First published on June 1, 2015 in observance of the COPH’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

It was the evening of May 2.  There was a slight chill in the air as fans gathered in Traditions Hall anxiously awaiting the event of the century.

No, not the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight.  The other event ….

The USF College of Public Health’s Inaugural Alumni Awards Ceremony.

More than 180 supporters of the college traveled from as far as Indonesia to celebrate 28 Bulls with significant impact in public health.  From research to practice to policy to teaching, the awardees have done it all and are doing it exceedingly well.

COPH 2015 alumni awardees

The celebration began with a cocktail reception at 6 p.m., followed by dinner and the ceremony.  The dynamic Dr. Joette Giovinco served as mistress of ceremony for the evening.  She’s the first physician to complete the COPH’s occupational medicine residency program, but is probably best known as Dr. Joe, the medical reporter for Fox News in Tampa.

Dr. Joe shared stories and relics from her days as a graduate student in 1988.  She even dusted off some vintage overhead sheets and her carousel replete with slides!

“We were so fortunate 30 years ago that visionary leaders like Sam Bell and Dr. Robert Hamlin believed that Florida deserved to have a school of public health and created the foundation for the first one in the state at the University of South Florida,” said Dr. Donna J. Petersen, COPH dean and senior associate vice president of USF Health.

“It is only fitting on the occasion of our 30^th anniversary that we recognize some of those alumni who, through their commitment to their profession, improve the health of communities around the world and reflect back so positively on our College of Public Health.”

Nominations were accepted through January.  A selection committee comprised of retired and current faculty, staff, alumni, students and community partners in public health had the arduous task of reviewing dozens of nomination packets.

Each alumni awardee received a stunning silver bull engraved with his or her name.

After dinner, Peggy Defay shared her experiences as a public health graduate student.

“As a first generation immigrant from Haiti,” she said, “higher education in any capacity is a priority for me.”

“I discovered my passion for public health through my experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Namibia.  Through this experience, I gained a better understanding of health issues at the grassroots level.  Being a volunteer in the Peace Corps helped me understand some of my weaknesses and the need to continue training in this field.”

“The past seven years have taken me to various corners of the world where I have been privileged to meet, live and be empowered by many people.  The last two years at the University of South Florida are no exception to that.  And, I can now say that I have once again lived and worked among amazing people!”

Then, it was time for the main event—presentation of the COPH Class of 2015 alumni awardees.  Each alumni award recipient was recognized during the ceremony, and all are listed here.  A few of their stories are included for those who weren’t present to hear them all on May 2.

Tabia Henry Akintobi, PhD, MPH
Director, Prevention Research Center
Director, Evaluation and Institutional Assessment
Associate Professor, Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine
Associate Dean, Community Health
Morehouse School of Medicine
Atlanta, Ga.

“As a graduate student, I had the opportunity not just to learn how to conduct research, but how to lead it in partnership with experts who cared,” Dr. Tabia Akintobi said.  “They recognized the importance of students as significant contributors to their research as reflected in the number of co-authored papers and abstracts I had under my belt prior to graduation.”

“Among the wonderful colleagues, mentors and leaders I met during my tenure was the love of my life, professional confidante and partner in good Dr. Adebayo Akindele Akintobi [former student and husband].”

Abdel A. Alli, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Department of Physiology
Emory University School of Medicine
Atlanta, Ga.

Philip T. Amuso, PhD, MS
Consultant
Clinical Laboratory Medicine and Public Health Preparedness

Retired Director
Bureau of Laboratories
Florida Department of Health
Tampa, Fla.

Roy W. Beck, MD, PhD
Executive Director
Jaeb Center for Health Research
Tampa, Fla.

Sherri Berger, MSPH
Chief Operating Officer
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, Ga.

“My undergraduate degree was in political science, and I didn’t know exactly what to do with it after graduation,” Sherri Berger said.

Sherri Berger and son Jacob.

“Listening to my mother’s advice to ‘get more education,’ I did what other college kids do, and I followed my boyfriend to Tampa, where he had a job offer.  I was hoping to get a master’s degree in hospital administration.  However, in my first semester at the COPH, I fell in love with epidemiology.”

Arlene Calvo, PhD, MPH
Research Assistant Professor
Depts. of Community and Family Health & Global Health
USF College of Public Health
City of Knowledge, Panama

James R. Chastain, Jr., PhD, PE, MPH
President
Chastain-Skillman, Inc.
Tampa, Fla.

“Having an undergraduate and graduate degrees in engineering, I found public health a perfect complement to that training,” Dr. James Chastain said.  “While engineering is much more design and nuts-and-bolts execution-oriented, public health was more about the personal impacts and generally a systems-oriented and advocacy approach.  There certainly was a great overlap, but even the way that I had to study was different.  Public health provided fresh perspectives to design problems, and I enjoyed expanding my horizons with my studies.  In a word, public health tended to address the “why” questions, and engineering focused on the “how” questions.  I’ve found that very helpful in my practice.”

The Chastain Family celebrated James accomplishments. James is pictured far left.

“The COPH also was quite progressive at the time in terms of scheduling courses that allowed working professionals to take the courses while working at the same time.”

Chastain managed a company and family with three children while earning his degree.

“The time pressures were intense,” he said, “and would not have been possible without a very understanding and supportive wife.”

Stephen R. Cole, PhD, MPH
Professor of Epidemiology
Gillings School of Global Public Health
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, N.C.

Martha L. Daviglus, MD, PhD
Associate Vice Chancellor for Research
Professor of Medicine
Director of the Institute for Minority Health Research
University of Illinois at Chicago
Chicago, Ill.

Hanifa M. Denny, PhD, MPH, BSPH
Dean
College of Public Health
Diponegoro University
Semarang, Indonesia

“One day, we were brought to new [medical] student orientation session.  After touring a hospital ward, I was not able to eat or sleep for some days due to seeing a diabetic patient with a severe wound,” Dr. Hanifa Denny recalled.

“I asked one professor if there is a program within the college of medicine without a requirement to visit patients in a hospital ward.  I also said that I wanted to help people to live in a healthy lifestyle without necessarily suffering from sickness.  I wanted to make people healthy and able to work without a fear of being sick.  The professor explained public health and how the science would meet my expectation.  After my second year of college, I fell in love with occupational and environmental health.”

Scott Dotson, PhD, MSC, CIH
Lead Health Scientist – Senior Team Coordinator
Education and Information Division
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Cincinnati, Ohio

Anthony Escobio, MPH, FHFMA, CHAM
Vice President
Patient Financial Services
Tampa General Hospital
Tampa, Fla.

“I wanted to be an MD.  I took a few of the pre-med “weed out” courses as an undergraduate and did not do very well,” Anthony Escobio recalled. “I had an entry-level job at St. Joseph’s Hospital in 1990, and this is where I learned that there were many more opportunities in health care that did not involve practicing medicine.”

The Escobios couldn’t be more proud of Anthony (back row, second from right).

One of the more “interesting” events from Escobio’s COPH days involves a class with Dr. Alan Sear.

“I left a management position at University Community Hospital to be a senior analyst at Tampa General Hospital,” Escobio said.  “TGH was having a host of financial challenges at the time, and the leadership was being ridiculed in the press on a weekly basis.  One of my professors, Alan Sear, spent an entire lecture discussing the poor decisions that leadership at TGH was making.  I sat slouched in my chair knowing that I had just taken a job to be an analyst for these very leaders.  All I could think to myself was ‘what have I done?’  Little did I know that I would be at the center of one of the biggest hospital turnarounds in the country for this period of time.”

Ligia María Cruz Espinoza, MD, PhD, MPH
Associate Research Scientist
International Vaccine Institute
Leon, Nicaragua

Kathryn J. Gillette, MHA, FACHE
Market President and Chief Operating Officer
Bayfront Health-St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg, Fla.

Jan J. Gorrie, JD, MPH
Managing Partner
Ballard Partners
Tampa, Fla.

Richard T. Hartman, PhD, MS, CSP, CIH
Chief Health Strategist
PSI Inc.
Alexandria, Va.

Xiomara Zulay Hewitt, MPH
Director
Infection Prevention and Control
Adventist Health System
Altamonte Springs, Fla.

Winifred M. Holland, MPH, MA, LMHC
Administrator-Health Officer
Florida Department of Health in Clay County
Green Cove Springs, Fla.

Carol Ann Jenkins, MPH, FACHE
Director, Accreditation and Survey Readiness
All Children’s Hospital Inc.
St. Petersburg, Fla.

Claudia X. Aguado Loi, PhD, MPH, CHES
Research Assistant Professor
Department of Community and Family Health
USF College of Public Health
Tampa, Fla.

