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.

The post COPH helped drive state’s bicycle helmet law appeared first on College of Public Health News.

First published on October 7, 2019 in observance of the COPH’s 35^th anniversary celebration.

Advocacy is as important in public health as data analyses and needs’ assessments.

But students have traditionally lacked advocacy experience.

In 2018, Dr. Karen Liller, a USF College of Public Health (COPH) professor specializing in injury prevention and health education, decided to remedy that situation by starting the Activist Lab at the COPH.

The group, which is run with the help of two research assistants and a six-student advisory board made up of graduate and undergraduate students, provides interdisciplinary advocacy, education, research and service opportunities for students to develop the skills that will promote their success as effective public health advocates and leaders.

The Activist Lab, directed by Liller, is the second such lab in the country, with the first being at Boston University’s School of Public Health.

Liller says she had been wanting to start a program like the Activist Lab at the COPH for a while, to compliment the Doctoral Student Leadership Institute she began as dean of the USF Graduate School, now known as the Office of Graduate Studies.

“I strongly believed students needed much more preparation in leadership and advocacy skills before they graduated,” Liller commented.

In just one year of its existence, hundreds of students have taken part in the Activist Lab’s educational and service opportunities, which include activism boot camps, seminars, guest speakers, journal clubs, writing groups, research efforts and public health in a minute videos. These videos—only 60 seconds long—have featured faculty and community leaders discussing pertinent public health issues, everything from the importance of voting to refugee health.

According to Liller, some of the Activist Lab’s first-year highlights include:

• work with Dr. Mark Roberts and other University of Pittsburgh researchers on a measles simulator for Florida (called FRED Florida Measles Simulator), which shows how cases of the viral infection can grow in an area with just a 10 percent drop in immunizations
• a gun violence prevention and advocacy seminar, held in partnership with USF Health and led by Parkland shooting survivors David Hogg and Emma González

Things won’t slow down for the Activist Lab anytime soon. In addition to the continuation of seminars, speakers and learning opportunities, the organization has the following things planned for the future:

• a boot camp on the prevention of firearm violence, scheduled for January
• a new program called “More Opportunities to Use Learned Advocacy” (MOULA), where students work with particular agencies, such as Moms Demand Action and the Guardian ad Litem program, on advocacy issues
• the launch of a new podcast series called “Advocation—Change It Up!” The first podcast features Dr. Jill Roberts, a COPH alumna and assistant professor of global health, discussing the importance of immunizations.
• an oral presentation on activism, to be delivered at the 2019 American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting in November

The Activist Lab serves as an exciting hub of learning and action for students to become directly involved in practicing leadership and advocacy skills, says Liller, who sees the lab’s numbers growing and its reach expanding beyond the college and university to the state, nation and world. 

“For example, with our podcast new persons will be reached and advocacy skills can be expanded and practiced,” remarked Liller. “Students can become part of our advisory board and really help shape the direction of the lab. They can participate in all of our events, and as we grow more and more opportunities will become available.”

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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First published on October 20, 2014 in observance of the COPH’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Like many entities directed at the greater public good, the USF College of Public Health’s Harrell Center was the product of a private philanthropist’s gift. James Harrell and his family wanted to do something to help eliminate family violence, and they acted on that desire. The result was a 1997 endowment that set the stage for what has become an international force.

“The intent of the Harrell family was to provide a center that would focus on family violence,” affirmed Dr. Martha Coulter, the center’s founding director, “but they were particularly interested in looking at the prevention of family violence, as well as research that would be directly applicable to prevention and intervention.

“So the mission of the Harrell Center, really, is to be an intermediary between research and practice, to do research that is focused on family violence intervention and prevention across the lifespan.

“The grant was an endowment, so the funding is very limited, because it’s just the interest on the endowment. Now, most of the income is from other grants and contracts,” Coulter said, “but what the Harrell endowment did was provide the base for doing that kind of research.”

Brick sponsored by the Harrell Center in remembrance of James Harrell after his death in 2007.

One of three faculty members at the center full-time, Coulter, whose doctorate is in maternal and child health, teaches three courses: Family and Community Violence, Child Maltreatment, and Child Health, in addition to coordinating the maternal and child health academic concentration at COPH.

