School of Public Health

New Address

2010-07-30T05:53:00.001-07:00

The New Address for this Blog:

The 8th Annual Disparities in Health in America Workshop

2010-05-04T20:45:00.000-07:00

The 8th Annual Disparities in Health in America Workshop: Celebrating Social Entrepreneurs Working Toward Social Justice. This year the workshop will start of Monday, June 21, 2010 through June 26, 2010. Starting with a session on the Media and Health Disparities moderated by Mr. George Strait, formerly of ABC News and now Assistant Commissioner for Public Affairs at the FDA and ending on Saturday with the morning session on Health, Health Policy and Health Disparities moderated by Dr. Leonard Zwelling, 2008 - 2009 Robert Wood Johnson Fellow with representatives from the 2008 – 2009 cohort of Robert Wood Johnson Fellows and an afternoon session on Health, the Environment & Health Disparities moderated by Dr. Armin Weinberg. In between are session packed with national and international speakers as well as a special day for Kellogg Health Scholars, both current and alumn

Associate Professor Tenure Track Faculty Position available

2010-04-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

The Division of Social and Behavioral Medicine within the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center is seeking to recruit tenure-track faculty at the level of Associate or Full Professor. Candidates with demonstrated research interest in the areas of health promotion, applied or dissemination research are encouraged to apply. Of particular interest are individuals with research experience in behavior change in such areas as maternal child health, nutrition or physical activity, tobacco, alcohol and other substance use or abuse.

Successful candidates are expected to make significant contributions to scholarship in their fields, attract extramural support, demonstrate excellence in teaching, and expand partnerships within the university and the community. All applicants must hold a doctoral degree in a field of social or behavioral science with a strong emphasis on research design and statistical methods with an established record of publications in peer-reviewed journals and a demonstrated ability to secure extramural funding.

For more information about the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine, please visit www.urmc.rochester.edu/cpm.

Persian Parade in New York

2008-04-04T13:20:00.001-07:00

Nowruz, the Iranian New Year, starts in the first day of spring. The Persian Parade is an annual event in New York City each year in the last week of March. This year it was on March 30th. Iranians start the parade in Madison Ave from 41st street to 27th street. Please find below the slides that I made during 2008 event.

For seeing the slide show click on the image below:

Lemon in Soda

2008-03-05T17:34:00.000-08:00

Before ordering lemon for your soda whach this report

Endnote a magic tool

2008-03-02T06:59:00.000-08:00

In the first time that I wrote a paper in the school of public health I arranged all of my references by hand using index cards, it means at that time, I didn’t know that I can at least use the Insert/ References tool at Microsoft Word. So simply I marked each piece of information with a number and I spent hours to arrange all of the references and if I wanted to change the arrangement of the paper, I must change all of the references, it was a painful and hard approach.

In the second semester of my study I learned that actually I can simply use the Insert/Reference tool at Microsoft Word. So I did it by word and I enjoyed it. But the problem was that I must write the citations by myself and use a standard citation system. If the professor asked me to change the citation, or if I wanted to submit my output in a seminar with different citation protocol, I had to type and change all of the citations, and again experiencing another painful procedure.

In the third semester, finally I learned that Endnote can do all of these things quickly, precisely and accurately. Now I am a big fan of Endnote and if I see a brand new student who started to write papers in grad school or even undergrad programs I definitely suggest him/her to use this magic software.

Now millions of researchers, scholarly writers, students, and librarians use EndNote (patent pending) to search online bibliographic databases, organize their references, images and PDFs in any language, and create bibliographies and figure lists instantly. Instead of spending hours typing bibliographies, or using index cards to organize their references, they do it the easy way—by using EndNote!

Visit Endnote Website by clicking here

For seeing the Endnote user manual click here

If you need a free tutorial, go to the University of North Carolina by clicking here

Organic Food

2008-03-01T12:06:00.000-08:00

In some countries people feed caws like this!

Gini index, a measure of inequality

2008-02-18T08:56:00.000-08:00

GINI index is a measure of income inequality in a society. A society that scores 0.0 on the Gini scale has perfect equality in income distribution. Higher the number over zero means higher inequality. The Gini coefficient was developed by an Italian statistician Corrado Gini and published in his 1912 paper “Variabilità e mutabilità” (”Variability and Mutability”).