Christine McGuire-Wolfe, PhD, MPH, CPH
Firefighter/Paramedic and Infection Control Officer
Pasco County Fire Rescue

Adjunct Faculty
Department of Global Health
USF College of Public Health
Tampa, Fla.

Maj. (Dr.) James McKnight
Force Health Protection Officer
U.S. Central Command
Serving in Jordan

Maj. James McKnight’s children accepted his award since he is serving in Jordan.

Rachel Nuzum, MPH
Vice President
Federal and State Health Policy
The Commonwealth Fund
Washington, D.C.

Claudine M. Samanic, PhD, MSPH
Commander
U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps

Environmental Health Scientist
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Research Region 5
Division of Community Health Investigations
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Chicago, Ill.

“Since 1999, when I graduated, I’ve been impressed with the expansion and creation of new institutes and centers, the college’s increasing role in global health, and announcements of various faculty accomplishments and impact,” said Dr. Claudine Samanic.  “It was humbling to be in the room with so many accomplished fellow COPH alumni.”

Angelia Sanders, MPH
Associate Director
Trachoma Control Program
The Carter Center
Atlanta, Ga.

Natalia Vargas, MPH
Public Health Analyst
Health Resources and Services Administration
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Rockville, Md.

Angelica C. Williams, MPH
Disease Intervention Specialist
Florida Department of Health in Broward County
Pembroke Pines, Fla.

Lauren B. Zapata, PhD, MSPH
Commander
U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps

Senior Research Scientist
Division of Reproductive Health
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Atlanta, Ga.

COPH Deans, from left: Drs. Peter Levin, Donna Petersen (current) and Charles Mahan.

Without question, the night was all about the alumni awardees, but there were a few other show-stoppers in the room. Namely, COPH Deans Drs. Peter Levin, Donna Petersen, and Charles Mahan (above) and COPH alumnus and USF Board Trustee Scott Hopes (below left).

USF Trustee Scott Hopes (on left) with Lesley and Rick Bateman.  Lesley was the college’s first public affairs and development officer.

Founded in July 1984, the USF College of Public Health is wrapping up a yearlong celebration of educating and training public health professionals.  Some of the 30^th anniversary year highlights include

• regional events in Orlando, New Orleans, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.
• the Dean’s Lecture Series featuring alumni like Drs. Richard Hartman, Charlan Kroelinger and Hana Osman.
• community building activities like a tailgate and USF football game, fall networking social during homecoming, Super Bowl party and spring BBQ.
• Team #USFCOPHRocks with more than 50 public health Bulls participating in the Gasparilla Distance Classic.
• raising almost $70,000 in new commitments to student scholarships in the college.

“We are proud of the work we have done building on a solid foundation and creating an outstanding school of public health—one that just recently jumped in national rankings from 21 to 16,” Petersen said.  “In addition to our great champions and the consistent high performance of our faculty and staff, the reputation we have earned is due in no small measure to the incredible contributions of our alumni.”

The alumni awards ceremony was made possible with support from the COPH, as well as corporate sponsors USF Health and Bayfront Health-St. Petersburg, and individual sponsors Drs. Jay Wolfson and Phillip and Jean Amuso.

It takes a village to raise a family AND host an amazing alumni awards ceremony.  Salute!

Alumni awardee Dr. Abdel A. Alli (second from right) enjoyed the festivities with his family, as well as nominator and faculty mentor Dr. Donna Haiduven (center) and her husband, Michael Gronquist (far right).

Alumni awardee Dr. Arlene Calvo shares a special moment with fellow alumnus Dr. Clement Gwede.

Go, Bulls!

“I applaud the College of Public Health for recognizing alumni who not only have tremendous accomplishments, but who have made a difference in the lives of so many,” said Bill McCausland, executive director of the USF Alumni Association.

Story by Natalie D. Preston, College of Public Health.  Photos by Ashley Grant and Humberto Lopez Castillo.

Related media:
Alumni Awards photo gallery on Facebook

The post Our past is our future: College recognizes distinguished alumni appeared first on College of Public Health News.

First published on May 14, 2015 in observance of the COPH’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

Long before the deluge of online learning became a given of modern education replete with a glut of overnight “universities,” USF’s College of Public Health launched a distance-learning presence that was formidable before online classes even existed.

From 1990-93, 45 state health department employees in Tallahassee earned master of public health degrees from USF via the old-fashioned method of distance learning.  Every Tuesday, a COPH professor would journey to Tallahassee to teach a three-hour course that evening, said Dr. Charles Mahan, at that time state health officer, and later COPH dean.

Dr. Charles Mahan

“We gave them Tuesday afternoon off, and they gave up their evening,” Mahan explained.  “One professor would come up for a month and do the whole core segment of epidemiology and biostatistics, and then somebody else would come up and do the whole core of community and family health.

“When people in practice throughout the state at the health departments saw what we were doing up there, they came to the college and said, ‘Please, do that for our staff.’  That’s when we began the distance-learning program.”

Technology offered a more efficient means by 1994, when COPH began beaming public health courses via satellite to 33 host sites at state and local health departments across Florida.

Answering a mandate

“USF College of Public Health had a very good partnership with the Florida Department of Health,” recalled Sandhya Srinivasan, COPH director of educational technology and assessment, “and through this partnership, we were able to deliver public health education while utilizing health department meeting space and satellite equipment that was already part of the Florida Department of Health satellite network.  We were able to piggyback on that and beam our classes to busy health professionals.”

Sandhya Srinivasan, MPH, MEd

WUSF-TV had an uplink facility, Srinivasan explained, which enabled COPH to buy satellite time at the discounted educational rate.  The telecasts were cabled to the uplink facility in Clearwater, then beamed to the satellite from there.

As part of the founding of the college a decade earlier, USF and COPH had a legislative mandate to train public health employees statewide, Srinivasan said.  A needs assessment at the time signaled the need when it found that very few public health workers had had any formal public health training.

“They had come to public health through medicine or nursing or sociology, but they were not trained in public health,” she said, “and so the college had a huge challenge in front of it.”

Two evening courses were initiated to meet that challenge, she said.  Each met once a week for three hours, and each had an on-site technical point person should the satellite or any link in the technology fail.  Technical and material needs were communicated via phone or fax in those days before the advent of personal computers and e-mail.

Given those limitations, early growth was slow, but within a few years, the need for more courses and faster, easier means of delivery coincided well with the PC age.  In 2001, Srinivasan said, technical advances and growing interest in the program sparked its rapid expansion.

“We started incrementally,” she said, “moving our classes from satellite to a blended online-and-satellite format.”

The Department of Education weighed in with a $3-million grant for instruction in technology.  That IIT grant, as it was known (standing for Innovations in Technology and Training), enabled the college to hire instructional designers who brought in multi-media components that completed the transition from satellite-online hybrid to a fully online operation.

From online courses to online degrees

With all classes delivered entirely via Internet, geographic limitations were gone.  Anyone, anywhere could take courses on the World Wide Web, and host sites were things of the past.  It wouldn’t be long before the state’s first public health college conferred the state’s first fully online public health degrees.

According to figures supplied by David Hogeboom, statistical data analyst for COPH, the online degree program has conferred 383 MPH degrees in various concentrations since spring 2001.  The total represents more than one-fifth of all MPH degrees and more than one-eighth of all degrees awarded by COPH in that timeframe.  Srinivasan said nine students graduating on Dec. 13, 1998, from the Public Health Practice program were the first to earn their degrees via satellite.

COPH distance learning’s first nine MPH graduates made headlines in 1998.

“Today, in addition to public health practice, we have five other master’s concentrations online and 11 online graduate certificates,” Srinivasan said.

Unlike other classrooms, the virtual variety requires technical design specifically geared to disseminating educational materials.  Accordingly, full-time instructional designers are a big part of the picture at COPH online.

“Our office consists of six full-time instructional designers and a graphics designer,” Srinivasan said.  “The designers are assigned to particular courses and work hand-in-hand with faculty in preparing course materials and assessments.  They are able to parse down a lesson to bare essentials and match the right technology that can deliver that content efficiently to the students.”

Today’s COPH online learning team.  Back row, from left: Thomas Reilly, James Taylor, Andres Abril, Carlos Montoya, Samantha Lopez.  Front row, from left: Ana Vizcaino, Jung Lim, Sandhya Srinivasan, Trudian Trail-Constant.

Srinivasan said one of the concerns the designers address is interaction.

“It is less than ideal to listen to a talking head for three hours, so we use different types of interactive technologies that enable and even encourage student interaction,” she said.

Much of that interaction involves typed responses, she said, but even that is rapidly changing.

“As part of Canvas, the learning management system at USF, we now have access to an interactive virtual tool called Blackboard Collaborate.  Students and instructor log in at a given time and date, and the tools within that virtual classroom allow for interaction.  Students and faculty are able to interact via audio, video and whiteboard tools to do everything they could do in a traditional classroom.”