“In the very beginning, there was only the grant and the establishment of the center conceptually,” she said. “Over the years, we’ve developed.”

That development recently necessitated alignment into three divisions.

“The specific divisions – the redesigning of the organizational chart – has really been something that I’ve done this year,” Coulter said. “Before that, over the years, we’ve just developed these different projects and all worked together, but it looked like now we were at a place where we really needed to have a little bit more separate organization and to develop some strategic goals and objectives in each of those content areas.”

The result is a children’s services division directed by Dr. Lianne Estefan, an intimate partner violence division directed by Coulter, and an elder mistreatment division directed by Dr. Carla Vandeweerd. Dr. Karen Liller recently joined the center as a regular collaborator focusing her attention on the overlap between child maltreatment and unintentional injury, Coulter said, and “usually about 10” graduate students round out her staff. A community advisory board is among the center’s numerous external extensions.

“The children’s section has been very involved in looking at issues regarding the prevention of violence in the community,” Coulter explained, “and the center has developed a virtual research institute with one of the community agencies, Champions for Children, which is a multi-program unit, so that we can do research that is truly collaborative. We’ve worked very consistently with them over the years.”

Graphic that Harrell Center graduate assistant Natasha Hojati created for the Center’s Facebook page.

Coulter said that much of what her intimate partner violence section does involves the courts, so much so that she has become a regular consultant for the courts and has undertaken the task of evaluating the effectiveness of their intervention programs for batterers. Developing and continually improving guidelines for batterer intervention and responses to the needs of victims have been major off-shoot projects.

Among the section’s more significant research findings is that female batterers are falling through the cracks. While the county’s intervention for male batterers has been “very effective,” Coulter said, it has largely failed to successfully intervene with female batterers, who comprise about 15 percent of all convicted batterers in Hillsborough County.

“The clinical providers of these programs,” she said, “have been saying for a long time that they didn’t think the state-mandated curriculum for men was really the right curriculum to use for women.”

Among many leaders and dignitaries who have visited the Harrell Center over the years was then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who attended an elder abuse conference sponsored by the Center in 2001. The attorney general is pictured above with students Seraphine Pitt (left) and Carol Williams, and below with Dr. Coulter.

The elder mistreatment division concentrates on elders with dementia and the kinds of violence against them, which is, Coulter said, “fairly common, unfortunately, from both spousal caretakers and children taking care of elderly parents. The dynamics of this are very different from other sorts of domestic violence and really have a lot to do with people not understanding how to help people who have dementia.”

Coulter said she considers a new project in the division to be particularly tantalizing and potentially groundbreaking.

Called the Senior Surfers Project, Coulter said it looks at the rapidly expanding but little-known phenomenon of women over 50 seeking relationships online and getting responses from people who wind up physically, emotionally or financially harming them.

All previous research on Internet connections leading to violent encounters has been on adolescents, she said, so Senior Surfers is another project aiming to keep potentially overlooked victims out of the cracks – in this case, the cracks that open at the nexus of society and technology.

Dr. Coulter chats with Judge Dennis Alvarez (left) and James Harrell at a 1997 function.

With so much involvement in the local community, including working closely with the Spring and, until its recent demise thanks to funding shortfalls, the Family Justice Center, the Harrell Center’s global impact might be surprising to some, but global involvement has proven beneficial on numerous fronts.

Dr. Pnina S. Klein, a clinical and developmental psychologist and professor of education at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, recently led a Mediational Intervention for Sensitizing Caregivers workshop on campus to promote cognitive functioning and attachment by improving parent-caregiver interactions with infants and young children.

Attendees included community professionals, physicians and COPH students, faculty and staff.  Dr. Robert Nelson, a joint professor in COPH and the Morsani College of Medicine, sponsored attendance by a visiting group of physicians and clinicians from Ecuador.

“It’s been used all over the world,” Coulter said of MISC. “The outcomes internationally of this program have shown that it’s very effective in strengthening attachment and reducing child maltreatment, so we brought Dr. Klein here from Israel this year to do a training for community people and staff here, as well as faculty and students.”

Dr. Martha Coulter, Harrell Center founding director (right in both photos), in Ecuador in 2007.

