This story originally published on July 15, 2015 in observance of the COPH’s 30th anniversary celebration.

“USF was chosen as the place for Florida’s College of Public Health,” Dr. Peter Levin wrote in 1984, “because of the broad base of knowledge found in the many colleges of the University and the unique Tampa location.”

Levin, the college’s first dean, expounded further, noting that not only faculty from the colleges of medicine and nursing, but from business, education, engineering, natural sciences and social sciences were “key to the development of the college.”

Three decades of growth and innumerable success stories later, former Fla. Rep. Samuel P. Bell III shed more light on the founding of COPH.

Like many created entities of any kind, it all started with one person’s idea and another person’s decision to act on it.

The idea person was Robert Hamlin, a graduate of the Harvard University College of Public Health. He brought his idea to Bell, dubbed “the godfather of the college” by Charles Mahan, another founder who was COPH dean from 1995 to 2002.

“He had retired to Florida and realized that there was not a college of public health in Florida,” Bell recalled of Hamlin. “He contacted my staff director, John Phelps, with the idea, and John and I discussed the idea and decided that we should pursue the project. When we began the effort, we discovered that there had not been a college of a public health created anywhere in the country for more than 20 years, and most emphasis was on clinical health.

From left: Dr. Donna Petersen, dean of the USF College of Public Health, the late Robert Hamlin and Rep. Sam Bell, “the godfather of COPH.”

“As a member of the Florida Legislature, I could see the results of public health problems – mental health issues, alcoholism, child abuse, heart attack and stroke brought on by lack of exercise and obesity, infant mortality, etc. – yet there was no focus to address these issues. In addition,” Bell said, “there was a shortage of trained public health workers as problems grew and population increased.”

Where to establish the college as a physical entity turned out to be fairly obvious. Logic dictated that the state’s first college of public health had to be part of a public university that had a medical school and was located in an urban area, and USF was the only institution in the state that met all three requirements.

“There was no bill,” Bell said of the necessary legislative action that followed. “The college was first created by a line item in the state appropriation. Of course, we had to work the proposal through the Board of Regents and the USF administration.”

All of it moved with surprising quickness and ease, he said, underscoring an idea whose time had come. Naturally, it didn’t hurt that its biggest proponent was in prime position to do it the most good.

“The College’s success must first recognize the man who made it all possible,” said Dr. Heather Stockwell, the first faculty hire in the college’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

“Without Sam Bell,” she said, “there would be no COPH.  Before our college was formed, there were no schools of public health in Florida. It was through the vision and leadership of Sam Bell that our college was formed and its funding secured in its early years so that it could grow and develop into the College we are all so proud of today!”

From left: Dr. Martha Coulter, Dr. Heather Stockwell and Dr. Peter Levin, first dean of COPH, ca. 1988.

“Sam Bell was absolutely committed to the idea that there needed to be a strong college of public health in this state,” Dr. Martha Coulter agreed. “He single-handedly got absolute support for us from the state legislature, so that we were not dependent completely on federal funds and training grants.”

“There was not much opposition to the effort,” Bell said. “It really flew under the radar. I was in leadership during all of this time and was chair of the appropriations committee in the House for the years 1985 through 1988, for four sessions. Before that, I had chaired the rules committee and was majority leader, so I was in a position to get support. After the College was initially approved, I was able to guide funding.”

If founding the college had seemed relatively easy, running it in the early days was not. Being the only college of public health in Florida created a heavy work load at the same time it underscored the demand for what a college of public health delivers.

The first year, Coulter and the other two faculty members in the Department of Community and Family Health traveled regularly to teach at the Florida Department of Health offices in Tallahassee and at USF-Sarasota, as well as in Tampa, said Coulter. There simply was no one else to do the job.

From left: Jennifer Harrell, filmmaker and documentarian Frederick Wiseman, Dr. Marti Coulter and the late James Harrell in an undated photo.  The Harrell Center is named for Harrell and his wife, Jennifer.

“Of course, this was before you could take things online,” she said, “and it certainly was a lot easier for us to go there than for all of them to come here.”

Simply finding space was another challenge. Originally housed on the first floor of the present Continuing Education building, the fledgling college wouldn’t see its own building for another seven years.

Community and Family Health had a particularly hard time finding a permanent home, Coulter said. It would reside alongside the college’s other departments in the present Continuing Education building, then move to the first floor of the University Professional Center, then find space in the Florida Mental Health Institute (now Behavioral and Community Sciences) building.

“I had to bend my head down to get into the attic to get into my office,” recalled Dr. Paul Leaverton, first chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

“Then we took over the auditorium. It used to be a basketball auditorium – just wherever we could find room, and that was where we were ’til ’91, when we moved into this building. We kept moving around in funny little quarters, so this building was really nice – and it still is.”

