As your new Section chair, I am pleased to have this first opportunity to formally greet all of you.

The rescheduled APHA Annual Meeting in December 2005 was well attended. The change in venue required considerable work by APHA staff and Section members, but it was pulled off quite successfully. I’d like to personally thank the many volunteers who helped, and in particular those who kept our booth in the Expo Hall so well staffed.

For those of you who made it to the Annual Meeting and whom I met, I hope you will follow up and choose to become active in our Section. You know first hand our Section’s renown for being open and friendly. Our emphasis on increasing student involvement at all levels shall continue. For those who did not attend, or whom I did not get to meet personally – I hope to see you at the Annual Meeting in November 2006 in Boston, if not sooner. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me about how we can improve the Epidemiology Section so that we can serve our members and our profession better.

In 2005, for the first time (or at least first time in the last two decades – as far back as my personal knowledge of Section history takes me) we had a Social off-site. Held at a restaurant very close to the convention center, it was a marvelous opportunity for senior Section leaders to informally meet with students and other Section members. Nearly everyone stayed for a LONG time; the open bar may have contributed. By all accounts, the social was an outstanding success. (A local professional meeting planner helped us organize this seminal event.) Based on the uniformly warm reviews, the Section leadership voted in our January monthly conference call to repeat the off-site social in Boston: please mark Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2006, 6:00 - 8:00 p.m. on your calendar! (The last Epidemiology Section scientific session on Tuesday ends at 5:30 p.m., so come relax and celebrate.) We are looking for members, and interested students, in the Boston area to work together with the leadership on planning the social. Please contact us if interested in joining this ad hoc committee, or send any ideas and suggestions!

The Awards Session that begins each year on Monday at 4:30 p.m. continues to expand in scope. Our John P. Snow Award remains our official Section award carrying his name, as sanctioned by the John Snow Society in London. The Young Epidemiology Scholars (Y.E.S.) Program has become a regular feature, where we honor the national and regional winners of this high school competition run jointly by the College Board and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Newly inaugurated this year was our Public Health Practice Award; its recipient quickly garnered significant publicity (see http://www.governor.state.nd.us/media/news-releases/2005/12/051223.html).

We remain the second largest APHA section, with about 3,000 members. This also makes us the largest epidemiology organization in North America. (If anyone knows of statistics for organizations outside North America, let us know.)

The Section is actively participating in organizing the June 2006 “Second American Congress of Epidemiology” (see http://www.epicongress2006.org) as one of the three co-equal lead agencies (along with Society for Epidemiologic Research and the American College of Epidemiology). We expect to hold a special mid-year APHA Epidemiology Section business meeting at the 2006 Congress; please check the program and please join us if you are attending the meeting.

Shazia Hussain and Azadeh Tasslimi are our new lead student representatives to the 2006 Congress and the APHA Student Assembly, respectively.

The university that had been hosting our Section Web site recently reorganized its site, and dropped us without notice. Later this year APHA hopes to move all Sections onto a site hosted by the Association. Until that happens, a temporary site is being established by our Section's Immediate Past Chair, Dr. Sarah L. Patrick. One of our new Section Councilors, Dr. Steve Godin, will then be overseeing development of this and future Web sites. A link should exist at <http://www.apha.org/sections/sectwww.htm> by the time you read this.

Cheers!

-Stanley H. Weiss, MD, FACP
Chair, Epidemiology Section
Professor, Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health
UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School
Department of Qualitative Methods
UMDNJ School of Public Health
(973) 972-4623