Alison Oberne, MA, MPH, CPH, an instructor in the USF College of Public Health, narrates a lecture for an undergraduate public health course using the recording space in COPH used for recording content for the lectures and modules of most of the college’s online degree programs.

It doesn’t take an instructional designer to appreciate the brightness of COPH’s online future.

When the college launched its online master’s program, Mahan said, deans at other colleges of public health told him it would never work.  In fact, he said, deans from the older schools of public health at revered institutions like Harvard and Johns Hopkins flat-out swore they would never do it.

“Now, of course, they all do it,” he said.  “Absolutely, we were the first to do it.  We were a couple of years ahead of everybody else in offering the full MPH by distance.”

“The tools from the beginning to now have undergone tremendous change,” Srinivasan said.  “We are committed to remaining on the cutting edge, so the future of our program will be wherever virtual classroom technology will allow us to go.”

Story by David Brothers, College of Public Health.

The post College of Public Health a pioneer of online learning appeared first on College of Public Health News.

First published on April 6, 2015 in observance of the COPH’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

Dr. Karen Liller has been a child and adolescent injury prevention researcher for a quarter of a century.  A professor in the USF College of Public Health’s Department of Community and Family Health and a member of the Florida Injury Prevention Advisory Group, she worked with a Tampa General program called More Health in the mid-1990s to help evaluate its health education programs.  One of those programs promoted bicycle helmets for children.

Dr. Karen Liller

“I evaluated their program, and I started observational studies of children’s bicycle helmet use in Hillsborough County,” Liller said.  “I was monitoring this because, as part of the Injury Group, I knew this bill had been denied two times before.  We were all part of the advocacy efforts with Tallahassee between the state of Florida program, More Health and the college to get this passed.”

A natural proponent of requiring kids to wear helmets when they rode their bikes, Liller had her interest piqued.  From casual observation alone, she surmised that few were.  Determined to put scientifically collected numbers to the problem, she and a cadre of her graduate students set about the task of collecting data.

From low expectations to high hopes, then action

“I was focused on unintentional injuries in children,” she said.  “Nationally, this was a huge issue.  I had some colleagues at Harborview Injury Prevention Program in the state of  Washington, and they were some of the early leaders nationally in helmet use.  So I naturally got very, very interested and started looking, started conducting observational studies, because I didn’t know:  What is the helmet use rate? “I developed and performed community observations,” she said.  “I would hire my grad assistants, and they would stand on corners doing observational surveys of kids in helmets.  We mapped out the whole county, and I had them on streets everywhere.  We had a whole protocol of where we wanted to be, because we wanted to capture observational surveys in many different places – in community sites, in schools, not near schools, etc., so we had a good idea of what was going on in Hillsborough County.”

As low as Liller’s expectations were, reality turned out to be even worse.

“I can tell you, it was pitifully low,” she said.  “For children under 16, it was about three percent.”

Liller set out on a concentrated campaign to get a helmet law passed.  It already had languished and died in two previous legislative sessions, and she was determined to make the third try count.

“I did many radio spots and TV spots and Good Morning Whomever promoting bicycle helmets as the law was working its way through the legislature,” she recalled.

“I wanted to get ahold of it,” she said, “because I knew this was a national issue, and I knew states were starting to pass laws.  Florida is a tough state to get a law passed for children’s injury prevention.  In fact, we just got the booster seat law done.  We were one of the last states to do that.  I knew it was going to be a battle.  So, I knew I’d better get started early.” Liller learned through focus groups that legislators weren’t the only people she needed to convince.  Some parents didn’t want a law telling them to put helmets on their kids’ heads.  After all, bicycle shops already were selling more helmets.  McDonald’s was giving out helmet discount coupons and safe rider certificates.  Why should there be a legal mandate?

“My answer to them was, ‘Do you have a driver’s license?  Yes?  Well, the government told you to do that.’

“It always surprised me when parents would argue with me on this issue.  The famous one for me was, ‘I rode a bike all the time when I was a kid, and I never got a head injury.’  I’d say, ‘When was that?  Where was that?’  And it would be some idyllic little community in some other state, and I’d say, ‘Try riding a bike in Tampa now, and get back to me on that.  The world has changed.  The roads have changed.  The danger level has changed.”

Clearly, the law’s chief proponent had taken on a daunting task, but being part of the state’s first college of public health had its rewards.  Dr. Charles Mahan, state health director under Gov. Lawton Chiles, was a valuable ally.  COPH was still the only school of public health in Florida, and COPH professors were trekking all the way to Tallahassee to teach weekly classes at the state health department office.  Through the department’s close working relationship with COPH, Mahan already had known Liller and had been supportive of her efforts.

Dr. Charles Mahan

“We knew that Karen was really focused on getting a child helmet law through, and certainly, we were very much in favor of that,” said Mahan, who was COPH dean by the time the measure was in its third incarnation.  Mahan had known Chiles since well before the latter began his two terms as governor.

When Mahan was a medical student at the University of Florida, Chiles became interested in his work on infant mortality.  Personal and professional bonds soon followed.

“When he was a senator, I would go around the country and hold hearings with him,” Mahan recalled.  “He would do all the talking, but I would help him figure out what to say, depending on what the issue was.”

Mahan knew the governor well enough to know he was predisposed to children’s health issues.

“Any issue related to children was something that Gov. and Mrs. Chiles were supportive of,” Mahan said.  “Anything that needed his support on children’s issues for safety or survival or whatever, he would tell the staff – me and everyone else – to make sure that it got supported.” With the encouragement of a popular governor, the proposal was gaining momentum.  The awareness raised by the news of the pending legislation helped engender educational outreaches that helped the ball roll faster.

“Betty Castor, who became president of USF, was head of education at the time,” Mahan said, “and the school systems jumped right in with educational efforts.”

Those collective efforts eventually generated the irresistible momentum that carried the measure over the finish line.

“With Charlie’s support and the governor’s, on the third attempt, it was successful,” Liller said.  “And I testified and did a variety of things locally, as well, for the bill.  A colleague of mine also did a cost-effectiveness study, and he also testified with that in Tallahassee.  I think it was a combination of all of these things.  We kept sending the legislators our research findings, and with all the backing, eventually, in 1996, the bill passed.”

A victory not etched in stone

“Bike helmets are an investment we should make to ensure our children’s health and safety,” Chiles declared as he signed the bill onto law.

The measure became effective on Jan. 1, 1997, and for the next 12 months, it was easy for anyone to live with.  A violator would receive a warning and a bicycle safety brochure.  As of Jan. 1, 1998, however, that brochure was delivered with a $17 citation.  It was a light fine as fines go, and even it could be circumvented.

“After the first year, you could get a fine if the child was riding, was under the age of 16 and didn’t have a helmet on,” Liller said, “but you could get around that if you could show evidence of a bicycle helmet.”

That, of course, was only when the law was enforced, which, according to Liller, wasn’t – and still isn’t – very often.

“Police are very reluctant,” she said.  “I talk to them about how many tickets they’ve given, and usually the answer is ‘none,’ at least in Hillsborough County.  They’re very reluctant to stop a child on a bike.”

Nonetheless, she said, by 1998, helmet use had risen exponentially, to 67 percent in Hillsborough County.  So even without much enforcement, the law was accomplishing its purpose.

“I think the law has been great,” Liller said.  “We did an analysis of its efficacy.  We did show that helmet use has gone up, and we showed that injuries have gone down.  And that was great.  That was the intent of the law.  Injury prevention does its best, many times, when there’s a policy change or a legislative change, because it just reaches more people.”

Mahan agreed. “Having it as law is a big awareness raiser,” he said.  “It gets all over the papers and the news again and again.  The legislature is considering this measure.  That’s news.  The legislature passed it today.  That’s news.  The governor signed it into law.  That’s news again.  It went into effect today, so that’s news, too.

“For the majority of parents, who care so much about their kids, just the awareness-raising and then seeing other kids out there with their helmets on helped, but it took time.  As with any legislation, it takes about three years to get a good idea through.  It’s very hard to take a new idea on regulation to the legislature.”

“It was a very exciting time,” Liller said, “because, the first couple of times, I would go to the injury meetings, we’d work on the language of the law, and it just kept getting defeated.  The first year we did it, I think we just put it out there and said, ‘Let’s just see how it goes.’  The second year, we didn’t have the information about the penalty.  I still don’t like the penalty.  I don’t to this day.  But it was a really exciting process, and I’m so glad I was part of it.”