COPH groundbreaking ceremony for it’s $10-million building, March 1990.

Artist’s rendering of the COPH building.

A royal opening

Almost everyone expects fanfare at any major debut, the opening of a new building at a major university posing no exception, but probably no one expected the kind of pomp and circumstance that played at the USF College of Public Health’s opening of its own building in 1991.

A month before the building’s official dedication, two weeks before faculty and staff even began moving in, the first lecture was delivered by a scientist, and yet the affair was literally regal.

With an entourage of attendants by her side, Professor Dr. Her Royal Highness Princess Chulabhorn of Thailand, a biochemist, arrived in a police-escorted motorcade of limousines to speak about her research on medicinal plants.

Leaverton talked recently about how the building’s unusual opening came to pass.

“In the late ’80s, I had done a lot of work in Thailand with NIH and Thai scientists on the epidemiology of aplastic anemia,” Leaverton said.

Thailand had an unusually high rate of the rare but serious blood disorder, Leaverton said, and the group set out to investigate why.

“My colleague over there was probably the top scientist in Thailand. He was a really good medical scientist,” he said, “and he was also the king’s doctor.”

The king was a believer in education, Leaverton said, and his four children eagerly shared that belief. All earned advanced degrees, and two earned doctorates. Leaverton’s Thai counterpart was a friend of Princess Chulabhorn’s, having done post-graduate work with him in Germany.

“So even though she’s a multimillionaire as the king’s daughter, they took it to heart that they should give back to the community. So she got an education in science and directs her own research institute, mostly in cancer.

“I had not met her, but I had heard of her and knew she liked to give lectures occasionally, so I asked my friend, ‘Do you think she’d ever like to give a lecture at USF?’ He said, ‘I’ll ask her.’

A short time later, back at USF and ready to re-settle into his routine, Leaverton had a surprise waiting for him.

“The next thing I know, my phone’s ringing, and it’s the ambassador from Thailand asking if I’d like the princess to speak at USF.”

The answer was yes, and the ambassador personally flew down from Washington to make the arrangements.

“He sounded pretty upset,” Leaverton said, “but they have to handle the royal family with kid gloves. Turned out he was a wonderful man, and he came down a couple of times. We had to meet with the mayor of Tampa and the chief of police to make sure the princess got a motorcade from the airport to her hotel – she took over three floors at the new Wyndham – and from her hotel to USF and back again, no stopping at red lights. So it was quite a show.

“The building wasn’t scheduled to open until December, but to make her schedule, she could only come in November, so the dean opened the building just to accommodate her, which I thought was nice.

News story on Thailand’s Princess Chulabhorn’s royal visit for the COPH opening, November 1991.  Pictured with the princess (left) are Drs. Peter Levin (second from left) and Paul Leaverton, who watch as a student from Thailand extends a greeting.

“It was a packed audience. She gave a very technical lecture that no one understood except the biochemists, but it was a big show, and we got to have lunch with the president of the university. It was a royal opening for the college.”

When the college first opened for classes, Leaverton said, a few students were admitted even before the departments were created. After they were created, the departments didn’t last long initially.

Dean Levin created the initial four of COPH’s present five departments and recruited four professors from other institutions to chair them.

From left: Dennis Werner, senior research coordinator, Jan Marshburn, research assistant, and Lesley Bateman, PR and development coordinator, move into the new COPH building in November 1991.

Leaverton was brought in from the National Institutes of Health, and before that, the University of Iowa, to head Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Dr. Stewart Brooks would leave the University of Cincinnati to lead Environmental and Occupational Health. Dr. Stan Graven came from the University of Missouri to direct Community and Family Health. Dr. Tom Chirikos from Ohio State University would take the reins in Health Policy and Management.

“In early ’85,” Leaverton recalled, “the dean got to thinking maybe we didn’t need departments. We could just follow what he called the Texas model – no departments, just one big happy family. But the four chairs who had been recruited to be chairmen of departments objected mightily, and besides, I tried to convince the dean, students tend to think of themselves along discipline lines anyway, whether you call them departments or not. So he relented and re-created the four departments.”

Typical of the new departments, “Epi and Biostats,” as Leaverton calls it, consisted of two people. He and Stockwell were it for the time being, but that was about to change, although maybe not as quickly as they would have liked.

“The legislature was wonderfully generous,” Leaverton said. “They gave us a lot of tenure-track lines, almost unheard of in the creation of a new school. As chairman of Epi and Biostats, I had six tenure-track lines. Two of them were filled by Dr. Stockwell and me, but we had to recruit for the other four.

“Dr. Stockwell and I both had pretty high standards – she had been at Hopkins. We had a file of about 30 people. We rejected all of them. We didn’t think they were good enough to be on our faculty.