Elsewhere on the international front, Coulter is working with the medical school in Panama to begin collecting information and developing guidelines for Panamanian health providers to improve their responses to intimate partner violence. She’s also working in Quito, Ecuador, to develop a program that will provide fundamental intervention services for indigenous populations.

Children in a remote Himalayan village in India read books sent to them by the Harrell Center.

Coulter went to India in 2012 with a group that collected data on maternal/child health and family violence among the 26 indigenous tribes in the Himalayas as a response to one tribal leader’s interest in addressing those issues. Progress has been slow, she said, because the tribes are not formally centralized in any way, and the terrain is difficult and isolating. The center recently collected books to send to children there. A librarian navigates dirt paths on a bicycle to deliver them.

Not surprisingly, Coulter’s five-year vision for the Harrell Center is about more expansion, mostly ideological, and lots of it.

“I would like to expand our depth in looking at female offenders and the way the courts respond to them,” she said.

“We’ve applied for some grants to look with a lot more depth at issues related to fathers. This is an area that has been somewhat neglected and needs a lot of attention. What are the ways that we can help fathers from the very beginning develop the kinds of skills that will be more nurturing and less likely to produce problems?

“As far as the center itself,” she said, “I think the area that we really need to expand the most is our capacity for doing community training and education and technical assistance.”

“I’d also like to see us focus on more primary intervention in a public health direction.   A lot of what we’ve done has been secondary response intervention, but I would like to see us working with primary situations – families, parent-child relationships.”

Coulter said an example of the center’s involvement in this area is its participation in the Hillsborough County Violence Prevention Collaborative, a plan for reducing violence throughout the county.

Community events also make Coulter’s expansion list. Recent ones have included fundraisers with artists and bands, and even a biker run.

“I would like to see us expand these community events, because they have been very helpful. The center doesn’t have much funding,” she said, “and the funding that we get is almost always research funding, so if we want to do things that are outside the research arena, we have to raise the money ourselves.”

Story by David Brothers, College of Public Health. Photos courtesy of Dr. Martha Coulter, Eric Younghans, Dr. Robert Nelson, USF Health and the Harrell Center.

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Students, staff and faculty from across the various University of South Florida and USF Health colleges gathered at the Center for Advanced Medical Learning and Simulation (CAMLS) for the USF Health 6th Annual Interprofessional Education Day. 

In the wake of a global pandemic, burnout and a variety of other mental health problems are contributing factors to hospitals being understaffed. This year’s theme “Caring for Caregivers: Fostering Mental Health and Wellness in Interprofessional Teams” focused on solutions to help combat those issues and improve the quality of patient care across the profession.   

“Our USF IPE Day working group felt it was critical to focus on this topic given the current challenges that our health care system is facing with health care professionals leaving their professions, increased provider burnout and high rates of mental health issues, including depression and suicide,” said Haru Okuda, MD, FACEP, FSSH, executive director of CAMLS and associate vice president of the USF Health Office of Interprofessional Education and Practice.

Approximately 700 people (500 virtually, 200 in person) attended the morning presentations by industry experts.  Jennifer Bickel, MD, FAAN, FAHS, chief wellness officer at Moffitt Cancer Center and professor of oncologic sciences in the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, was the first featured speaker of the morning. Her presentation “Organizational Wellness: Expanding the Horizon of Well-being” highlighted key statistical data on the volume of patients seen by a provider experiencing burnout and steps the National Academy of Medicine is taking to increase wellness across the workforce.  

Richard Westphal, PhD, RN, FAAN, PMHCNS/NP-BC, followed Dr. Bickel.  Dr. Westphal is a professor at the University of Virginia School of Nursing and co-director of the Wisdom and Wellbeing Program at UVA Health.  His presentation “Stress First Aid: Nurturing Resilience in Health Care Professionals” focused on sources of mental stress, how the mind reacts to the stress and team-based solutions centered around well-being. 

Judy Davidson, DNP, RN, MCCM, a nurse scientist at the University of California-San Diego, was the final featured speaker of the morning. Her presentation “Saving Lives: Suicide Prevention and Health Care Interventions” focused on the suicide rates of health care professionals, re-imagining some of the available interventional tools and changing the mental health-related questions on licensing boards. 
 
