will cover barriers and strategies to obtain needed funding and resources for public health.

Measuring effects; health determinants; implementation

Community driven initiatives; creative action

Futuristic thinking and doing /action

Medicaid White Paper: Courtney made brief presentation on the draft Medicaid White Paper that focuses on the public health aspects of Medicaid. Time did not permit group to go into detail, therefore, they were to read it and pass on their comments to Chair who will forward to Courtney by April 22nd.

Upcoming meetings

Science Board Business Meeting

Sunday, November 7, 2005
8:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel
New Orleans, LA

Science Board Sponsored Sessions

Evidence in the Policy Process: Whose Evidence is Used, Why & How?

Wednesday, November 9, 2005
10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Hilton Hotel – Grand Ballroom Suites A/B

Setting a National Public Health Research Agenda

Monday, November 7, 2005
2:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Hilton Hotel – Napoleon Ballroom