“So we had to start the recruiting process all over again, and she and I did all the teaching for that first year, because we were a two-person faculty. We did have a few adjuncts, maybe, here and there, and we eventually filled the faculty positions for the next year.”

Leaverton chaired the department until 1995, then remained as a professor for another six years. He retired as an emeritus professor in 2001.

Memories

The founders and early leaders of COPH have more memories than just those that deal with the college’s inception and its early operation, more memories than space could ever allow, including a few on the lighter side.

“When she was president of the university, she knew everybody on campus,” Coulter recalled of Betty Castor, “and when I got the funding to start the Harrell Center, I was walking across the campus behind the administration building, and she was walking back to her office from somewhere. She saw me all the way across the grounds and yelled out, ‘Hi, moneybags!’

Sam Bell and Betty Castor, former USF president and Florida Secretary of Education, at the COPH 25th anniversary gala, December 2009.

“She knew everybody and supported everybody, and no matter that I was an associate professor in the College of Public Health, she knew.”

“I recall conducting a final exam in epidemiology one evening in which two unusual events occurred,” said Leaverton. “First, a student came to me in obvious pain. She had accidentally put the wrong kind of eye drops in her eyes, which were nearly swollen shut. Okay, she was excused.

“Then, another lady went into labor. We called 911 and sent her to the hospital. It turned out to be a false alarm – she delivered two weeks later. Maybe my exams were too frightening.”

“Being a fan of Chevy Chase and SNL, especially his take-offs on the clumsiness of President Gerald Ford, I purposely stumbled up the auditorium stairs and fell against the podium on the stage, scattering papers everywhere,” Mahan recalled. “This was at one of our graduation convocations. Instead of the audience laughing at my parody of Chevy, they all thought it was real and rushed to the stage to help me – very embarrassing! I think it’s funny now, but I have a very bizarre sense of humor.”

The particulars vary from person to person, but the size, scope and overall success of the college are unanimous themes for the people who were there in its earliest days. In one way or another, all said they could not have foreseen in 1984 what it is on its 30^th anniversary.

“I don’t think we could have imagined,” Coulter said, “the ability to move as strongly as it has in the direction of being a research one university – USF as a whole and the College of Public Health as a leader in that regard. I don’t think we quite envisioned it that way. That has been very exciting.

“Also, the expansion of the whole global health department, the global health focus, and the ability to do international public health work with researchers that are in the global health unit. That really hadn’t been anticipated,” she said.

“I think Donna Petersen coming here was a huge milestone,” she added. “I think she is absolutely extraordinary. Without Donna’s leadership, we could not have gone as far as we’ve gone. She’s given us a lot of support for community-based research, and that’s been critical in terms of the direction that we’ve gone.”

“I’m very pleased with how well our students have done,” Leaverton said. “It’s kind of shocking, in a way. As I look back, we must have organized the curriculum pretty well, Heather [Stockwell] and I. We had to basically design it from scratch. We set up some pretty good courses, and they essentially stayed the same for a long time. We had some good faculty who kept the standards high.

COPH student Sherri Berger as a model for a National Public Health Week poster, March 1996.  She now is chief operating officer at the Centers for Disease Control.

“I actually saw some memos that said, ‘Don’t take Epi and Biostats at the same time, it’s too hard. You have to take them separately,’” Leaverton said. “Sometimes I would take some pride in that. We never made soft courses. Our courses were tough.”

Past, Future and Present

The few shortcomings the college’s founders can think of actually only further reflect the college’s success.

“If I could change one thing,” Stockwell said, “it would be to have a much larger building. The college’s rapid growth has resulted in a need for more space. Maybe we could add a floor?”

“Our beautiful building should have been built to be able to add additional stories,” Mahan concurred.

For Leaverton, it would be an epidemiology laboratory, something he said he and Dr. Doug Schocken, a cardiology professor, tried twice to get funded by NIH.

“If I could do that over, I would pursue that even more vigorously. But we tried,” he said.

Mahan said he sees the college’s future dependent upon “a stronger marriage” between the college and the state and local health departments.

Former COPH Dean Dr. Charles Mahan (above left, below right) participates in an exercise with the Hillsborough County Fire Rescue Hazardous Materials Unit, April 2000.

“What if you got your medical degree or nursing degree but never saw a patient and never went into a hospital? Well, why are we giving people public health degrees, and they never set foot in a health department, and they don’t work in the community, which is where the problems are?”

Mahan believes that national accreditation of health departments should be as universal as accreditation for colleges and universities, and that closing the gap between public health education and practice is the way to achieve it. COPH would help a health department earn accreditation, with the understanding that once it became accredited, it would become an “official outpost of the USF College of Public Health.”

“I hope the emphasis on a strong research program will continue,” Leaverton said. “Public health programs need to be based upon sound science, of course. I hope that never changes.”