The morning sessions ended after Donna Petersen, ScD, MHS, CPH, dean of the USF Health College of Public Health, senior associate vice president of USF Health and chief health officer of USF, led an interprofessional panel discussion themed “Unlocking Wellness: Exploring a Toolkit for Inner Balance and Resilience.”  Panelists gave their perspectives on the importance of health care professionals working with a healthy work-life balance and how a better work-life balance will lead to better work environments and more positive patient outcomes. 
 
Panelists: 
–        Kelly Allegro, PT, DPT, board-certified clinical specialist in neurologic physical therapy, co-director of clinical education at the USF Health School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences
–        Kristin Kosyluk, PhD, assistant professor of Mental Health Law and Policy in the Department of Mental Health Law and Policy at the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, director of the STigma Action Research (STAR) Lab
–        Abraham A. Salinas-Miranda, MD, PhD, MACE, CDVS, assistant professor, director of the Harrell Center for the Study of Family Violence, associate director of the USF Health College of Public Health Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health Education Science and Practice
–        Chris Simmons, PhD, LCSW, associate director and associate professor, USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences School of Social Work

Anthony Masys, CD, PhD, associate professor at the USF Health College of Public Health.

Kicking off the afternoon was Anthony Masys, CD, PhD, associate professor at the USF Health College of Public Health and an international expert in applied systems thinking, design thinking and futures thinking. He gave his presentation titled “Strength-Based Approach: Appreciative Inquiry.” Appreciative inquiry is more commonly known as a strength-based approach to systems change as it emphasizes generating positive ideas instead of identifying negative problems.  

Part of the appreciative inquiry model is using rich pictures to help diagram a way of relating personal experiences and perceptions to situations by linking a series of concepts.  
 
Dr. Masys’ presentation provided the foundation of the group activity and team competition for the event. 

Students split into interprofessional teams of nine to put the concept of appreciative inquiry into practice. Students shared good and bad examples of well-being in their workspaces and colleges and offered solutions on how to enhance the good examples and improve the bad examples.  
 
With the guidance of their faculty preceptors, teams used rich pictures to generate mind maps that illustrated how they plan to improve the overall provider well-being of an organization. Using a “Shark Tank” format, the teams presented their concepts to the sharks in hopes they will buy their concept. 

Sharks (judges):
–        Karen Aul, PhD, RN, CNE, CHSE, USF Health College of Nursing
–        Jennifer Bickel, MD, FAAN, FAHS, Moffitt Cancer Center
–        Somer Burke, EdD, MPH, CPH, USF Health College of Public Health
–        Joe Ford, JD, USF Health Shared Student Services
–        Vickie Lynn, PhD, MSW, MPH, USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences
 
The IPE Day group activity was designed to encourage interprofessional collaboration among learners through hands-on activity. Teams worked together to conceptualize a strategic vision for how wellness can be operationalized to support organizational and personal wellness. The goals of the activity were to:
–        Understand the application of appreciative inquiry as a strength-based approach to navigating various solutions in the health care domain.
–        Apply a system-thinking approach via rich pictures to support ideation in exploring the problem space from an interdisciplinary perspective.
–        Translate insights from the rich pictures into a mind map to develop a strategic implementation strategy supporting wellness. 
 
One by one, teams presented their concept to the sharks. Teams had three minutes to make compelling arguments about why their concept is the best. 

The sharks narrowed down the field to three teams who then had to prepare a one-minute elevator pitch of their concept to give to the audience. Audience members voted for the winner electronically at the end of the pitches. When the votes were counted, Team Five emerged as the winner. The team’s approach focused on a solution that centered around employees finding balance within their work environment. 

Winning team:
Erini Serag-Bolos, PharmD, associate professor at the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy (Preceptor)
Camilla Cardona, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine Physician Assistant Program
Hayden Euper, USF Health School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences
Christopher Guskie, USF Health Morsani College of Medicine
Rebekah Minter, USF Health Athletic Training Program
Madison Moua, USF Health College of Public Health
Paul Munoz, School of Social Work, College of Behavioral and Community Sciences
Amiah Price, USF Health College of Nursing
Jenna Sabbagh, USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy

The names of the winning team will the engraved on the IPE Day trophy.  As the team preceptor, Dr. Serag-Bolos will keep the trophy in her office until the USF Health 7th Annual IPE Day. 

