Looking Back: Person, Place, and Time in the 2007 Epi. Section

It is with all humility and honor that I take on the role of Chair of the Epidemiology Section—a section some 3000 members strong, and I thank once again Dr. Stan Weiss, now Immediate Past Chair; Dr. Linda Hazlett, Immediate Past Program Chair, Dr. Howell Sasser, former Section Secretary and Newsletter Editor and Annual Meeting Social Coordinator; Dr. Steve Godin, Section Webmaster; Dr. Robin Taylor Wilson, Immediate Past Governing Council Whip, and the other members of the leadership team from these past years for their extraordinary years of service.  Please join me in thanking these colleagues for all their hard work! I will introduce some of our current Section leaders below.

Let me review some of our Section’s work in 2007, starting with highlights from November 2007’s Annual Meeting.

2007 Section-hosted Sessions

The Section hosted 45 contributed and invited sessions, including 12 poster sessions, the Section Awards Ceremony Session, a very well attended student-mentor Careers in Epidemiology Session, and a special session discussing the tensions between human subjects protection internal review requirements for research and the application of public health practice and program evaluation exclusions as non-research by public health authorities.  Another highlight was a special session engaging Congressional legislative staffers and epidemiologists in discussing how epidemiologic data are really used and needed by legislators and the pitfalls often made by researchers when communicating research findings during legislative or policy development processes. There were high quality scientific presentations on a full array of public health topics.

2007 Section-sponsored Awards

 A packed agenda in the Section Awards Session included senior career awards for and lectures by three distinguished colleagues as well as other awards. 

John Snow Award:

Dr. David Schottenfeld, Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, received the John Snow Award for his seminal work on cancer epidemiology and translation of research to practice. Dr. Phil Mackie from the John Snow Society and Royal Institute of Public Health in London, which officially sanctions the Section Award, joined us to bestow the honors.

Abraham Lilienfeld Award:

Dr. Michelle Williams, Professor at the University of Washington (UW), received the Abraham Lilienfeld Award for teaching epidemiology and mentoring domestic and international students and junior colleagues as the founder and director of the Multidisciplinary International Research Training (MIRT) Program, and in her work at UW. 

Wade Hampton Frost Lecture:

Presenting the Wade Hampton Frost Lecture this year was Dr. Gary Wormser, Professor at the New York University Medical Center.  Dr. Wormser discussed his early, cutting-edge work identifying, studying and treating patients with HIV/AIDS during the first wave of the US epidemic in the 1980s. He also discussed his ongoing work on Lyme Disease, a consequence of Borrelia burgdorferi  infection, and on current conundrums regarding a less well described but suspected Borrelian diseases in the US. Reflecting on the art and science of epidemiologic endeavors, he challenged us to apply Donald Rumsfeld’s construct of “known knowns, unknown knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns” in epidemiologic investigations—there is so much more to learn.  

Public Health Practice Award:

In this third year of the Epidemiology Section’s Public Health Practice Award, we honored the New York City Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene Bureau of Tobacco Control, for outstanding work having a measurable impact with their smoking cessation program.  For this next year’s awards, please consider nominating any colleagues within ten years of their training or any organizations or agencies who through their efforts have a measurable, positive impact on a public health condition or better address public health issues. 

Student Awards:

Last but not least, we recognized with cash stipends the stellar scientific work of three students and their colleagues for their outstanding abstracts and papers.  We’re looking forward to another set of high quality student abstracts to review again for this year!  Looking to the future, we also honored the impressive work of several high school students as Young Epidemiology Scholar (YES) Finalists this last year.  We are honored that Dr. Pamela Russo, Senior Program Officer representing the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and her colleagues from the College Board, YES sponsors, joined us in recognizing and honoring the scientific work of these talented students, who received substantive scholarship awards to continue their scientific pursuits when they advance to university studies.  To read about the YES program, please go to the YES website: www.collegeboard.com/yes.  

Please see below how you may contribute to next year’s successful recognition of the valuable work of our senior career, new career, and student colleagues in October.

2007 Section Policy Activities

Last year was another busy year for the APHA Governing Councilors with policy review activities and APHA leadership elections.  As always, Epi Section Governing councilors were actively engaged in APHA policy resolution reviews and, also, several leaders served on the APHA Joint Policy Committee (JPC) and Science Board.  New policies ultimately passed by the Governing Council as a result of these efforts will soon be posted on the APHA website. 

In fact, our section co-authored one resolution to highlight increasing problems that public health agencies and school health programs are encountering with the older Federal law governing school privacy, called Family Education Rights Privacy Act (FERPA) passed 30 plus years before the HIPAA law governing patient privacy. The forthcoming APHA policy, called Promoting School Information Sharing for Public Health Purposes, describes FEPRA and points out that, unlike HIPAA, FEERPA has no exception allowing access to school records, including school health records for public health purposes. The policy also explains increasing difficulties that public health agencies and school health programs are having in obtaining needed data in the face of new public health challenges that need earlier life interventions, e.g., growing obesity and rise of Type II diabetes among school children.

Section leaders also participated in and debated the proposal to increase APHA dues and add the new multiple section membership option for additional fees.  When these new fees were approved by the APHA Governing Council (GC), section leaders joined with several other sections in proposing that APHA staff provide ongoing data reports on the impacts of the new fees.  This later proposal also was approved by the GC and hopefully will provide APHA with needed information about how dues changes impact the membership of the organization.

2007 Section Social Event

Finally, the Section Social Tuesday night was a smash hit event, thanks to Dr. Howell Sasser and several other leaders, drawing over 100 members, well over our estimate.  Student and career section members and their invited guests enjoyed tasty Spanish tapas treats as they networked!  One professor from the University of Florida brought several of his students with him to the event, making sure they were well fed, celebrated their successes as student presenters, and met key contacts for future opportunities. Now that’s a faculty mentor!  We even made contacts with colleagues living in San Diego willing to help plan our next social!  So, please add Tuesday night during APHA in San Diego to your calendars for another chance for students, mentors and colleagues to met and greet each other!  If you would also like to help plan this fun event, please contact me.