“What I would like to see the college do is continue on the path that it’s on in terms of really being a leader in the country in community-based research,” Coulter said, “increasing its role as an intermediary between research and practice, and having a committed sense of responsibility to community service providers.”

“Over the next five years,” Stockwell said, “I think – or at least I hope – that public health in general will focus on a positive approach to health, not just disease prevention but improving the quality of health and health maintenance for all our citizens. To do this there will need to be a strong interdisciplinary approach to developing strategies that focus on primary prevention and sustainability at the community level.

“I think our college is uniquely positioned to address these issues,” she said. Its interdisciplinary educational focus positions it as a leader in public health education, and our emphasis on the development of high-quality, collaborative, community-based  research seeks to provide critical information to policy makers to address current and future public health concerns locally, nationally and internationally.”

From left: Susan Webb and Drs. Michael Reid and Phillip Marty establish the Public Health Leadership Institute with a grant from the CDC and ASPH, January 1995.

Stockwell remained with COPH until 2014, when she retired as professor emerita.

But between all the memories of COPH’s beginnings, all its history, successes, scarce shortcomings and envisioned futures stands the here and now.

“If imitation is the greatest form of flattery,” he said, “then we should be flattered, because every university in the state wants a college of public health.

“The College is having impact around the world. I had thought it would be a mecca for public health in Florida and a source of information and advice for state decision-makers. It has done that and much more. We now have graduates working on every continent. Our faculty are internationally recognized. Our students are studying and doing internships around the world. We are attracting major grants, and the research continues to grow.

“I am very proud of what the College has become and what it has done to touch lives around the world,” the college’s “godfather” concluded.

“It has far exceeded my hopes and expectations.”

The USF College of Public Health solves global problems and creates conditions that allow every person the right to universal health and well-being. Make a gift today and help the COPH to advance the public’s health for the next 30 years and beyond. 

Story by David Brothers, USF College of Public Health; photos courtesy of COPH and various faculty.

Related media:
30th anniversary website

The post An Idea Whose Time Had Come: Florida’s First College of Public Health 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 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 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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First published on June 4, 2015 in observance of the COPH’s 30^th anniversary celebration.

It was January 1998, and the Florida Board of Regents had just promoted one of USF’s fledgling entities to major status with sublimely understated efficiency.

Following authorizations for a BS in dance education, a degree of undetermined level in occupational therapy and an MS in physical therapy, it was the last of four single-sentence items in the typically dry language of officialdom, replete with redundancy and excessive capitalization, on a State University System memo to Dr. Thomas Tighe, then USF provost: “Established the Type I Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies as a Type I Center (sic).”

The rationale for the Center’s status elevation cited the state’s “tremendous progress in improving the health status of pregnant women and infants, largely through the leadership of Gov. and Mrs. Chiles and Charles Mahan,” who was then USF College of Public Health dean.  Marked improvement in the state’s infant mortality rate was among the leading factors, along with the Center’s performance the previous two years as a Type IV center.

Mahan had envisioned a research, program and policy institute for maternal and infant health as early as 1988, according to the Center’s official timeline.  The Center’s originally intended location was the University of Florida, Mahan said, but that was before the state had established its first college of public health at USF.  By the time the Center was created a few years later, USF, with the only COPH in the state, had become the obvious location, and Mahan had been named COPH dean.

Charles Mahan, MD, former USF College of Public Health dean

“Gov. and Mrs. Chiles had a lot of allegiance to the University of Florida, where they met and where he got his law degree,” Mahan said.  “I was state health officer on loan from the medical school at Florida, and I was supposed to go back there, and the Chiles Center was supposed to be there.”

But having served in the same administration, Mahan was friends with Betty Castor, who had been state secretary of education under Chiles and had since become president of USF.  Mahan said she called him and personally asked him to be the dean of COPH.  He accepted, and the first “steal” from the University of Florida only naturally led to the second.

USF was the better location for the Chiles Center, Castor told the governor, as it had the only college of public health and was headed by a dean who had served him as state health officer.  It also had a Healthy Beginnings program in place that arguably was already doing some of the work the Chiles Center would do.

Dr. Betty Castor, former USF president and Florida secretary of education.  To her left is her husband, former Florida state Rep. Samuel P. Bell III.

The Florida Healthy Start Program had been created by the legislature in 1991, under the urging of Chiles, and from its inception, had included a Healthy Beginnings Program at USF.  So when Mahan was appointed COPH dean in February 1995, he was at the right place at the right time to begin realization of his vision.  A year later, the Board of Regents established the Center, and Mahan served as its founding director in addition to his duties as COPH dean.

A $2-million federal grant followed in 1997 that was specifically aimed at reducing infant mortality in Hillsborough County.  In December of that year, a gala event at Busch Gardens honored the governor and his wife and formally launched the Center.  Additional state funding came in 1998 for construction of a building and a $600,000 annual operating budget.