Still, Liller knows that no law is etched in stone.  The state threw a scare into helmet proponents and safety advocates in general when it partially repealed its motorcycle helmet law by limiting the requirement to riders under 21. “We were very afraid that they were going to repeal the bicycle helmet law, too, but so far, so good,” Liller said.  “They haven’t touched that law.  I think that’s because it’s for children.  I think if we would have had that helmet law for all ages, we would have been in trouble.”

“When I was at the state health office,” Mahan said, “the helmet law was a big plus, but at the same time, we lost the motorcycle helmet law, and that’s had tremendous consequences.”

The work continues

“We want it to become a norm,” Liller said of bicycle helmet use.  “We want it to be that, when these children have children, there won’t be any question when you get on a bike.  And we’re starting to see that.”

Mahan concurred.  He said he and his wife live two blocks from an elementary school, and the progress is easily visible.

“A lot of the kids are riding their bikes to school,” he said, “and every one of them has a helmet on.”

Work since the law’s passage has been geared toward bicycle helmet give-away programs.

“If you don’t have a helmet, we can find you one,” Liller said.  “We can find a program – Safe Kids, Tampa General, we can find somewhere to get you a helmet.”

Liller’s work on the law continues to influence safety initiatives.

“Our work has been in world publications about helmet use, about laws, about how it’s done,” she said.  “The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation wants to know about strategies, and it seems that the strategies that were developed in the ’90s – people are still really interested in those.  We were always pleased that our work is often cited as an example, even though many years have passed.”

Liller said she also is gratified to see the lasting validation of her and her colleagues’ methodology.

“It’s interesting that the work that we did is still being used.  If you run a program, you do some observational surveys.  You look at that helmet use on those kids.  You don’t just ask them.  You actually watch them.”

In the intervening years, Liller’s focus has shifted to high school sports injuries, but she remains committed to the legislation she helped to bring about, and she remains engaged with it, most recently as a content reviewer for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Wisconsin Population Health Institute for strategies they want to propose for child safety seats – and yes, bicycle helmets. Her message for the naysayers remains the same.

“We’re not telling children they can’t ride bikes,” she said.  “We’re not telling children they can’t have fun or anything else we were accused of so often.  Basically, it’s just taking necessary precautions.  There’s been some literature that says we should let kids take more risks.  We don’t want to stop anyone from taking risks or having fun or getting exercise.  We just don’t want a child to die from a perfectly preventable head injury.  We’re smarter now.”

Story by David Brothers, College of Public Health.  Photos courtesy of the National Highway Traffic Safety Association, Helmets On Heads, County Mayo and other sources.

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Dr. Donna Petersen, dean of the USF College of Public Health (COPH), delivered the college’s annual State of the College address in person to a packed Samuel P. Bell, III auditorium on Sept. 22.

This year’s presentation highlighted the college’s people, passion and potential. “Our people are the foundation of everything we do,” Petersen said, as she introduced the numerous new hires, promotions, new doctoral scholars and faculty, staff, student and alumni award winners.

“We recognize and thank all of these folks who not only enrich the college but also what we do collectively as USF Health to improve lives and create opportunities for our students and teams to learn and grow professionally,” Petersen said.

One who received special recognition was Dr. Karen Liller, a Distinguished University Health Professor, who was presented with the Cliff Blair Award for Excellence in Teaching. The award, named for the late COPH professor Cliff Blair who famously made difficult subjects easy to understand and who received the student’s teaching award seven times, is given to instructors who, according to the award’s website, “reach deep within and far beyond to provide extraordinary learning moments for students.”

“This award is so meaningful to me,” Liller said as she accepted the award. “I knew Cliff for many years. He always had time for you and was so approachable and funny. He was an amazing individual and I can’t thank you enough.”

Petersen then moved into highlighting the college’s passion—which is educating students and serving the community. Some statistics of note:

• The fall 2023 incoming class is comprised of 466 undergraduate students, 220 master’s students ​and 30 doctoral students​.
• Since May 2022, the college graduated 1,492 bachelor students,​ 314 master’s students​ and 36 doctoral students​.
• During the 2022-2023 academic year, the college’s faculty taught 83,254 student contact hours, up 2.5% over the prior year.
• A team, which included two COPH MHA students, took home second place in the CLARION Case Competition, a national competition that promotes the development of interprofessional relationships among health professional students.
• Two health sciences majors were recently elected USF Student Government president and vice president.
• One student who recently graduated summa cum laude was named a UG Golden Bull and was a Phi Beta Kappa inductee.

“Our faculty amazes me every year,” Petersen said. “Every year you teach more and more and more. And we can’t thank you enough. You help ensure the future of our field.”

Petersen went on to make note of the college’s main initiatives in 2022, including new curriculum collaborations with other areas of USF Health, such as the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences and the Taneja College of Pharmacy; instituting one-credit graduate courses; new graduate student boot camps that focus on things like writing and professionalism; the start of the Disease Intervention Specialist Training Academy (DISTA) and the Center for Leadership in Public Health Practice and its inaugural PHEARLESS cohort, devoted to workforce development.

She also elaborated on the strides of the Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative, which now has 100% participation for all the maternity hospitals in the state; the achievements of the Center for Global Health and Inter-Disciplinary Research, which has active grants totaling $49.9 million;  the genomics program, which recently enrolled its largest MSPH class; and other programs like the COPH Lifelong Learning Academy, which awarded approximately 2,046 CPH and CHES credits in 2022-2023.

Finally, Petersen talked about the college’s potential, “where we are, where we’re going and what we want to do,” she said. And because potential takes funding, she also gave an overview of the college’s budget and grants and outlined some of the important work students and faculty are doing in the research realm.

“We are doing incredible work that is increasingly recognized by different groups locally and around the country,” Petersen commented. “We had 120 research proposals submitted last year. That’s an enormous increase over the prior year. And our active awards are up to an all-time high, from $19.9 million in fiscal year 2020 to $34.98 million in 2023.”

Petersen ended her address looking to the future, making mention of a variety of events to take place and acknowledging and thanking everyone involved in the college for their support and work.

She recounted a story she heard about a man living in New Orleans post-Hurricane Katrina. His dream, Petersen said, was to open a grocery store, because every time he saw someone carrying groceries on a bus, he knew it was likely the third bus they’d been carrying the groceries on as there were no nearby food marts.

“He said, ‘You know, they say you only live once. But that’s not the truth. You only die once, but you live every day. And every day that you live, you have to do something impactful. Have a few kids, get a job, pay your bills, grow old and die—that’s not why you’re here. My purpose is easy. It’s to serve.’ So, every day,” Petersen added, “do something that matters. Be kind. Be helpful. Because that’s what we’re about.”

To view the entire address, click here.

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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The USF College of Public Health (COPH) welcomed master’s and doctoral  students to a graduation ceremony presented at the college (and also livestreamed) to family, friends, students, faculty and staff on May 5.

Dr. Donna Petersen, dean of the COPH, began the ceremony sharing the morning’s top news headlines. The dean noted that the public’s health is an ever-present concern (and news topic) for the country and the world.

“Why does that matter?” asked Petersen. “Because everything that happens in our environment affects our health.”

Every year, the COPH Excellence in Teaching awardee offers words of encouragement to the graduating class. This year’s speaker was Patrick Rodriguez, instructor I.

“As you enter this next phase of your lives, we encourage you to remember the importance of being a lifelong learner. The field of public health is constantly evolving, and it is essential to stay up to date with the latest research, technologies and best practices,” he said. “We also encourage you to embrace diversity and inclusivity in your work, recognizing that health equity cannot be achieved without addressing the root causes of social and economic disparities.”

Drs. Janice Zgibor, Amy Alman, Jaime Corvin and Victor Weedon rounded out the ceremony, presenting the Class of 2023 with their degrees and class gifts.

Zgibor, professor and associate dean for Academic Affairs, spoke to the PhD and DrPH graduates.

“I’m so proud of the accomplishments that you have made. It’s taken some time, but you did it. I had the privilege of reading all of your projects and you have made an impact on public health today as we speak,” Zgibor said.

Moving onto the MPH, MSPH and MHA students, Corvin, associate professor and director of MPH programs, urged the graduates to stand up for the vulnerable, fight for the innocent and weak and advocate for change.

“Let nothing stand in the way of your drive and passion, and never cease to be inspired,” she said.

While the graduate student ceremony was underway, the undergraduate studies team celebrated BSHS and BSPH graduates with a stop-in photo booth session before the USF Health ceremony at the USF Yuengling Center.

This semester, 684 undergraduates, 129 students seeking their master’s degree and 10 doctoral students graduated and entered the public health profession.

Here Are Some of the Stories From the Class of 2023:

Cayla Lomax’s path to public health wasn’t a straightforward one.