Gini index in most developed European nations is between 24% and 36%, the United States Gini index is above 40%, indicating that the US has greater inequality in income distribution. By looking at the map prepared by Prof. Russ Lopez in 1999, you can see the differences between Gini index in different metropolitans in the US.

Now look at the Gini world map, as you can see most of developing countries have large gini scale indicating not only the nation face poverty, but also the wealth is distributed unequally.

For more info you can visit:

Human Development Report

Wikipedia

Gini index

From Alma Ata to the Global Fund

2008-02-14T15:55:00.000-08:00

From Alma Ata to the Global Fund: The history of International health policy is a report prepared by the Italian Global Health Watch, published in the Social Medicine (Volume 3, Number 1, January, 2008). This paper traces the evolution of international health policies and international health institutions, starting from the birth of the World Health Organization, the setting up of the Health for All targets at the Alma Ata conference 1978 and the rise of neo-liberal policies promoted by international financial institution from 1980 to the present. The paper looks at different issues surrounding public-private partnerships and the setting up of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the influence of these institutions on the health system in poor countries. For having access to a copy of this report click here.

ASPH Public Health Policy Fellowship

2008-02-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

The Association of Schools of Public Health (ASPH) represents the 40 Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH)-accredited schools of public health (SPH) in North America.

The ASPH Public Health Policy Fellow will be placed in either a congressional or committee office, to be determined, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Selected fellows are required to relocate to the fellowship location.

What does the ASPH Fellowship offer you?

This Fellowship will provide a unique opportunity for a motivated and experienced individual to play a role in helping to shape United States health policy. Specific anticipated benefits include:

* Development of a thorough understanding of the public health policy and the legislative process;
* Access and networking with experienced policymakers, public health professionals, and experts in the field of public health; and,
* Obtain hands-on real world health policy experience in the fast-paced environment of Capitol Hill.

In addition to the above benefits, the position includes the following allowances:

* One Year Stipend: $40,500
* Local Travel: $ 500
* Health Insurance: $ 3,600
* Moving Expenses: $ 1,000

When and where are the Fellowships offered?

Fellowship positions are full-time opportunities whose duration is for a one year period (July 2008 - July 2009).

For more info click here.

Strange Fruits in the USA, a country of change

2008-02-10T15:57:00.000-08:00

The current presidential race in the United States is one of the exciting episodes of the history of the American nation. This nation as a generous and patriot nation is an example of change for making a difference. If you look at the history of this country you will be impressed with the amount of changes and evolutions that took place in a short period of time. For example lynching of African Americans that had occurred mainly in the South took place in 19th and 20th centuries. Today only 40 years after Dr. Martin Luther king movement, you can see a Black candidate who runs for presidency of the United States is still in the race and has high chance for being a party nominates for November election.

Can you see the magnitude of change, I am from Middle East and I can tell you in some societies of our region if you are from minorities, despite the fact that lynching is not a case, but it is almost impossible for you to be in the office race (if there is any). In this country it is possible and does not need centuries to see it happened.

It is strange, and reminds me the Strange Fruit, a song by Billie Hodiday, a song among the list of Songs of the Century. This song was an objection to lynching of African Americans.

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Health, market or essential human right that is the question

2008-02-10T08:49:00.000-08:00

Last week in a Medical Care Class at the BU school of public health, we discussed about the health market, professor said that the health market is an imperfect market, because it doesn't have the characteristics and assumptions adhered to a perfect market. A perfect market has some assumptions like rationality of the market actors, no transaction cost (no information cost and taxes), no price taking behavior and there is sufficiently large number of participants such that no individual can affect the market and freedom of decision. Professor told us that the health market is imperfect because the following assumption is not a case in this market (1):

Power Equal
Real competition and choice
Full information
No price fixing
Transparent to buyer and seller

Patient and doctors don't have an equal power, in most areas competition is not a case since there is no different health providers. For example in some countries only one neurosurgeon works, or because of the insurance policy patients are not allowed to visit any doctor that they wish.

But my question is what about we look at the health care as a fundamental human right, if so; we can not simply analyze the health system from a market perspective. In this case health is not only a commodity with all of characteristics related to goods, it is a right, and we need to take into the account the costs of providing a right for citizens and in some cases it can be an imperfect market.