Former Florida first lady Rhea Chiles (third from right) and her and the late governor’s daughter, also named Rhea (fourth from right), and son Ed (center) at the Chiles Center’s groundbreaking ceremony.

“President Castor invited Gov. and Mrs. Chiles down to USF, and we toured the campus and got them to put their names on the Chiles Center,” Mahan recalled.  “And then, Gov. Chiles was great about taking me to Washington and meeting all the senators who were his friends and raising money for the building.”

That journey for federal support brought home another $800,000 for the building.  The governor and first lady then spearheaded a series of fundraisers in Daytona Beach, Lakeland, Pensacola, Tallahassee and West Palm Beach.

“The Center was originally housed in office space near Tampa International Airport on Mariner Drive,” recalled Dr. Linda A. Detman, research associate for the Center.  “I believe that was from 1996 to 1998.  The Center’s first on-campus location was in FMHI, what is now labeled on maps as the College of Behavioral & Community Sciences building.  We also had a pair of temporary trailers for added office space between FMHI and the Westside Conference Center.”

Gov. Lawton Chiles (right) and daughter Rhea with Dr. Harold Varmus, then director of the National Institutes of Health, at the dedication of Lawton Chiles House (not related to the Chiles Center).

The Center’s impressive home since 2001 puts plenty of inspiration on display for visitors and staff alike:  A photo gallery of Gov. and Mrs. Chiles, including framed moments with presidents Clinton, Carter and Bush the first; a replica of the governor’s Tallahassee conference room for his use whenever he visited; even a bronzed pair of “Walkin’ Lawton’s” famous shoes.

After all, inspiration is what it’s all about.  Over the years, the Chiles Center’s health care initiatives have racked up impressive victories, to say the least.

“At the Chiles Center, Florida Covering Kids and Families and its collaborators across the state exceeded the federal goal for Florida in enrolling people for health care coverage in the federal health insurance marketplaces,” said Dr. William M. Sappenfield, Chiles Center director and Department of Community and Family Health chair and professor.  “During the first open enrollment, about 500,000 more individuals enrolled over the initial target and reached more than 1.6 million after the second enrollment period.  Moreover, because of the success of projects like this, Florida now enrolls more people through this important health insurance program than any other state.”

William M. Sappenfield, MD, MPH, director of the Chiles Center

Sappenfield also points to one of the Center’s most recent projects, the Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative, which has radically reduced elective early deliveries (before 39 weeks of gestation).

“Babies electively delivered before 39 weeks are at higher risk of poor outcomes, including respiratory troubles and difficulties feeding, and are at higher risk of learning, behavioral and school-related problems in childhood,” explained Detman, who oversees the project.

“It continues to make a measurable difference in the quality of health care that mothers and babies are receiving,” Sappenfield said, “through improving newborn health care at birth and reducing death and morbidity to obstetric hemorrhage.”

Another recent Chiles Center project is the Obstetric Hemorrhage Initiative begun in October 2013 with 31 Florida and four North Carolina hospitals.  The participating Florida hospitals represent more than one-forth of the state’s delivery hospitals and nearly two-thirds of all births statewide, Detman said, adding that maternal deaths from postpartum hemorrhage are the leading cause of maternal mortality in the state.

Linda Detman, PhD, program manager for the Chiles Center’s Florida Perinatal Quality Collaborative

“We are fortunate to have the enthusiasm and dedication of perinatal professionals across the state who want to be engaged in improving outcomes for mothers and infants, and we plan to grow in the number of hospitals actively engaged in one or more of our projects,” she said.

Though funding issues put an end to the Center’s branch office in Tallahassee years ago, the original main office – now an imposing office building – on the USF Tampa campus continues to thrive and achieve.

“As was initially dreamed, the Chiles Center continues to improve the health and health care of women, children and families in Florida,” Sappenfield said.  “We will continue to build upon and expand these successful collaborations to succeed in our mission of improving their health and health care.”

Gov. Chiles visits COPH and its dean, Dr. Charles Mahan, in 1995.

“We worked with Gov. and Mrs. Chiles for many years to devise and implement programs and ideas to improve the pregnancy outcomes for women and babies,” Mahan said.  “The LRCC is designed to carry out these efforts and continue to design and improve new ones for future generations.”

Story by David Brothers, College of Public Health.

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The USF College of Public Health (COPH) is part of a national effort to create the healthiest nation in one generation. USF Bulls and members of the local community are invited to join the movement (virtually) and get involved today!

Each year National Public Health Week is held during the first full week of April and is organized by the American Public Health Association (APHA), a government-based professional organization for public health professionals that prides itself on influencing federal policy and bringing together members from all fields of public health. The week is observed to recognize the contributions of public health and highlight important health issues.