Story reposted from USF Health

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When Chedeline Dorelus decided to enroll at USF for the fall 2016 semester, she had nearly 30 college credits from high school and a plan to earn an English degree on a pre-law track.

Late that summer, Dorelus experienced doubts. She began feeling uncertain about whether she should attend law school or pursue something in the health field—perhaps a medical degree. She went online, changed her major to undeclared and entered USF’s Exploratory Curriculum (ECM) program. The program offers students the option to complete general education requirements while exploring unfamiliar academic disciplines and career fields.

At the suggestion of an ECM counselor, she took an elective course in public health, sparking an interest that ultimately guided her college and professional path.

“That class really cemented my decision as a major, and from then on I’ve been involved in public health,” said Dorelus, who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in public health from USF and became a senior human services program specialist for Florida Health.

She is now program director with Champions for Children at Layla’s House, a community-based learning and resource center that supports expectant parents and parents and caregivers of young children.

Exploratory programs, such as ECM, provide students more time and information to make what’s often a crucial decision while staying on track for a timely graduation. Although national data for such programs can be difficult to find due to inconsistencies in the way individual schools report on undeclared majors, USF data show that students who enrolled in ECM have experienced, on average, higher graduation rates than those who previously began their college careers as undeclared majors.

Shane Combs, an ECM advisor and an instructor in the Office of Undergraduate Studies, said the program’s success in improving outcomes for undeclared students helps to combat the myth that they are somehow less academically skilled, less passionate about college or less dedicated to graduating from USF.

For Dorelus, ECM provided the resources and environment to help her find the right fit for a major and a career. Her program counselor worked with her to create a document that helped her identify an academic program “that would be the intersection of my passion and skills,” she said.

Like Dorelus, students who enroll in ECM arrive directly from high school. Many share the same uncertainties about how to make seemingly monumental decisions about their futures amid an evolving employment landscape.

“For me, what’s even more important, is not just teaching them how to choose a major, but how to make a choice,” Combs said. “On the surface level, we know that who we are at 18 years old will not be the person we are at 40 years old. So how do I choose a major now when I can’t predict the future?”

Combs says that’s more true now than ever, with some students likely to land jobs in industries or with companies that don’t exist today, and much more likely than their parents or grandparents to have multiple, distinct careers during their lifetimes.

Students who enroll in ECM are required to select a major after 36 credits, which usually means they are in the program for a full academic year—one fall, spring and summer semester.

They choose from one of five pathways—art and humanities; business; global and social sciences; health and natural sciences; and math and technology—but remain free to register for classes outside of their pathway or, ultimately, select an unrelated major.

At any given time, there are usually 250 or more students enrolled, most of whom have met Combs or another ECM advisor before they visited campus for the first time. Early contact is particularly helpful for students interested in STEM fields, helping to ensure they earn the necessary prerequisites while continuing to explore options.

An important part of their ECM experience is connecting with university resources, such as the Center for Leadership and Civic Engagement, Education Abroad and the Center for Career & Professional Development, along with research opportunities through USF’s Office of High Impact Practices and Undergraduate Research and learning about student clubs and organizations.

“Students now enrolling in college are starting internships much earlier than before,” Combs said. “They’re interested in networking and shadowing, and also in volunteer work. They come to campus ready to get engaged and make a difference immediately. They feel they can’t afford to wait four years to get a piece of paper before they start making a change in the world around them.”

Combs points out that while some students might arrive on campus uncertain about a major, they are already determined to find ways to affect change in their local and global communities.

“They are ready to learn and ready to make a difference, and now we want to teach them research and critical thinking skills,” Combs said. “That’s the secret sauce of college.”

Allison Crume, USF’s dean of Undergraduate Studies and associate vice president of Student Success, said the ECM program is another example of how forward-thinking institutions can meet the needs of students whose lives have been shaped by their experiences during the pandemic and will enter a rapidly evolving workforce upon graduation.

“We are proud to collaborate with academic programs across USF to offer Exploratory Curriculum Major pathways,” Crume said. “Students have the opportunity to engage in focused areas of interest as well as gain interdisciplinary skills. ECM gives students space to explore courses and careers to help them identify a successful academic plan.”

