Statistics
Section Newsletter
Spring 2009

Message from the Chair Jim Leeper

Your Statistics Section Council has been busy the past few months in a number of venues.  First, the 2009 Program is looking excellent, thanks primarily to Bill Pan, but also to various organizers, including last year’s Spiegelman winner.  Bill is looking for session moderators, so please contact him if you wish to volunteer.  You can see the details elsewhere in the newsletter, and I hope this will appeal to you to attend the meetings in Philadelphia.  Second, we have a distinguished set of Section and Spiegelman award winners, thanks to Amy Ferketich and the Spiegelman Award Committee.  Third, thanks to Martin Weinrich, we have a wonderful slate of candidates for all of our open Section leadership positions, so be sure to vote.  Fourth, I had the opportunity to nominate Section members for various APHA Boards and Committees, and we had six members volunteer.  We are still waiting to hear if any of our nominees were selected.  Larry Moulton is again organizing our booth, so let him know if you have time to donate to be at the booth or items to donate that we can raffle off at the booth (Larry is donating a copy of his latest book).

So everything is lined up for a successful meeting in Philadelphia.  We will have our usual Social Hour and Business Meeting on Tuesday evening, Nov. 10, probably followed by dinner at a local night spot.  Details will follow later.  So all we need is YOU to make this another memorable event as we head into our second 100 years as a Section!          

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Lowell Reed Lecture

This year Ron Brookmeyer, a previous Spiegelman Award winner, is giving the Lowell Reed Lecture.  His talk will be "Measuring the HIV/AIDS Epidemic: Challenges and Opportunities."

The following information was obtained from Dr. Brookmeyer’s Web site:

Dr. Brookmeyer’s research is at the interface of biostatistics and public health. A main theme of his work concerns statistical and quantitative approaches for measuring the health of populations.  He develops statistical methods and models for tracking and forecasting health and disease. Dr. Brookmeyer has worked extensively on the development of methods for tracking the course of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.  He developed the back-calculation method for disease forecasting, and proposed statistical approaches for biomarker based methods for ascertaining current world-wide HIV incidence rates. Dr. Brookmeyer has also worked extensively on issues of biosecurity. He developed models for tracking and containing anthrax outbreaks. He also has ongoing projects in Alzheimer’s disease. His research interests in biostatistical methodology include survival analysis, epidemic models, epidemiological methods and multidimensional longitudinal data. 

For more information you can visit his Web site at http://faculty.jhsph.edu/Default.cfm?faculty_id=94.

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Section Awards

Spiegelman Award

This year the prestigious Spiegelman Award will be presented to Dr. Rafael Irizarry, professor of biostatistics at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  He is the principal investigator of a team developing quantitative methods and software for genomics and epigenomics.  The team focuses on microarrays and second generation sequencing.

For more information about his work, visit his Web site at http://rafalab.jhsph.edu/.

Statistics Section Awards

Jack Barnette will receive the Section award in the academic area for his development of statistical methods applicable to experimental design and survey data, for his application of statistical methods to a wide variety of educational and public health projects, for his administrative leadership at three schools of public health, for his service to the Statistics Section of APHA, and for his excellence in teaching and advising students for more than 35 years.

Lei Zhang will receive the Section award in the governmental area for his dedication to the study of Mississippi infant mortality and associated risk factors through the analysis, interpretation, and reporting at the state and public health district level, and his leadership role in the Mississippi Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) and Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS).

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Statistics Section Program at the 137th APHA Annual Meeting in Philadelphia

This year the Statistics Section has 19 scientific sessions including seven invited sessions and two sessions organized jointly with Epidemiology Section.  As usual Tuesday afternoon is devoted to presenting Section and Spiegelman awards, the Lowell Reed Lecture and Special Annual Statistics Methods session.  The early evening brings good fellowship at the Social Hour and a short (usually very short) business meeting.  Come and enjoy meeting old friends and making new ones!

The 2009 Statistics Section Program and schedule follows.  The listing of the individual paper in these sessions can be viewed online at http://apha.confex.com/apha/137am/webprogram/STAT.html.  See you in Philadelphia.