This year’s observance falls on April 5-11 centering on the theme, “Building Bridges to Better Health.”

Kicking off the week, the Chiles Center will be holding the first part of their webinar series for their 25^th Anniversary on April 5. Speakers, including Dean Donna Petersen, former COPH Dean and Chiles Center Founding Director Charles Mahan and more, will be discussing the Chiles Center history and future endeavors in making a difference for women, children and families. Stay tuned for the second half of the webinar series streaming on April 20.

On April 7, the COPH will be hosting its annual Public Health Awards Ceremony. Celebrate student academic achievements, cutting-edge research and alumni movers and shakers. The COPH will also be announcing the honorees of the Outstanding Alumni Award, the Excellence in Teaching Awardee and the Florida Outstanding Woman in Public Health.

The celebration continues with Give Life Day on April 14. One Blood, Be the Match and Donate Life Florida representatives will share how members of the USF Health community can give life to others. Make sure to sign up in advance here.

Be sure to view the full schedule of National Public Health Week events that includes a student organization expo, service opportunities, book drive and a host of other activities.

All events will be held virtually and access codes to Zoom of Microsoft Teams sessions will be provided to the COPH community prior to each event.

For more information on National Public Health Week, visit www.nphw.org or contact ekent@health.usf.edu.

Story by Caitlin Keough, USF College of Public Health

The post Celebrate NPHW virtually with the COPH appeared first on College of Public Health News.

USF College of Public Health’s (COPH) Dr. Charles Mahan, former dean and professor emeritus of the COPH, will be honored with the 2021 ASPPH Welch-Rose Award for academic public health service.

The ASPPH Welch-Rose Award recognizes the highest standards of leadership and scholarship in public health and honors individuals who have made significant lifetime contributions to the field of public health.

Mahan will be presented with his award during the virtual 2021 ASPPH Annual Meeting on March 23-25, where he will also be one of the plenary speakers.

Mahan is being recognized for his contributions as a physician, educator, leader, advocate and lifelong champion of public health, both academically and in practice. Mahan is also known for professionalizing public health by creating the National Board of Public Health Examiners (NBPHE) and the Certification in Public Health (CPH) exam.

After earning his medical degree from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. and completing an OB/GYN internship and fellowship, Mahan joined the medical school faculty at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and later at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Fla.

 In 1982, Mahan was recruited to serve as Florida’s Title V maternal and child health director in Tallahassee, and from 1988-1995 he served as the state’s health officer.

In 1995, Mahan became the second dean of the COPH and threw himself into ASPPH work, including serving on the Council for Education in Public Health, an independent agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit schools of public health, public health programs and outside schools of public health

Envisioning a more respected workforce, one recognized for its professionalism and academic enterprise, Mahan began discussions with then-APHA president Mohammad Akhter and the late ASPPH president Harrison Spencer. They collaborated on ways the academic and practice communities could come together to professionalize the field. Together they created the NBPHE, similar to the medical boards with which they were all familiar.

NBPHE was established in 2005 as an independent organization, the purpose of which is to ensure that public health professionals have mastered the foundational knowledge and skills relevant to contemporary public health. Over 10,000 individuals have sat for the exam, earning their CPH.

Story by Caitlin Keough, USF College of Public Health

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From the film festival to Delta Omega to a fun night out, the USF College of Public Health’s presence at the 2019 American Public Health Association Annual Meeting and Expo was a trifecta! Bulls descended on Philadelphia from Nov. 2-6.

This year’s annual meeting marked the third time in the college’s history that a video was selected for the APHA Global Public Health Film Festival. USF COPH: The world is our classroom is one of a handful of videos that aired in the “Sick Planet” category.

In observance of the college’s 35^th anniversary, this year’s APHA reception was also ramped up a notch.

More than 120 Bulls and public health colleagues showed up for the festivities at Lucky Strike. “The bowling alley and game room provided the perfect setting for a fun celebration,” said COPH Dean Donna Petersen.  “Friends old and new mixed and mingled while playing pool, ping-pong, oversized Connect Four and even bowling!”

Special guests included COPH founder The Honorable Sam Bell and former USF System President Dr. Betty Castor. Retired COPH Dean Charlie Mahan and wife Dee Jeffers were also in attendance. In fact, the reception fell on Dr. Mahan’s birthday.

“The college is the recipient of a $35,000 anonymous gift,” announced Kara Steiner, USF Health’s director of annual giving & alumni engagement. “Because it’s a match opportunity, any gift amount to any COPH fund counts!”

Steiner challenged attendees to make a gift of $35, $350 or $3500. Giving Tuesday, an annual day of giving celebrated the day after Cyber Monday is one way to do so.