Story reposted from USF Newsroom

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The endowed Amanda Gill Memorial Fund was established to provide further research or educational opportunities to students studying public health, specifically in the area of infectious disease, which Amanda was passionate about.

USF College of Public Health alumna Amanda Gill had a heart for helping others.

A graduate of the first BSPH class in 2011, her parents said Amanda had a passion for working with people with infectious diseases and always said she wanted to work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or in Africa to help AIDS patients.

Amanda was born in September of 1988 in Clearwater, Fla. She spent the majority of her education at Northside Christian School before transferring to Clearwater Hight School, where she graduated.

While attending USF, Gill worked at Busch Gardens and was awarded the Employee of the Year award. But being a big sister was her true badge of honor. “She was a fierce protector of her younger brother, Matthew, who also ended up attending USF, and always had his back,” Amanda’s father, Jim, said.

Always on the go, her family said she was involved in many activities in her free time and was a light to others. She loved adventure, her dog, Oakley, and had a heart to help. “She wanted to help people more than anything,” her mother Denice said. “When she smiled, everybody smiled.”

After graduating the COPH, Amanda’s  career path lead her across many different cities in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. From food safety for local restaurants to the North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center, Amanda’s parents said that each role could be linked back to her interest and experience in public health.

One role even led her right to the front lines of COVID at a drive-thru testing center.

In her most recent role, Amanda worked as an Infection Preventionist at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta.

“She wanted to do the best and go above and beyond,” said Shalom Patel, infection prevention manager of operations at Piedmont Healthcare with whom Amanda worked. “Amanda was fun and very bright, and she had an infectious smile. She was one of my most enthusiastic employees who was always very open and honest with me, which I appreciated. She was a team player and went out of her way to help other people. Acceptance overall was really important to Amanda.”

During her time at Piedmont, Patel said a big part of Amanda’s role was collaborating closely with the engineering department. She also worked with the MRSA-prevention team and infection prevention in the cardiac critical care unit areas.

Patel also noted that Amanda was a natural leader and mentor who took new employees under her wing.

“When she moved to Atlanta to work at Piedmont, she was very happy,” Patel said. “Amanda said this was the type of work she wanted the whole time. In infection prevention, she got to be the ‘boots on the ground,’ I think she was in the right place.”

In 35 years, Amanda lived a full life and was invested in helping so many others. “She was a shining light in all of our lives,” Denice Gill said.

A Celebration of Life was held Monday, Oct. 30, 2023, at Central Christian Church in St. Petersburg, Fla. Live Stream Link: https://boxcast.tv/view/amanda-gill-memorial-service-3p-vnovk1edkyfq3jnemasb

In lieu of flowers, the family has asked that you please consider donating to the Amanda Gill Memorial Fund #540045 at the University of South Florida.

Donations may be mailed to: USF Foundation, Inc., 4202 E. Fowler Ave., ALC 100, Tampa, FL 33620 (ATTN: Beth Ahmedic, USF Health); memo line: Fund #540045 Amanda Gill Memorial Fund

Story by: Liz Bannon, College of Public Health

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November is International Education Month

How does health care differ in industrial versus nonindustrial countries? In socialist versus capitalist societies? In rural versus urban settings? What health inequities do different populations in different parts of the world face?

USF College of Public Health (COPH) students can get answers to those questions by participating in a study abroad program.

In 2024, the COPH will be offering international study programs to Panama, Canada, London and Japan. These for-credit programs are open to both undergraduate and master’s students and generally last about a week. They give students the opportunity to study public health with a cultural context, examining how different countries handle things such as disaster preparedness, preventative health measures and public health policy. Students are also given time to tour and engage in community service projects and research.

Students who have been on the programs say the experience has been eye-opening.

“Personally, I plan to pursue a career in global health and program management, so gaining experience traveling with a public health mindset and learning about different sites that are conducting public health work, such as the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), was super important for me,” said Nupur Kothari, a BSPH student who traveled to Panama. “Being able to participate in research and data collection in Panama helped translate the education I have gained in the COPH to actual practice.”

Hannah Harburg, an MPH student concentrating in epidemiology, said her experience in Japan was “transformative.”