“In my last year of undergrad, I took a health economics course on a whim. It’s somewhat hyperbolic, but this class completely changed my trajectory. I knew nothing about the health care industry and knew even less about public health but upon taking this course, I completely fell in love with the topic. I loved learning about the health care industry and was eager to learn more. I wanted to know if it was possible to ‘fix’ the industry and I wanted to pursue further education that was more centered on health policy to find out. This is what ultimately led me to public health.”

As an MPH student concentrating in health policies and programs, Lomax said her favorite memories were passing the CPH exam and being a part of the Black-ish in Public Health student organization.

After graduation, Lomax will be working in the Hillsborough County Department of Health (DOH) as a human services program specialist.

“What I love most about this position is that you can see public health directly in action. The program I’ll be working on seeks to address the social determinants of health of clients that the DOH works with,” she said. “We’re looking to improve the health outcomes of our clients by addressing and connecting them to community resources that can meet their social needs, such as food security or transportation. I love how my position will allow me to work directly with the population we’re serving—I feel like by doing so you can really get a feel for how we can positively impact people’s lives.”

A two-time USF alumna, Chinwendu Ilonzo graduated with her MPH with concentrations in epidemiology and maternal and child health.

“Already a one-time USF alum, USF has always been a school I’ve called home,” said Ilozo, who earned her BS in biomedical science in 2019. “Being familiar with the campus, different activities and opportunities available and the wonderful people that study and teach here, I didn’t want to go anywhere else for my public health degree.”

During her time at the COPH, Ilonzo was involved in several organizations, even founding and serving as president of the Black-ish in Public Health student organization.

Ilonzo is excited to start her full-time position as a health care associate supporting and implementing initiatives focused on health care policy and performance measures.

“What I love about this position is that I will be able to apply the skills and knowledge I have gained during my program. Also, that the work is centered around improving the quality of health care through policy and systems change,” she said. “This position is heavily focused on written communication for different audiences, literature reviews, project management and developing relationships with internal and external stakeholders —all of which I have built a solid foundation for during my time as a graduate student. I feel the COPH has prepared me to take this next step!”

In the future, Ilonzo hopes to become a physician and open a medical practice that is more accommodating and accessible to Black and brown communities. She’d also like to evaluate maternal health programs and develop policies that improve community health.

Laura Pemble was first introduced to public health while studying comparative health systems and health policy abroad in Sydney, Australia, during her freshman year at Florida State University. When she returned to Florida, she decided to focus on health management and pursue her MHA at the COPH.

During her time at the COPH, Pemble said she was most proud of how much she grew in terms of professionalism and exploring a multitude of opportunities.

“I stepped out of my comfort zone for many opportunities, including running for and being voted president of the Health Management Student Association and for accepting a summer internship position in Chicago, where I did not know anyone in the city,” she said.

After graduation, Pemble will be pursuing an administrative fellowship at Tampa General Hospital. The yearlong program is designed to be a continued-learning experience where she will be doing rotations through various departments and completing several high-level projects.

“As I begin working hands-on in a hospital, I will apply the knowledge and professionalism I acquired in my classes to build relationships and be successful in future endeavors,” she said. “I believe this program was an amazing experience and immensely furthered my career. The opportunities that I was provided with are invaluable, and this program was very nurturing.”

The first in her family to graduate from college, Jacqueline Perez earned her BA in global health and international comparative studies from Duke University before deciding to attend the COPH for her MPH in health promotion and behavior.

Perez was first introduced to public health after landing an internship at the Duke Student Wellness Center (DuWell) her freshman year of undergrad.

“I didn’t know it then, but my job at DuWell introduced me to public health and the world of health education and promotion. During my four years as a DuWell intern, I had the opportunity to create and lead the implementation of health promotion projects centered around topics in sexual health, healthy relationships and mindfulness,” she said. “As someone who values creativity, this was my first work experience creating projects and programs to improve the health and well-being of my peers—and having fun while doing so. Once I realized this, I knew public health was the place for me.”

During her time at the COPH, Perez was involved in Eta Sigma Gamma and the USF Health Executive Student Leadership Board. She was also a graduate assistant for the Florida Research Prevention Center (FPRC) and Dr. Rita Debate, researching food insecurity among college students.

After graduation, Perez is excited to join the health communication research team at Fors Marsh as a research analyst.

“I never imagined myself as a research analyst, but one of the things that I love about this position is the potential for impact by developing evidence-based public health programs for our communities. I am also excited to work with a team of researchers who are driven and put people first,” she said.

A first-generation American, Calandra Peterkin had always been around health care coming from a family of nurses and midwives.

“My journey has been interesting. I wanted to become a lawyer when I was younger. However, in 2018, I became a medication technician and resident aide. From then on, I knew I wanted to be in health care,” she said. “I got into public health when I started as a freshman at USF and was amazed by how much public health covers without having to be a nurse or in direct patient care.”

During her time at USF, Peterkin was involved in numerous organizations, including the National Council of Negro Women, Black Female Development Circle, National Society of Black Women in Medicine, co-chair for education for Time for Change and vice president/health chair for the USF Chapter of National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Peterkin was recently accepted in the COPH’s MPH program and will also be working as a community health worker.

“I love that this new position focuses on overcoming social determinants of health and getting patients to their primary care practitioner rather than using the ER,” she said. “I love trying to build the bridge to the continuity of care and having the physician’s support.”

As she continues her graduate-level education, Peterkin said, “I hope to build relationships with more professors at USF! I want to be a part of more discussions and become a certified health education specialist.”

After earning her BS in communication sciences and disorders in 2011 and a BS in event management with a minor in 2014, both from the University of Central Florida, Aura Marie Reyes knew she needed to come the USF for her public health degree.

“It’s a funny story! In high school, I was a part of a club called Future Business Leaders of America. We were on our way to a conference and my teacher decided to book a university tour at USF. Since then, I always had a feeling that I would be studying at USF one day. As the pandemic affected the hospitality industry, I thought it was the perfect time to pivot my career and apply for a master’s in public health. I was living in New Jersey at the time and I saw that USF had an MPH. I decided to apply and move back to Florida to be closer to my family. I think in an odd way it was fate.”

One of Reyes favorite memories at the COPH was being asked to join the Florida Prevention Research Center (FPRC) team as a graduate research assistant working on a project that aligned with her previous experience in hospitality.

“I was able to lead, delegate tasks and learn to code a qualitative study. The major accomplishment though was completing the target number of interviews needed for one population. Recruitment is hard!”

Reyes said that she’ll always remember the people that she met while in the MPH program and the support they gave each other through all the highs and lows.

Story by Caitlin Keough, USF College of Public Health

The post The COPH graduates 823 public health heroes appeared first on College of Public Health News.

After two years, the USF College of Public Health (COPH) was able to celebrate the 2022 fall graduates virtually and in person on Dec. 9-10.

This semester, 456 undergraduates, 70 students seeking their master’s degree and seven doctoral students graduated and entered the public health profession.

On Dec. 9, the COPH welcomed master’s and doctoral students to a graduation ceremony presented at the college (and also livestreamed) to family, friends, students, faculty and staff. (Click here to view the full ceremony)

Dr. Donna Petersen, dean of the COPH, began the ceremony sharing the morning’s top news headlines. The dean noted that the public’s health is an ever-present concern (and news topic) for the country and the world.

Petersen highlight stories about Medicaid, children vaping, breast cancer drugs and pregnancy, COVID-19 booster age limits and respiratory problems from red tide.

“Why does that matter?” asked Petersen. “Because everything that happens in our environment affects our health.”

Every year, the COPH Excellence in Teaching awardee offers words of inspiration to the graduating class. This year’s speaker was Dr. Dinorah Martinez-Tyson, associate professor.

“My message to you is to be persistent, don’t let the fear of ‘what if’ ruin the joy of ‘what is’ or diminish what you are capable of. The world is full of possibilities, even the ones not planned,” Martinez-Tyson said. “As public health professionals and advocates, you are pursuing opportunities where you can have an impact on the world, where you can have meaningful careers that prevent illness, educate and inform policy, help those who are sick manage disease and keep our workplace and communities safe. While these are challenging times, I know that you have the knowledge, skills and passion necessary to create positive social change!”

Drs. Janice Zgibor and Jaime Corvin rounded out the ceremony, presenting the Class of 2022 with their degrees and class gifts.

Zgibor, professor and associate dean for Academic Affairs, introduced the doctoral students graduating.

“I’m so proud of the accomplishments that you have made. It’s taken some time, but you did it. I had the privilege of reading all of your projects and you have made an impact on public health today as we speak,” Zgibor said.

Moving onto the MPH and MSPH students, Corvin, associate professor and director of MPH programs, urged the graduates to stand up for the vulnerable, fight for the innocent and weak and advocate for change.

“Let nothing stand in the way of your drive and passion, and never cease to be inspired,” she said.