Before closing out the night, Petersen introduced the newest addition to the COPH family—gourmet dark chocolate direct from Ecuador. Attendees were given an opportunity to sample dark chocolate varieties with and without almonds.  Watch for new product lines to be available on campus and in local stores, all in support of the college, Ecuadoran farmers and chocolate producers through our latest global venture.

This initiative is part of the USF College of Public Health’s yearlong 35th anniversary celebration.  To learn more about giving to the COPH, contact Kara Steiner ’06 at ksteiner@health.usf.edu or (813) 974-3023.

Story by Natalie D. Preston, USF College of Public Health

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The 2019 Annual Chiles Lecture and Symposium at the USF College of Public Health took place on April 12. The mission and aim of the event focused on neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) and opioid use among mothers and the impact it has on their newborn babies.

The COPH’s Chiles Center aims to promote optimal health using a multi-pronged approach: research, applying evidence-based practices, delivering education and guiding change through service and partnership.

To promote the issues of maternal opioid use and NAS, the Chiles Center brought in a national expert on maternal care as well as a panel of six USF faculty members who have been conducting research or promoting quality initiatives on this issue. The symposium also featured a student poster session and awards ceremony.  

“The Chiles Symposium provides Chiles Center faculty, students and staff the opportunity to showcase and discuss the breadth and depth of their research and research to practice for women, children and families,” said Dr. William Sappenfield, professor of community and family health and director of the Chiles Center. “This is actually the first year we decided to have a common topic and part of that is just the large crisis that we have on maternal opioid use and NAS. There is a lot happening at USF and the state on this topic and we want to take full advantage of that.”

The symposium began with the presentation of the Charles S. Mahan, M.D. Award for Best Student MCH Paper.

Presented to doctoral student Ngozichukwuka Agu, this award recognizes the best paper authored by a College of Public Health student on maternal and child health by providing a $500 award.

Her paper, “Predictors of Early Childhood Undernutrition in Nigeria: The Role of Maternal Autonomy,” will be published in Public Health Nutrition later this year.

Agu and her co-authors examined maternal, child and household factors that were associated with growth stunting, underweight wasting in children less than two years old within Nigeria. They focused on the role a mother’s decision-making ability and relative power within the home plays in this association.

Unexpectedly, they found that women with low relative power in the household were less likely to have children with indices of undernutrition. Agu said this finding calls for future exploratory research, policies and interventions to target at-risk subgroups.

The co-authors on her paper are Nnadozie Emechebe, Korede Adegoke, Oluyemisi Falope and Dr. Russell Kirby.

“Winning this award is a great honor for me and my co-authors. I am appreciative that the committee chose this paper and hopeful that our research findings can contribute meaningfully to improving child health,” Agu said.

Other topics presented this year during the panel discussion included:

Accuracy of ICD-10-CM Codes for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome Surveillance

Dr. J.P. Tanner, assistant professor

USF College of Public Health

Hospital Variation in Length of Stay Among Infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome in Florida

C.N. Reid and T. Foti, PhD students

USF College of Public Health

“Challenges Facing Pregnant & Post-Partum Women in Medication-Assisted Treatment Programs”

H. Hills, associate professor and chair

USF College of Behavioral and Community Sciences

“Maternal Interaction in Dyads Impacted by Opiate Use Disorder”

D. Maguire, associate professor and vice dean of graduate nursing

USF College of Nursing

“Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome in Florida: The FPQC’s Approach”

M. Balakrishnan, associate professor

USF Morsani College of Medicine

Following presentations and awards, all attending guests and speakers were invited to view research posters, network with potential colleagues, and meet the authors.

Dr. Elizabeth Krans, assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh, closed the event with a keynote discussion.

She discussed the rise of opioid use disorder (OUD) in women during pregnancy, the affects and treatment of OUD, “Maternal Opioid Use: Latest Research and Practice.”

“Looking at other public health epidemics, such as HIV, firearm homicide and car crashes, drug overdose deaths are well outpacing and exceeding these crises,” Krans said. “And I would argue that this epidemic has had a severe and disproportionate impact on women.”

She discussed how pregnancy is an opportunity to address this chronic medication condition of addiction that will exist well beyond the pregnancy episode and that can be managed and treated successfully.

“Pregnancy increases healthcare access. Over 75% of pregnant women with OUD are enrolled in Medicaid and over 40% initiate OUD treatment for the very first time in pregnancy.

She closed her talk with a discussion on clinical treatment pathways and response during pregnancy as well as postpartum.

“A baby cannot exist alone, but is essentially part of a relationship. That’s what we’re in the business of, building a relationship, building a connection and providing a future for women with addiction and their children,” Krans said.

Related media:

Album by Ellen Kent, Sara De La Cantera and Caitlin Keough

The Symposium: USF Opioid Research Panel video

Maternal Opioid Use and NAS: Latest Research and Practice video

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“My practice is servant leadership aimed at achieving strategic systems change, my passion is elevating women’s voices in the field of maternal and child health,” said USF College of Public Health alumna Dr. Jordana Frost.