“Exploring Japan for the first time altered my outlook on life,” Harburg said. “Gujo Hachiman is an area I found so beautiful, I cried. As I explored the quiet river town, I knew this was going to be a moment I would cherish for the rest of my life. The storm drain water was so clean you could feed the carp that swam in it. This trip reaffirmed my commitment to researching public health. I gathered ideas and learned problem-solving skills through active information synthesis, diversified group work and insightful debates.”

Erin Millsapps, a Coverdell Fellow who served in the Peace Corps in South Africa as a community HIV/AIDS outreach coordinator, recently returned from a summer international field experience (IFE) in Gqueberha, South Africa.

The Peace Corps Coverdell Fellowship program at the COPH is a graduate fellowship program awarding financial assistance to selected returning Peace Corps volunteers who are pursuing an MPH or MSPH.

“During my IFE, my peers and I focused on addressing health disparities in ENT [ear, nose and throat] health through community engagement,” said Millsapps, who is an MPH student concentrating in epidemiology and global health. “These endeavors, emphasizing interdisciplinary teams and cultural competency, not only achieved project goals but also strengthened my ability to meet COPH competencies. Grateful for the opportunities provided by the Coverdell Fellowship and USF/COPH, I am empowered to make a meaningful impact in the field of public health.”

For more information about COPH international study programs and Peace Corps requirements, click here.

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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A daughter of migrant farmworkers, Jazmin Sanchez’s story touched the hearts of many at the 17^th Annual USF Women in Leadership & Philanthropy (WLP) Fall Symposium on Oct. 4.

Sanchez, a USF College of Public Health BSPH student, was selected as this year’s recipient of the WLP Lolita Sauza Visot Memorial Scholarship and student speaker for the sold-out symposium.

The scholarship, for full-time undergraduate students, pursuing all majors, in all colleges, on all campuses, is renewable up to eight semesters. Preference is given to a student who demonstrates financial need and is engaged with the Mexican-American Student Association or the Boricua Student Association at USF.

Sanchez’s remarks inspired the nearly 1,000 attendees as she shared her journey to a bright future.

In her first year of junior high school, Sanchez was introduced to university life and lecture halls. Sponsored by a program that prepares students for college, she took her first tour at the University of South Florida sparking the popular question: “What do I want to do when I grow up?”

She recalls the day she told her parents that she wanted to be a farmer, a sentiment to their careers as their strength inspired her. Her parents laughed together at the idea but encouraged her, nonetheless. As she grew older, Sanchez recognized her deep compassion for those around her and decided that, whichever career she chose for herself, she wanted her degree to give her the strength to help and inspire those most in need. She found herself deciding between social work, nursing, emergency medicine and business.

Thanks to the guidance of Ms. Olle, Sanchez’s counselor since middle school, she was introduced to the USF College Assistance Migrant Program (CAMP)—an initiative designed to assist students from migrant and seasonal farmworker backgrounds in their first year of college and transitioning to complete their bachelor’s degree. This changed Sanchez’s entire trajectory. She originally planned to attend community college, but CAMP gave her hope that attending a university immediately after high school would be possible. Sanchez says she is so grateful she took the leap of faith and is now in her junior year at USF and pursuing a degree in public health.

The connections she created before and during her time at USF helped her find communities such as the USF Latino Scholarship Program (LSP) and WLP. These programs provide students with a sense of comfort as they help prepare them for a professional career but also create a family environment. With the support of WLP and LSP, Sanchez grew confident in herself and her identity as she learned how to navigate through the professional world. Shaking an interviewer’s hand, portraying confidence in an online interview, practicing proper dining etiquette and preparing an elevator pitch now come naturally to her.

Ready to tackle the outside world, Sanchez knows that she will not be forgotten even after graduation, just as she will never forget the generosity of those who have guided her along her journey and set her up for success.

Story by Brooke Russo, USF Advancement Communications and Marketing intern

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Three USF College of Public Health (COPH) students presented research abstracts at the Delta-Omega-sponsored Student Poster Session at the annual American Public Health Association’s (APHA) Meeting and Expo held in Atlanta in November.

Delta Omega is a national honorary society for public health students with more than 20,000 members. Each year, 29 students are selected to present their research during the Delta Omega Student Poster Session at the APHA’s annual meeting. While students do not need to be members of Delta Omega to compete, they must attend schools and programs with active chapters and be approved by the respective chapter to compete.