On Dec. 10, the undergraduate studies team celebrated BSHS and BSPH graduates with a stop-in photo booth session before the USF Health ceremony at the USF Yuengling Center.

Here are some of the stories from the Class of 2022:

As a labor and delivery nurse for more than 25 years, Adrienne Rizwan became interested in public health from her experiences in health care. After seeing her daughter graduate from USF, she decided to go back to school and earn her MPH in public health practice.

Her road to earning her MPH would be a difficult and challenging one, though.

“When I began my MPH in the fall of 2019, I had been struggling for three years with PTSD from a trauma I suffered in 2016,” she said. “I chose the degree to give my life some direction and purpose. At the same time, I also became a full-time caregiver to my elderly mother.”

Then in July 2020, she was hospitalized with severe pancreatitis of unknown origin. After several more attacks she was diagnosed with a congenital condition and was offered a life-threatening procedure that had a 50 percent chance of success.

While she struggled to finish her degree with the possibility she might die, Rizwan persevered and continued her education. She is thankful to say that the procedure worked and proud to say that she did it.

“Throughout my hospitalizations and surgeries, I continued to meet my deadlines for school and was very grateful for the kindness of professors who told me to put my health first,” she said. “So here I am at the finish line, only one year longer than originally planned! I’m lucky and thankful to be alive and to be able to enjoy my beautiful family again.”

After earning his PharmD degree from the University of Minnesota, Zachary Nelson became interested in public health after he worked in an urban emergency department that helped an underserved community. He said it was clear that not everyone had the same opportunities to be healthy.

“I chose USF for my MPH in infection control because of its strong leadership and the strong testimonials from students whom I know that also are USF COPH alumni,” he said. “I also really appreciated, as a working professional, how flexible the schedule was, the support I received and how affordable the program is in comparison to other top-tier public health schools.”

Nelson said a huge challenge he had during his program was working in a hospital and seeing the devastation caused my COVID-19.

“We all struggled with the pandemic, but working within the hospital and seeing the true, real devastation caused by SARS-CoV-2 while trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy was extremely challenging,” he said. “For that, I credit my wonderful coworkers at Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, my partner Drew, my understanding family and friends and my USF support system.”

After graduation, Nelson is planning on using his education to step outside of direct patient care to provide more population-level expertise regarding antimicrobial resistance and diagnostic stewardship.

“I also am working as a consultant at the Minnesota Department of Health to help hospitals throughout Minnesota, especially those with fewer resources, implement evidence-based antimicrobial use practices and sustainable surveillance systems,” he said. “I hope to break into a role in hospital epidemiology, which has historically been filled by physicians. I would love to demonstrate the role that other health professions can play in this field.”

Madison Sanders always dreamed of becoming an attorney. After taking a few undergraduate courses about health care at Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tenn., she decided to focus in on health law.

“I took medical ethics as an undergraduate and became so passionate about medical law and how policy affects our health,” she said. “I saw that USF offered a health policies and programs concentration where I could take law courses in health care law and health care ethics and knew I would absolutely love it here!”

Sanders said she chose to attend the COPH for her MPH because it had the largest variety of concentrations as well as a range of faculty with different research backgrounds. She also saw that several COPH faculty also attended Stetson Law School in Gulfport, Fla., which she will be applying to soon.

One of Sanders proudest accomplishments was passing the CPH exam and working with Drs. Ellen Daley, professor and associate dean of research and practice, and Karen Liller, Distinguished USF Health Professor and director of the Activist Lab.

“I am so proud about passing the CPH exam and being given the opportunity to work as a graduate research assistant for both Drs. Daley and Liller,” she said. “I was also able to be a guest speaker for undergraduate COPH students, health scholars and middle and high school students at Freedom and Liberty!”

After graduation, Sanders will be working as a full-time coordinator and analyst for Liller and the USF Activist Lab. She is also studying to take the LSAT in February to begin law school applications.

Story by Caitlin Keough, USF College of Public Health

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From Asia to Australia to Africa and places in between, USF College of Public Health students practiced their passion last summer across all areas of the globe.

Some traveled as part of research grants. Others took part in international field experiences.

International Field Experience (IFE) is a practicum open to all COPH students and is mandatory for students in the global health practice concentration. It is considered an important part of the academic curriculum, serving as a structured and significant educational experience. The IFE takes place in an agency, institution or community in a developing country.

The students immersed themselves in local cultures and communities. They learned firsthand about the country’s health care system, its infrastructure and its health challenges. They worked collaboratively with other students, researchers and community leaders on a variety of public health initiatives, from how to curb rabies in a local dog population to how to make drinking water safe. Here, their stories.

Making drinking water safe in Madagascar

It was a USF flyer picturing a lemur and asking, “Would you like to help provide safe drinking water to the people of Madagascar?” that first caught MPH student Romina Beltran’s attention. After emailing one of the principal investigators of the project and getting more information, Beltran decided to apply. Out of 60 applicants, she was chosen. She worked alongside BSPH student Madison Champalou.

The project is a joint venture between the COPH and the College of Engineering, explained Dr. Mahmooda Khaliq Pasha, a COPH associate professor and one of its co-principal investigators. “It engages social marketing students with engineers to solve a public health problem [safe drinking water in Madagascar].”

Beltran’s role was to learn about the community’s knowledge, attitudes and behaviors about how to disinfect and store their drinking water.

“We wanted to know why they engage in current behavior, what steps they take to improve their water quality and what are possible interventions or suggestions for behavior change,” Beltran, who’s concentrating in public health practice, said. “With the help of our in-country partners, we were able to meet local health authorities to introduce the project, select participants, conduct a demographic survey and do participant observation. I’d say these methods were quite successful. We gained the community’s trust to open their homes to us and have us join in their activities. I can say I learned so much from my participants.”

And not all of it was academic.

“I can say that this was the most beautiful experience I’ve ever had. I fell in love with Madagascar and its people,” Beltran said. “I learned how to perform everyday tasks such as cooking, cleaning and doing laundry with limited resources. Knowing firsthand how these are performed can help us propose feasible solutions to the community. I also learned that there are so many things that connect us as humans, despite differences in culture and language. I think [interdisciplinary projects like this one] will get more people to realize that public health alone cannot address health disparities. Complex problems focusing on societal needs require multiple disciplines.”

Reducing the risk of rabies and other zoonotic diseases in Kenya

MPH student Miranda Jones spent 10 weeks last summer working with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Machakos County, Kenya.

She collaborated with a PhD student who was working with a variety of agencies on a vaccination program for dogs. Jones went door-to-door, interacting with some 800 households, collecting and analyzing data about the prevalence of zoonotic helminths (parasitic worms) in the local dog population. She also attended local stakeholder meetings, helped conduct interviews with local health officials for a rabies documentary, visited local vaccination sites and helped organize a community health volunteer training workshop.

“The central idea of these projects was protecting human health by eliminating rabies with a One Health approach,” Jones said. “This transdisciplinary approach can mitigate zoonotic disease outbreaks, improve food safety and security, reduce antibiotic resistance and improve global security in an effective, collaborative manner. The improvement of one sector is contingent upon the interdependence and collaboration of the human, animal and environmental sectors.”

Jones said the experience gave her more than knowledge about parasites. It also gave her new perspectives.

“This field experience has thought me to be adaptable to last-minute changes, new environments and people,” Jones commented. “By working with a team of veterinarians, I was able to gain new perspectives and an understanding of disease control and prevention. Working in a developing country that has different challenges, diseases and infrastructure than the United States has allowed me to better understand the challenges people face day to day and when building a sustainable program.”

Performing data analysis in Ghana

Tracy Gates, an MPH student concentrating in global health practice, spent two months working with faculty and students from the University of Ghana’s School of Public Health developing skills in biostatistics analyses and spatial visualization, contributing to multiple manuscripts and otherwise learning the ins and outs of the health care system in Ghana.

“We performed important research advancing the understanding of predictive factors for the utilization of health facilities for deliveries in Ghana and the prevalence and distribution of hypertension across the country,” Gates explained. “We also developed multilevel predictive models that can be utilized and replicated in future predictive work.”

Gates says her IFE gave her added experience—and subsequent confidence—in assessing, analyzing, understanding and reporting quantitative data. But there were more intangible benefits as well.

“I loved being in Ghana, learning about different ways of life and perspectives along with gaining insight about the Ghanaian culture, history, food, healthcare systems and health-related challenges and resources,” Gates said. “I was able to practice adapting to an international environment with unique challenges and systems to navigate. Overall, this was an incredible experience.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

The post COPH students go global to make a world of difference appeared first on College of Public Health News.

For the first time since 2019, the USF College of Public Health (COPH) attended the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) annual meeting in person.