(1) Courtesy of Professor Bill Bicknell

Opportunity cost

2008-02-07T07:01:00.001-08:00

One of the concepts that a health policy maker should be aware about it is the measurement of opportunity cost in a policy or program. For example, if a city decides to build a hospital on vacant land it owns, the opportunity cost is the value of the benefits forgone of some other thing which might have been done with the land and construction funds instead.

Suppose you have a full time job with some years of experiences and you decide to come to school and study Dr PH program, the opportunity cost for pursuing this degree is the full time job, Job promotion and the other valuable things that you will leave behind for participation in the degree program.

Opportunity cost is the center of microeconomics and was developed by Friedrich Freiherr von Wieser (July 10, 1851–July 22, 1926) as an early member of the Austrian school of economics.

Publication Bias

2008-02-07T06:59:00.000-08:00

Sometimes investigators and research institutes spend a lot of time and efforts to conduct a study for examining a hypothesis, but it is possible that they reach to a non statistically significant conclusion, in this case, it is most likely to see unpublished the results of these studies. Studies show that the studies that reach a statistically significant conclusion are more likely to be published than those fail to reach significance and studies that reach significance conclusions are published more quickly than studies that do not reach significance. So why this is a case and this problem happen.

Study investigators may self-censor non-significant results, it takes time and energy to write up and publish study results, investigators may not wish to invest their time and energy in publishing studies that they feel are not exciting and instead put their efforts into more promising research. Rosenthal calls publication bias the file drawer problem as busy researchers may have file drawers full of results of no significant and unpublished studies.

In medicine most of the time pharmaceutical companies are sponsor for many clinical trials for evaluating the effects of a treatment, if they reach to non significant results, they are not interested to publish the results since they are the owner of the data and study. Journal editors and reviewer are less likely to accept the studies with non significant results. Publication bias affects the Meta analysis studies as well as any review of literature.

So what is wrong with publication bias?
The problem is that because of a fraction of studies on a subject that is available, it makes the field optimistic toward a treatment or a medicine.

Note: for writing this post, I used the slides of Meta Analysis course by Prof. Michael Lavalley

Global Road Traffic Injury Epidemic

2008-02-07T06:47:00.000-08:00

Road Traffic Injuries are responsible for a global health burden similar to malaria and tuberculosis. Tuberculosis and Malaria are in the international global agenda and receive enough attention in media and political community, but Road Traffic Injuries are ignored by most of health policy makers and it doesn't receive enough attention even from academia.

During my study at the school of public health, rarely I heard anything about this important problem that most likely beats the developing countries. One of the reason may related to the lack of research funding and attention, while you can sell your idea about fighting malaria, Tuberculosis or HIV/AIDS easily to donor agencies, why you spend your time and efforts to work on something that suffers from lack of attention and of course funding.

The other reason for ignoring this problem is related to the nature of the problem, the road traffic injuries as a problem, is difficult to address or even understand the roots in any given geo-political context. It is not a kind of "101 problem" it needs a multi stakeholder and multi dimensional approach, which is not common in most health settings in most countries.

Talking about the RTIs, also draw attention to the car industries, it means car industries have to spend a lot of money to deal with safety that is not a case in most countries with lack of resources, also related governmental authorities involved in industries can influence safety ignorance for making more profits.

I think this is the responsibility of new generation of practice based public health policy makers to force global community, governments, car industries and other stakeholders to pay attention on this major and growing public health problem.

Mission Statement Builder; create your mission statement today

2008-02-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

"The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value." -Stephen R. Covey

Have you ever thought to write down your personal mission statement? Do you know how important could be having a clear personal statement to show your meaning of life?
The sense of purpose to your daily decisions can reflect on your own mission statement. Suppose you want to find a new job and interviewer asks you about the reason of selecting this job, you can show him/her in a well defined statement that actually the job is related to your personal mission and your definition of your role in the society has been stated in your personal mission. You want to start your project or dissertation, if you know who you are and what is your personal mission, so you can decide in which direction you should go.

In the era of information age it is not difficult to create your mission statement. One of the tools that I know is Franklin Covey planner, you can go online to Covey website and the wizard will take you step by step through the process of creating a unique, personalized Mission Statement to guide your life. As other tools that I introduce in this blog the Covey planner is free of charge. So hurry up, it is time to write your personal destiny.