APHA 2009 Statistics Section Program

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News from Around APHA

Various groups within APHA ask us to include notices in our section newsletter.  These notices have been passed on by the APHA newsletter staff.

Public Health CareerMart -- More Than 1,000 jobs listed!
APHA  has created the Public Health CareerMart to be the online career resource center in the field of public health.  Here, you’ll find only qualified, industry professionals.

Job seekers, instead of searching through hundreds of sites looking for the perfect jobs in public health, you will find it all at the Public Health CareerMart Career Development Center at www.apha.org/about/careers.

Employers, instead of being inundated with stacks of unrelated, irrelevant resumes, you’re much more likely to find the candidates with the skills and experience you’re looking for — and spend less time doing it!  After all, where better to find the best public health professionals than the association that represents them? 
 
Public Health CareerMart is a member of the National Healthcare Career Network.
 

Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention Manual
APHA is proud to announce the release of "Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention: A Guide for Public Health Practitioners." This manual provides public health professionals with information, skills and tools needed to conduct screening and brief intervention (SBI) to help at-risk drinkers reduce their alcohol use.  Download the manual for free: http://www.apha.org/programs/additional/progaddNHTSI.htm.

Help Make America the Healthiest Nation in One Generation
Let’s face it – as a nation we’re not nearly as healthy as we should be. Compared to other developed nations, we’re lagging far behind. But it doesn’t have to be this way. With your help, we can make America the healthiest nation in just one generation.
As a central component of this year’s National Public Health Week (NPHW) observance, APHA launched an exciting, new viral video campaign. The Healthiest Nation in One Generation video tells the story of the many ways that public health touches our lives. Nearly 25,000 people have already viewed the video online, and the numbers continue to grow each day. If you haven’t checked out the video, watch it today and be sure to share it with your colleagues, family and friends. And stay informed by visiting www.generationpublichealth.org – NPHW 2009 is over, but our campaign to make America the healthiest nation in one generation is just beginning…

We all have to do our part. What will you do?

APHA Wants Your Input

APHA wants to know your opinion on whether you would use an online version of the Control of Communicable Diseases Manual.  Help us by taking a survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=53858582nfNS699PLteHvg_3d_3d  We appreciate your input.

New Book On Disability Studies
"Disability and Public Health," published by APHA, is now available. The publication is an important and overdue contribution to the core curriculum of disability studies in public health education. It is a particularly timely book because, as our nation ages, disability is an increasingly significant interdisciplinary area of study and service domain in public health. Visit the APHA online bookstore at www.aphabookstore.org/. APHA members can also take advantage of a 30 percent member discount whether ordering online or via our toll-free number, (888) 320-2742.

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Section Officers

Chair:                                             Jim Leeper        JLeeper@cchs.ua.edu

Chair-elect & Program Chair:           Bill Pan        wpan@jhsph.edu

Past-chair:                                      Martin Weinrich      mweinrich@sc.rr.com

Secretary:                                      Janet Eyster       jteapha@yahoo.com

Sec.-elect:                                      Marcia Testa       testa@hsph.harvard.edu

Sec. Council:                                   George Stukenborg       gstukenborg@virginia.edu
                                                       Al Ozonoff         aozonoff@bu.edu
                                                       Dedun Ingram        ddi1@cdc.gov
                                                       Elizabeth Zell         ezr1@cdc.gov
                                                       Diane Makuc        dmm5@cdc.gov
                                                       Brisa Sanchez        brisa@umich.edu

Gov. Council:                                   Frank Potter         Fpotter@mathematica-mpr.com
                                                       Amy Ferketich      aferketich@cph.osu.edu

Action Board:                                  Amy Ferketich      aferketich@cph.osu.edu

Membership:                                   M. Bazle Hossain   mbhossain@moac.morgan.edu

Sec. Awards:                                  Amy Ferketich       aferketich@sph.osu.edu

Webmaster:                                   George Stukenborg       gstukenborg@virginia.edu

Booth:                                            Larry Moulton       lmoulton@jhsph.edu

Student Representative:                Megan Price        meprice@emory.edu

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