COPH students, alumni, faculty, staff and others associated with the college were there to present research, attend symposiums, network with colleagues and develop professional skills.

The APHA is a professional association for those working in public health. Members work in every public health discipline, across all 50 states and around the globe.

The theme for this year’s meeting, which also pays tribute to the APHA’s 150^th anniversary, was “150 Years of Creating the Healthiest Nation: Leading the Path Toward Equity.” The meeting was held in Boston from Nov. 6-9.

From panel discussions to presentations to parties, the COPH was a part of it all. Here, some of the highlights and happenings.

Appointments

Rafaella Stein Elger, a PhD student concentrating in community and family health, was named a maternal and child health section student fellow.

The program provides graduate-level students opportunities to learn about maternal child health (MCH) and the APHA, build professional networks and develop leadership skills. It also fosters the development of leaders in science, programs and policy related to the health of women, children and their families.

As one of only 10 fellows selected, Stein Elger traveled to the APHA annual meeting and took part in trainings, meetings and presentations. She also participated in MCH leadership skills development training.

“The fellowship provides an opportunity to improve my professional experiences by allowing me to participate in initiatives related to professional education and policy,” said Stein Elger, who plans to work in MCH research, specifically focusing on children with special health care needs and their experiences accessing services and resources.

Poster presentations

Two COPH students—Chinyere Reid, a PhD student, and Mae Horne, an undergraduate—presented research during the APHA’s prestigious Delta Omega Student Poster Session.

Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health, as it’s officially known, began sponsoring the annual Student Poster Session to encourage and recognize the public health leaders of tomorrow. Each year, 29 students from across the country are selected to present their research at the APHA’s annual meeting.

You can read about Horne’s research here.

Reid’s poster focused on virtual training workshops presented to all maternity hospitals in Florida to improve birth data reporting on birth certificates. According to Reid, some common mistakes made on birth certificates are a result of not entering any data (missing data), using incorrect data sources and even asking the patient (mother) for information they are unlikely to correctly report.

“More than 70 percent of maternity hospitals in Florida utilize birth certificate data to monitor and improve health care quality,” Reid explained. “Therefore, this work will help improve the reporting accuracy of birth certificate data that informs public health surveillance, monitoring, practice, policy and research in maternal and infant health. It was a wonderful experience presenting this work at APHA,” she added, “and a great opportunity to share the important work we at Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative (FPQC), in collaboration with the Florida Department of Health Vital Statistics, are doing to improve birth certificate data in the state.”

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After submitting an abstract to the APHA research expo last spring, fourth-year BSPH student Leomar White was selected to present research he conducted on pedestrian-related crashes in Hillsborough County.

“My hypothesis was that median income would be a significant predictor of crash outcome, but that wasn’t the case,” said White, who is also the president of the USF Bicyclist Club. “The two most significant variables were the number of people who walk to work and the number who take public transportation per zip code. Presenting this research was a great way to practice my communication skills and meet people working in my field.”

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Kayleigh Murray, a senior majoring in both public health and statistics, presented her research focusing on probability model creation and optimization in populations with little variation, such as migrant farmworkers. (She is also a coauthor on White’s poster.)

“Most studied populations in public health have large variation, but there are some that do not,” Murray explained. “This can be due to the type of data collected on the population or the availability of data. Farmworkers are one population where data, especially public data, is very hard to find and gather. However, I still wanted to show that it can be possible to create an accurate probability model with the little data available on populations like migrant farmworkers. I was both excited and nervous to present the research—it was my first time presenting (and going to) such a large event!”

Awards

PhD student Hunter Drake received an acknowledgment award and a $500 stipend for his work as one of the APHA’s inaugural Susan L. Fulmer HIV/AIDS Section Fellows. The fellowship provides support to students and early-career professional section members who seek to engage in a yearlong intensive, competitive research skills development program.

Mentorship is a foundational component of the HIV/AIDS Section Fellowship. Drake was paired with Dr. Stephanie Marhefka who mentored him through the process of designing a mixed-methods DELPHI study to explore best practices for HIV-related stigma reduction in healthcare settings.

“As a researcher and student living with HIV, this award means so much to me because it shows that APHA cares about the meaningful involvement of people living with HIV in research and academics,” Drake said. “The fellowship provided space and structure for me to finish the concept paper for my doctoral program and design the study I wish to conduct.”

Networking

Students from across the college came together at APHA to meet, mingle and investigate career opportunities.

“APHA was a great event to network and discover what was happening in the current public health sphere. It was so enriching,” said senior BSPH student Micah Garcia. “I want to go to graduate school for an MPH next fall and being able to talk one-on-one and in person with the admission coordinators was one of the most fulfilling experiences at the conference. Although I was nervous about being overwhelmed with the number of people I would interact with, I am very happy I attended this year and believe it was extremely beneficial to my public health interests!”

“It’s been really empowering to see all of the students and the research projects being done,” added Emily Walsh, a third-year undergraduate and student director of the COPH Health Scholars Program. “There’s always something new to see everywhere you go.  Attending the conference has helped give me a better idea of what my future could look like in this field.” 

And, finally, fun!

The year was 2019 and the location was Lucky Strike in Philadelphia. That was the last time the COPH gathered for the annual reception in conjunction with the APHA annual meeting. 

Fast forward to 2022 and the college more than made up for lost time. Boston served up lovely temperatures for an indoor/outdoor reception. More than 125 members of the college and its supporters attended the comeback event on Monday, Nov. 7. 

Dean Donna Petersen welcomed attendees and highlighted why the college is known for hosting one of the best receptions during APHA. She gave a shout-out to students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the college and declared, “Our people are what makes this a spectacular event!”

The reception’s call to action centered around a new Strive for 25 initiative, led by the COPH Alumni Society. After viewing a short video, the dean and Beth Ahmedic, COPH development officer, urged attendees to donate $25 or more to support the next generation of public health professionals.

“If 25 percent of our alumni donate $25 to the COPH Alumni Society Endowed Scholarship Fund, then the account will reach an endowment level of $25,000. This will allow the fund to continue in perpetuity, meaning year after year, a USF public health student will be awarded this coveted scholarship,” Ahmedic said.

For more pictures of the COPH at APHA, click here.

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

The post COPH live and in person at APHA annual conference appeared first on College of Public Health News.

After a long career as a public high school math teacher, USF College of Public Health (COPH) alumnus Daniel Carella plans to retire next year and focus on growing his nonprofit, Relief Share, full time.

Carella started Relief Share in 2003 while teaching international baccalaureate math at Lecanto High School in Lecanto, Fla. Combining student volunteerism and service learning with medical surplus recovery, Relief Share provides quality service-learning opportunities for students.

After he began collecting surplus supplies for the nonprofit, Carella partnered with charity organizations in Miami and Tampa that would take the donated supplies and ship them to places where they were most needed, such as Haiti and other locations around the world.

“One charity in Tampa, CardioStart International, has been shipping supplies all over the world since the 1980s,” Carella said. “We made a connection with them, and the founder has come to talk to students here and I would bring students there, to Tampa, and they would load cargo bins with surplus from the hospitals in Tampa.”

Carella’s was directly influenced to start the nonprofit while attending the COPH as graduate student. He was introduced to the field while visiting his brother in Gabon, Africa.

“I spent two months visiting my brother who was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer. I was able to meet many volunteers who had roles as public health educators. Meeting with volunteers and being able to drive the entire country and observe the obvious health disparities helped me to see the lack of public health in certain areas,” he said.

In 2001, Carella decided to go back to school to earn his online MPH from the COPH.

“I was an older student, already in my late 40s with two children at home while being three counties away teaching high school full time,” he said. “Time away was a bit of a sacrifice, but it was completely worth the benefits.”

Carella said that the public health practice concentration was a great fit for him.

“I was able to take at least one course in just about every other concentration from epidemiology to global health to health informatics,” he said. “They have all proved highly useful for Relief Share’s nonprofit mission of responding to health care and natural disaster response needs in the developing world.”

While starting his nonprofit, he also helped found the USF Health International Health Service Collaborative (IHSC) in 2005.

“The inaugural IHSC trip was to Peguche, Ecuador. It was an effort started by USF Morsani College of Medicine alum Dr. Samuel Crane. On this trip, about 30 USF Health students traveled for a week to Peguche on a public health mission that included health screenings, administering anti-parasite medications, and working on a water system repair for a system serving six villages in the region,” he said. “I was starting Relief Share at this time, and in conjunction with this trip, I was able to coordinate over 30 boxes of medical surplus to be taken as cargo on our flight. I worked with IHSC officers to arrange for each graduate student to dedicate one of their two allowed luggage pieces to be a box of Relief Share medical donations from a Florida hospital.”

After graduation, Carella continued his career as a math teacher and mentor while also expanding Relief Share.