Doctoral student Rafaella Stein Elger presented research titled “Examining the sources, utilization and needs of support among caregivers of children with special health care needs in Florida.”

“This study showed that the main barriers to accessing services and resources are geography, families’ eligibility and the type of insurance families have,” Stein Elger said. “Our study also showed that caregivers need more support, and many times they’re navigating health care and education systems that are not collaborating. I think this study gives us an overview of what it means to be a caregiver for a child with special health care needs in Florida.”

Isabella Abbondanza, a senior BSPH student, presented her research titled “Experiences of Spanish-speaking participants in the Positive Parenting & Partnership (P3) Program.”

“Understanding if there are cultural differences between parenting styles can lead to more culturally appropriate material offered to parents who want to learn better parenting techniques,” Abbondanza explained. “Parents can have a huge impact on a child’s health outcomes in adulthood, and if we are able to understand cultural differences within parenting, we can better prepare parents of all backgrounds.”

Paula Hernandez, the third COPH Delta Omega presenter, shared her research on parental attitudes toward HPV vaccinations for adolescents.

“There are still many negative stigmas and misconceptions around sexual health that can impact health care decision-making and one’s health in general,” Hernandez, an MPH student, said. “Additionally, reproductive health is an integral part of women’s health and well-being, which makes it important to work toward creating equitable and effective care for all individuals.”

In addition to receiving a $500 monetary award, all the students said one of the most rewarding things about presenting was engaging with session participants.

“I was able to work on my public speaking skills while also being given a great platform to advocate for the HPV vaccine,” Hernandez said.

“My favorite part of presenting was engaging in meaningful conversations with people who also found this research important,” Abbondanza added. “Some people were interested because the research was related to their career field, and some people were interested because they come from different cultural backgrounds and felt like they could relate to the topic. I loved that I was able to practice my networking skills because good networking skills are valuable in any career field.” 

Story by Donna Campisano for USF College of Public Health

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Nine USF College of Public Health (COPH) students—from undergraduate to master’s to doctoral students—currently serve on the USF Health Executive Student Leadership Board (ESLB).

The ELSB is comprised of students across USF Health. They act as student advisors to USF Health leadership, represent USF Health on committees, in focus groups and at special events and are invited to social and professional events throughout the year. Students apply for the position, which they hold for one academic year (although students in good standing can re-apply each year).

“Together with the other students, we give feedback for upcoming USF events and present suggestions for resources and programs that would benefit the USF Health student body,” John Whelan, an MHA student serving his second term on the ESLB, said. “I look forward to working on the Capital Improvement Project as we plan allocating funds for improving student resources.”

Chinyere Reid, a COPH doctoral candidate, has served on the board since 2019 and has taken an active role in the renovation of the WELL and planning USF Health activities such as USF Health IPE Day and Homecoming Week.

“Serving on the ESLB is important because it allows me to make a meaningful contribution to the USF Health community by providing a valuable student perspective and input,” Reid said. “I have absolutely enjoyed the experience, which is why I continue to return. It has provided me with the opportunity to network with fellow USF Health students, faculty, staff and leadership, fostering interprofessional connections and contributing to my professional development.”

Whelan credits his experience with ESLB with building his professional network.

“I have made friends and professional connections that will last a lifetime,” he said. “Notably, I met my friend Hemal Prasad, a former MHA student, through ESLB. In June, I will be joining Hemal at Cleveland Clinic. I likely would have never had that connection with Hemal or learned about the potential job opportunity if it wasn’t for our collaboration in ESLB.” 

Truc (Jenny) Ho, a BSPH student, said her experience on the board has been both “eye-opening and collaborative.”

“It has allowed me to establish valuable connections across various health care fields, providing me with diverse perspectives and insights into the needs of students,” she said. “Serving on this board enables me to contribute to the betterment of the USF Health community and advocate for the students’ interests. My aim is to foster a supportive and inclusive environment for students, as well as to facilitate their professional growth. I hope to accomplish enhanced student engagement, academic success and a sense of unity within the USF Health community during my tenure.”

Whelan had similar sentiments.

“I hope to leave USF Health even better than I found it, and I hope my involvement with ESLB will improve the experience for the next generation of Bulls,” he summed up.

Story by Donna Campisano, USF College of Public Health

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