Frost graduated from Indiana University with her BS in business administration, but was introduced to public health after becoming a mother.

“I started learning about women who had experienced a traumatic childbirth experience. That led me to learning about variation in practice in the U.S. maternity care system, coupled with the large prevalence of poor maternal and infant health outcomes,” she said. “I felt called to becoming a part of the solution, to help elevate women’s voices in the process of improving how maternity care is delivered in our country.”

In 2015, the Association of Maternal Child Health Programs awarded her the Region I Emerging MCH Professional award in recognition of her professional contributions in the state of Connecticut, where she moved to shortly after earning her MPH in community family health from the USF COPH in 2011. Dr. Frost went on to earn her her DrPH in maternal and child health from Boston University in 2018, where she focused her research on equitable access to maternity care practices that promote high value, family-centered intrapartum care.

Alumna Jordana Frost, DrPH, MPH, CPH, CD(DONA), and her two children (Photo courtesy of Jordana Frost).

Frost has 17 years of professional experience in leading successful projects, programs and diverse partnerships domestically, as well as internationally.

She served over two years as a small enterprise development agent for the U.S. Peace Corps in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, where she helped women’s cooperatives build income-generating activities. While there, she also supported the local community in opening and running a girls mentoring center, as well as infant feeding centers in remote areas of the local part of the Sahara desert.

Her domestic experience includes managing maternal and child health home visiting programs, serving as a lactation counselor in a high-risk clinic, leading a small community-based organization serving recent immigrant populations, serving as a lead consultant for the development of a statewide plan to improve birth outcomes, supporting mothers and their families as a certified childbirth doula, and working with local health districts on policy, systems and environmental changes to promote health and reduce risk factors.

Frost now serves as the director of Maternal and Child Health and Government Affairs for March of Dimes in Connecticut and Rhode Island.

“Through this role, I have the privilege of partnering with statewide and local leaders, organizations, agencies and providers to strategically advance programs and policies that improve the health of women and their families, with a particular focus on populations that are experiencing a disproportionate burden of poor birth outcomes,” she said. “I thrive on the opportunity to engage in and lead collective impact approaches to solving complex problems that require multiple stakeholders and system-wide strategies.”

One of Frost’s proudest professional achievements is co-founding and co-leading a state wide collective impact initiative named Every Woman Connecticut. The learning collaborative is focused on integrating pregnancy intention screening and related services and care into routine practice across different settings.

To date, they have engaged 300 public health and clinical professionals from over 90 agencies and practices across the state.

“I am particularly proud of the strategic planning work that I led early on in the life of this initiative, facilitating a process that helped identify common objectives, readiness of partner agencies and feasibility of prioritized interventions,” she said. “It was not an easy process, but it led to increased trust among partners and strong sustained buy-in, as well as a documented synergy and alignment of priorities that continue to attract resources and support.”

Jordana Frost (Photo courtesy of Frost).

Frost initially chose the USF COPH for her MPH degree because of its strong maternal and child health track, as well as the ability to take classes online before she was able to physically move her family to Tampa, Fla.

While at the COPH, Frost helped create the Maternal and Child Health Student Organization (MCHSO) and served as its founding president. She also helped launch the annual MCHSO symposium that has continued to grow over the years contributing to the strengthening of the local student, faculty and practitioner community.

Frost said that she was fortunate to connect with many individuals at the COPH who inspired her.

“I was very lucky to have the opportunity to work closely as a student research assistant for Drs. Ellen Daley and Rita DeBate. That experience allowed me to connect on a more personal level with them as strong mentors,” she said. “They, along with Drs. Kay Perrin and Russell Kirby, Dee Jeffers and Dr. Charles Mahan encouraged me to really dig deeply into my public health passion and pursue additional professional development and academic training opportunities.”

Jordana Frost presenting research while attending the USF College of Public Health (Photo courtesy of Natalie Preston).

Frost was also selected as an MCH Leadership Trainee. She said that this opportunity was another impactful opportunity to further her training in key MCH competencies such as self-reflection, critical thinking, cultural competency and professional community relationships.

“These experiences helped round up my training, as well as made me feel extremely personally connected within the COPH community,” she said. “Community-building is one of the many things that the COPH is really good at: making students feel heard and valued as part of a vibrant community of current and future public health researchers, teachers, practitioners and leaders.”

To Frost, there is so much more to health than the mere absence of disease.

“Public health professionals carry an incredible responsibility to ensure that key decisions, programs and policies strive to attain optimal well-being for all, by addressing root causes and promoting effective preventive solutions to enhance people’s lives,” she said.

Story by Caitlin Keough, USF College of Public Health

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