“Relief Share has grown to sponsor many student service-learning projects, including sending medical surplus, family health kits and high-protein prepackaged meals to regions overseas affected by natural disasters and to migrant worker families here in Florida,” he said. “Since 2010, I have served as club director of the rotary-sponsored interact service-learning club helping students earn community service hours required for graduation, scholarships and entrance into top tier colleges and universities.”

Most recently, Carella has been working to provide aid to Ukraine, even traveling to Poland to deliver the surplus medical supplies himself.

“On my June trip to Poland, I was able to make friends there and now know the customs process well. I feel I’m in a much better position to get donations to recipients and hospitals there that have already thanked us,” he said. “I also want Relief Share to get back to our original mission also of helping improve health care in developing countries, especially closer to Florida and Latin America. Finally, I’m hoping Relief Share can expand our pre-packaged rice and soy protein meals for delivery in aftermath of natural disasters and to the highest food insecure areas.”

After his retirement, Carella is excited to continue expanding and  growing Relief Share.

“I have one more year of teaching. After that, I intend to grow my nonprofit and work to expand the number of hospitals we collect from. Since I won’t be working directly with the students at Lecanto High School, I’m planning to build a broader base of community volunteers to help with sorting, monitoring inventory and packing medical surplus,” he said. “This could include current and retired health professionals, university students and many of the hundreds of alumni students I’ve worked with over the years.”

COPH Alumni Fast Five:

What did you dream of becoming when you were young? 

Growing up in New Jersey, I became interested in improving environmental health, so environmental science is what interested me the most. I began an environmental science track at Rollins, but then decided on a career in teaching.

Where would we find you on the weekend? 

At the Relief Share warehouse, with volunteers sorting/taking inventory of medical donations or on a long bike ride, in a pool exercising, or working on a home garden

What is the last book you read? 

“The Reconstruction of Nations,” by Timothy Snyder

What superpower would you like to have? 

Empathy (I didn’t know it’s also a superpower).

What’s your all-time favorite movie?  

I only recently saw “CODA,” and right after thought this may be the best movie I’ve ever seen.

Story by Caitlin Keough, USF College of Public Health

The post COPH alumnus plans to expand medical surplus nonprofit appeared first on College of Public Health News.

“This group of students have persevered under unprecedented circumstances. Their worlds were flipped upside down and they have hung in there, learning in new ways since March of 2020. This group has learned in real-time what it means to confront the failings of our system.” said USF College of Public Health’s Dean Donna Petersen. “We have a lot of choices to make in the coming years about healthcare, the value of work, our place in the global economy, climate change, systemic racism and how to prepare for a future pandemic but I’m not worried. You all are smart, capable, committed and passionate.”

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s graduation ceremony was presented virtually to family, friends, students, faculty and staff. Petersen delivered her address and congratulated the Summer 2021 graduating class in front of a camera instead of an audience. (Click here to watch the ceremony). 

This semester, 185 undergraduates, 61 masters and 8 doctoral students graduated and entered the public health profession. 

Every year, the COPH Excellence in Teaching awardee offers words of inspiration to the graduating class. This year’s speaker was Dr. Joe Bohn, assistant professor and director of community engagement and deputy director of the DrPH program.

“I have one final lesson for you all,” Bohn said. “Some of you know I have spent a little time on the dance floor these past four years, so I offer you four pillars of practice from my West Coast swing training that we can apply in your public health journey: timing, distance, connection and purpose.”

Timing

“Know when to start the dance if you are the leader and be ready to respond to a public health crisis when it happens,” Bohn said.

Distance

“Manage the distance with others on the dance floor. In your community, understand how distance impacts people and their access to the resources they need,” he cautioned.

Connection

“Pay attention to the connection with your partner in dance and find ways to connect better to your community, virtually and in-person,” Bohn continued.

Purpose

“Practice with intent—and in your community, practice your passion to help others in need,” he urged.

Dr. Alison Oberne, director of the BSPH program, also presented her end-of-the-year address to the graduating class.

“Did you know that only one-third of the U.S. population has a 4-year degree? It is no small feat to earn your degree, and amidst a pandemic it’s even more challenging and inspiring. It is a time where you were tested in more ways than one,” Oberne said. “You learned the value of self-determination through remote learning, the power of data literacy as we’ve been bombarded with information about COVID-19 and the election, and the creativity to find opportunities for community engagement at a time where in-person gatherings have been restricted.”

“I hope these challenges have made you stronger and helped you realize your passion and perseverance despite all obstacles you have faced and that you continue to overcome” she said.

Here are some of the stories from the Class of 2021:

Marina Martinez Rivera, MPH

Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Marina Martinez Rivera moved to Gainesville, Fla in 2008. She earned her undergraduate degrees in public health and psychology from the University of Florida before moving to Tampa in 2019 to begin her master’s degree in behavioral health at the COPH.

“My passion in public health issues revolve around behavioral health with topics like mental health, substance use, HIV/AIDS, harm reduction approaches, LGBTQIA+ and youth/adolescent populations,” Martinez Rivera said. “With that in mind, I thought the behavioral health concentration was a great fit along with wanting to participate in the Institute of Translational Research in Adolescent Drug Abuse as I thought that was something of interesting to participate in and great experience.”

Martinez Rivera said that despite the impact of the pandemic, she did the best that she could to make the most out of her time in the MPH program.

“I made some good friends and developed my professional skills in any way I could. I think the college did the best it could to maneuver through the pandemic while retaining the standard that the college is known for,” she said. “I’m grateful to all the professors that did their best in modifying the curriculums to fit student’s needs and the circumstances we were working with.”

Martinez Rivera’s post grad plans are to continue working in public health and to find a position with a focus in behavioral health so that she can begin developing her professional skills.

“My dream job is a position where I can apply my skills in translational research and community engagement to improve behavioral health outcomes, reduce stigma and improve health equity for youth/adolescent populations, HIV/AIDS populations and/or LGBTQIA+ populations,” she said.

Rolando Trejos, MPH

Originally from Monagrillo, Panama, Rolando Trejos became introduced to public health while working as a program developer and coordinator for USF Health’s Office in Panama City under Dr. Arlene Calvo.

“During my time involved in the USF Health office in Panama, I saw the drive for changing the world for good. I was exposed to so many incredible projects and assets unique to the USF and even more to the USF COPH,” he said. “Out of those assets, the people and their passion for creating healthier communities was why I chose USF COPH for my MPH degree.”

As a student, Trejos was heavily involved with the COPH Activist Lab as both a student board member and graduate research assistant.

“As a member, we were able to tackle with evidence so many important topics like racism and COVID-19 by creating a pathway to deliver information from decision-makers, researchers and community-based organizations back into the general community and to our USF community,” he said.

During his time, he also was a graduate research assistant to the Public Health Interdisciplinary Center in a homelessness cross-college initiative with the Morsani College of Medicine’s Tampa Bay Street Medicine team, a volunteer for the USF Health Peace Corps, a volunteer for the COPH racism working group and a fellow for the Chiles Center.

Trejos’ post-grad plan is to enroll as a PhD student with the COPH.

“I hope to continue to expand my knowledge and skills in grantsmanship, teaching, mentoring, and translating research into practice, policy and tools applicable to communities, decision-makers and individuals,” he said. “My dream job is in academia as a full-time professor and researcher to provide a platform for individuals that have been pushed out of academia due to their sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion or any other category. I want to reclaim their space and have their voices heard and their input elevated so that science can truly become for everyone, not just a reflection of specific communities or individuals.”

Danielle Washington, BSPH

After overcoming adversity as a teenage mother, Danielle Washington graduated with her BSPH with a minor in infection control and specialization in nutrition.

“I became a teen mother to my first son who is now a teenager. I worked many jobs over the years to provide for us. I always wanted better and to prove naysayers wrong,” she said.  “I knew accomplishing my dreams of graduating college would happen if I kept going no matter how many times I failed.”

Washington said that one of the things she loved about USF was its course diversity and the flexibility to take online courses that allowed her to graduate on time.

“My favorite memory during my time at the COPH was taking the workforce course where I learned how to create a resume properly. This gave me the tools I needed to attract more employers,” she said.

Washington plans to attend graduate school to earn her master’s in public health with a specialization in health care management.

“I would like to open a health office that educates the public and also offers testing and routine lab work. I hope to own a health clinic and travel the world helping to solve global health issues,” she said. “I know that attending graduate school will help me go to the next level with owning my business. As a student at the COPH, I worked in groups to complete class projects so having a team will help me bring my vision to life. Teamwork always makes the dream work!”

Story by Caitlin Keough, USF College of Public Health

The post COPH welcomes 254 graduates to the field of public health appeared first on College of Public Health News.