Happiness Index an indicator for well being

2008-02-07T06:37:00.000-08:00

Are you happy? When do people feel happiness? If they don't have anything to eat make them happy, or if their babies are dying from pneumonia is a happy situation. If they live under Bomb and there is no hope in their country makes them feel as developed and happy nation. Of course, normal human in the mainstream is not happy in any above conditions and circumstances. If you feel free, just, fare, hopeful, sound, safe, with access to food, clean water, education, health care, medicine, shelter, job and security, then you feel fine and it sounds well being and make you happy.

Country of Bhutan came with the idea of happiness index as an indicator for sustainable development. Based on the Global Projection of Subjective Well-being Study, Denmark is the happiest nation in the world, and Switzerland, Austria, Iceland, Bahamas are 2nd to 5th happiest nations. United States is 23rd and United Kingdom 41st. Iran 96th and Sudan, Ukraine, Moldova, Congo, Zimbabwe and Burundi with 173rd to 178th are among less happy nations in the world.

By using GIS 9.2 software and with using data of Human development report of 2007, I compared GDP/capita and happiness index of Eastern Mediterranean countries (EM Regional Office of WHO), unfortunately because of war there is no data about Iraq and Afghanistan.

Look at Yemen, in this poor country it seems people are happier than some countries with much higher GDP/capita.

Lesson learned sharing Blog

2008-02-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

I am a Dr PH student in Boston. I am here to share my learning with other Public Health students and professionals in this field. Having the opportunity to study in a graduate school is not always possible for interested people, so I decided to share and disseminate my knowledge with people who are interested. I try to summarize the pieces that I found interesting during my journey in the school of public health.

I was out of school for almost 10 years after I graduated from Medical School in 1995, so I know how difficult could be adjustment with the new applications in the era of information age. My plan is to summarize most of my lesson learned by June 2008 and then I will keep this blog updated with the public health challenges and practice based interventions. I try to write about the controversial aspects in public health, practice based approaches, new findings, and the sources of grants for students and professionals, events, practicum and job opportunities, and everything we need to learn for conducting a professional mission on the ground.

I am from Middle East and I am interested in working on countries in the Middle East and North Africa region, so you may find most of my examples from this region. Also since we are heading to the presidential election in the States in Nov 2008 and one of the most important parts of debates among the candidates is about Health Care in this country I would like to spend time and learn about candidates and parties viewpoints in this aspect.

2007-09-09T20:11:00.000-07:00

30 years ago George L. Engel wrote a paper in Science titled "The need for a New Model: A Challenge for Bio medicine" dated April 8, 1977. In this article he argued that all medicine is in crisis and furhter that medcine crises

So what?

2007-08-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

I was a general practitioner in Iran for a decade, at the same time I was a civil society activist with focus on Environment and Sustainable development.
Now I have a great chance to study at one of the distinguished schools in the United States. I am a student again and I appreciate this unique opportunity. The fact is that for some reason you can’t find a lot of people from Middle East in my position, studying at the Doctor of Public Health program with international health concentration.

I learn continuously at the school with friends and faculties. I think I have a responsibility to share my knowledge and understanding with interested people. Perhaps you may find a lot of people who are interested in these issues, but they don’t have chance to actually take an academic program like I did. I believe sharing information is a responsibility specifically when you have access to information in the North. On the other hand it helps me to put my understanding on window, so people can edit my learning.

I am glad instead doing practice, I work on health issues, obviously I’ll make less money, but I can help more people if I apply my learning in the right time and way.
I will try to write continuously with focus on Health Sciences with a practice based approach. Also I will write about living in Boston from a Middle Eastern angle.

Thanks for supporting me in this journey

Public Health a rationing system

2007-07-02T22:20:00.000-07:00

The title of the course IH 704 at BU was “The Organization, Delivery and Financing of Medical Care Services: An International Perspective”. In the first session our professor Dr. Bill Bicknell gave a talk about the syllabus and the assignments and then he started talking about the health discipline’s dimensions and the definition of Public Health. During that session I didn’t feel good when I heard about his definition, but later on and after doing more discussions in the class I tried to feel better and learn more about his viewpoint.

Dr.Bicknell definition about public health was: The art and science of deciding who dies, when and with what degree of misery. He added we have very scarce resources and it means, some get and some don’t, those who don’t either die sooner and/or live in more misery. This is RATIONING - and we all hate to ration. Therefore, rather than face reality, we spend lots of time convincing ourselves that promotion, prevention, sound policies and good management can avoid the pain of explicit rationing. This is a comforting and DANGEROUS MYTH.