The 136th APHA annual conference will be held in October 2008 in San Diego, CA. This year’s timely APHA conference theme is “Public Health Without Borders.”
2008 Section-hosted Sessions
The Program Committee of the Epi Section is gearing up to host a great array of contributed and invited sessions. The Section received approximately 400 contributed abstracts by the extended February 15th deadline! Thank you for those submissions. Proposals for invited sessions are due in the next few weeks. Please check the APHA 2008 annual meeting Epidemiology Section “Call for Abstracts” webpage for more information. For those of you with new, pending work, please keep your eyes out for a call for late-breaking abstracts some time in late summer or early fall!
2008 Section Leadership: Welcome to All!
While a few Section leaders have retired from leadership this year, new leaders, including six student leaders, are joining us, and experienced colleagues continue in different positions on the 30-plus member Epi Section Leadership team. We are excited that several of our student leaders also serve in key positions with the APHA Student Assembly or serve as liaisons with other sections, caucuses or SPIGs.
Please welcome to the team Dr. Claudia Kozinetz, our new Chair-Elect; Dr. Aaron Mendelsohn, our Program Chair; Mr. Oscar Alleyne, our Section Secretary and Newsletter Editor; Dr. Steve Godin, Section Webmaster; Dr. Howell Sasser, our Governing Council Whip; and Dr. Sonja Hutchins, Chair of a new Policy Committee to better coordinate Section policy and advocacy activities.
A quick plug here: if you are interested in finding out how to get more involved or in joining the Section leadership group, please contact Dr. Stan Weiss, Epi Section leadership nominations chair, or any one of the leadership team during the year. Besides working with a great group of leaders, you can make a difference. Nominations to run for leadership positions (section councilor, section governing councilor or other positions as available) can be made up to late February to early March every year, and one may nominate oneself.
2008 Section Involvement on APHA Boards and Committees
The Section is also very active on APHA Boards & Committees and those serving from the Epidemiology Section include:
--APHA Science Board (SB): Dr. Stan Weiss, new Vice Chair of the SB who also recently completed serving as a member of the Joint Policy Committee (JPC) and Dr. Elizabeth Bancroft, SB member and Section Governing Councilor.
--APHA Nominations Committee: Dr. Howell Sasser.
(Yes, this is the committee that nominates President-Elect, Executive Board, and other candidates for APHA’s executive-level volunteer offices. Please contact Dr. Sasser should you or colleagues have any suggestions for nominations or wish to nominate a deserving candidate by early March 2008 for this year or March 2009 for the following year.)
--APHA Action Board: Dr. Ruth Allen
--Education Board: Dr. John Neuberger, now serving as the newly appointed Vice Chair.
--Membership Committee: Dr. Toni Alterman
--Section liaisons to the Congress of Epidemiology 2011 Planning Committee and Leadership Team: Dr. Claudia Kozinez, Dr. John Vena, Dr. Stan Weiss and Dr. Jim Gaudino.
--Section liaisons to the Congress of Epidemiology Joint Policy Committee of the Congress of Epidemiology Societies: Dr. Stan Weiss, Dr. Sonja Hutchins, Dr. Howell Sasser, and Dr. Jim Gaudino.
The Section Awards Committee is gearing up and we need your suggestions or nominations as mentioned above. Chairing three groups within the Awards Committee that work on the different award are: Dr. Claudia Kozinetz for the three lifetime achievement career awards, Dr. Kris Fennie for the Public Health Practice Award(s), and Dr. Aaron Mendelsohn for the APHA Epidemiology Section Student Paper Awards. Please contact each of these leaders with your suggestions for nominations, willingness to serve on one of these groups, and/or questions.
2008 Section Policy Activities
Reviewing policy proposals: Soon a new cycle of proposed APHA policy resolutions and statements will be submitted and Section Governing Councilors (GC) will be reviewing the proposals in March or April once they are posted on the Legislative/Governance pages of the “Members Only” (APHA membership needed to log in) area on the APHA website. We are already involved with discussions about several hot button policy proposals. As always, there will be proposals on topics that require us to reach out for the expertise of our membership. We would certainly welcome those of you, including students, interested in being expert reviewers!
Student Shadows: Our GC will be looking for interested students to be “governing councilor student shadows” to assist GC members throughout the year with policy reviews, including the open hearings on policy proposals at the annual meeting. What better way to get involved than to help APHA and the Epi Section develop evidenced-based policies. Please contact Dr. Howell Sasser, GC Whip, for more information on policy reviews and the student GC shadow positions.
Section Policy Committee: The newly formed Section Policy Committee is just organizing to better facilitate section activities on policy and advocacy activities, including identifying policy issues that the Epi Section could author or co-author. We would welcome your ideas and input on how the Epi Section could be more effective on policy development and advocacy work. Please contact Dr. Sonja Hutchins with any ideas you have or if you would like to volunteer!
2008 Newsletter Contributions
We are looking for your ideas and contributions for our quarterly newsletter. If you have an important announcement or would like to briefly highlight some important epidemiologic findings, please contact Mr. Oscar Alleyne.
Looking forward to a great year for the APHA Epidemiology Section and for your involvement!
The persons are our section members, the place is wherever our members are, especially in San Diego this year in October, and the time to get involved is now!
Yours truly,
Dr. Jim Gaudino, Chair
American Public Health Association Epidemiology Section
james.a.gaudino@state.or.us
Contact Information for (or check our website):
Mr. E. Oscar Alleyne
AlleyneO@co.rockland.ny.us
Dr. Kristopher P. Fennie
kristopher.fennie@yale.edu
Dr. Sonja S. Hutchins
ssh1@cdc.gov
Dr. Claudia A Kozinetz
kozinetz@bcm.edu
Dr. Aaron Mendelsohn
apha_epi@yahoo.com
or MendelsohnA@medimmune.com
Dr. Howell C. Sasser
howell.sasser@carolinashealthcare.org
Dr. Stanley H. Weiss
weiss@umdnj.edu and stanleyweiss@comcast.net
For more information about the section, please visit the APHA Epidemiology Section web page at:
www.apha.org/membergroups/sections/aphasections/epidemiology/
and
Section newsletters, from Fall 2003 on, are archived & accessible by members at:
http://www.apha.org/membergroups/newsletters/sectionnewsletters/epidem/