Keisuke Ejima, postdoctoral fellow in epidemiology and biostatistics, has received a two-year grant to research body mass index and mortality using artificial intelligence.
The fellowship was awarded based on Ejima’s study proposal titled “Estimate the Association between BMI Trajectory and Mortality Using Artificial Intelligence in the Establishment of Mathematical Obesity Epidemiology.” (more…)
Indiana University has announced that Indiana University School of Public Health alumnus, Philemon Yebei, has been appointed assistant vice president for administration in the university’s Office of the Executive Vice President for University Academic Affairs. Yebei will fill the role previously held by Steve Keucher, who retired at the end of 2017 after 30 years of service at IU.
Yebei, who has worked in budget administration and finance at IU Kokomo for the past seven years, will continue his work in finance in this universitywide position based on the Bloomington campus. He will manage the University Academic Affairs budget and administration, serve as the fiscal liaison between IU’s regional campuses and the university’s chief fiscal officer, and provide fiscal support and guidance to IU’s regional campuses.
“We are so pleased to have Dr. Yebei join our office,” said John Applegate, executive vice president for University Academic Affairs. “His expertise will be a great asset. Dr. Yebei’s knowledge and experience in both university administration and at one of the university’s regional campuses will be invaluable.”
In this role, Yebei will lead the Regional Campus Fiscal Council, which is a collaborative group of fiscal leaders from all of IU’s regional campuses, and will represent the regional campuses on the University Fiscal Council.
“I’m delighted to have the opportunity to join the Office of the Executive Vice President for University Academic Affairs,” Yebei said. “I look forward to applying my experience from my time at IU Kokomo to continue to improve and strengthen our relationships and collaboration with all of the IU campuses.”
During his tenure at IU Kokomo, Yebei served as director of budget administration and, most recently, as vice chancellor for finance. In these roles, he provided leadership and counsel to the campus’s executive administration on the institutional operating budget, oversaw all non-general-fund accounts, implemented and provided guidance on universitywide financial policies, and served on universitywide committees.
Yebei holds a Ph.D. in higher education administration from the IU School of Education in Bloomington, a Master of Science in applied health science from the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington, and a Bachelor of Education in technology from Moi University in Kenya. He is a member of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Association for Institutional Research.
Yebei will begin his appointment on the Bloomington campus March 1.
The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. … You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love.”
As hundreds of people gathered today for the annual MLK Leadership Breakfast at IU Bloomington, a table of IU students, faculty and staff — this year’s Building Bridges Award winners — were the shining example of King’s words.
The award, given out each year, recognizes people who capture King’s vision, spirit and leadership.
Among the recipients was Brian Richardson Jr., assistant director of the Office of Student Diversity and Inclusion at the School of Public Health-Bloomington. In his role, Richardson focuses on recruitment and retention; programming; and community outreach. He said his goal is to create opportunities for students of color to know that they matter and can be successful. Outside of IU, Richardson serves as a mentor to young people in the community. He founded the Krimson Leadership Academy at Fairview Elementary School, where he introduces fourth- and fifth-grade boys to media, activities and discussions focused around the development of young men of color. He also participates in the Real Men Read program through the Monroe County Community School Corp. and has worked with youth at Banneker Community Center. “It is a true honor, and I am extremely humbled to have been thought of for this award,” he said. “I am excited and grateful to have been named among the 2018 winners of this award, and I hope to continue to keep Dr. King’s dream alive.”
“This year’s Building Bridges Award winners are a shining example of students, faculty and staff who have shown tremendous leadership and commitment — in ways big and small — to promoting equality, diversity and respect,” said John Nieto-Phillips, associate vice president for the Office of the Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Multicultural Affairs. “The faculty, staff and students honored today embody the vision, spirit and legacy of Dr. King, and we are proud to honor them for their dedication to serving others and commitment to making a difference right here at IU and within our community.”
A startup based on an Indiana University innovation could help federal and international organizations conduct more-efficient quantitative risk assessments of chemicals in food, pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other products.
Traditional methods to conduct quantitative risk assessments have drawbacks, according to Kan Shao, assistant professor of environmental and occupational health in IU’s School of Public Health.
View print quality image“Regulatory agencies face two major challenges,” Shao said. “The first is the gap between the speed of conducting assessments and the speed of new chemicals being developed. The second is determining how regulatory risk-assessment results can better support benefit-cost analysis-based decision-making.”
Shao has launched Dream Tech LLC, a high-tech startup that uses a Bayesian estimation system for the dose-response assessment phase, which addresses a chemical’s toxicity.
“Dream Tech can improve the dose-response modeling approaches to make the assessment more efficient and effective,” he said. “The Bayesian method incorporates historical and other types of data to reduce animal use in toxicological studies, which enhances the efficiency of risk assessment.
“Dream Tech’s online dose-response modeling system also provides probabilistic estimates for the most important quantities, which cannot be achieved by current dose-response modeling systems.”
Shao said Dream Tech’s focus on the dose-response step of quantitative risk assessment sets it apart from other companies.
“Few businesses provide quantitative and analytical support for risk assessment, and almost none focus solely on dose-response modeling. The two current most-used systems were developed by U.S. and Dutch government agencies,” he said. “Dream Tech is relatively unique in its focus.”
Shao disclosed his innovation to the IU Innovation and Commercialization Office, which protects, markets and licenses intellectual property developed at Indiana University so it can be commercialized by industry. Shao licensed the innovation and launched Dream Tech to commercialize it.
Shao said Dream Tech continues to develop the Bayesian system to build novel functionalities and is seeking funding to support the company’s financial and personnel growth.
“The next milestones include the acceptance of our system as an alternative dose-response modeling system to support regulatory risk assessments and to engage external sources for financial support,” he said.
The IU School of Public Health-Bloomington and the Rural Center for AIDS/STD prevention will be hosting the Ryan White & William L. Yarber Lecture and Awarding Of The Ryan White Distinguished Leadership Award, a part of the Public Health Lecture Series.
Sandra L. Thurman, M.A. will receive the Ryan White Distinguished Leadership Award and discuss the challenges still to be overcome, including the stigma and discrimination faced by Ryan White in the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic in her talk, “The Legacy of AIDS: Unprecedented Challenges and Opportunities for Change.”
Thurman serves as the Chief Strategy Officer in the United States Department of State’s Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Global Health Diplomacy. In this role, she coordinates all of the U.S. government’s global HIV/AIDS activities to achieve an AIDS-free generation, ensuring transparency, accountability, and impact.
Special guest Jeanne White Ginder, mother of Ryan White, will present the Ryan White Distinguished Leadership Award
This event is free and open to the public.
Smart casual dress is recommended. Register online by November 27 at go.iu.edu/1JSH.
December 6, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. Dinner provided and reception to follow
in the Indiana Memorial Union Tudor Room
Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington Dean David B. Allison was presented with the 2017 Thomas A. Wadden Award for Distinguished Mentorship during The Obesity Society’s annual scientific meeting this week.
The Thomas A. Wadden Award for Distinguished Mentorship honors a mid-career or senior The Obesity Society member for distinguished mentorship of the Society’s members who were in their early careers at the time of the mentoring relationship. The award is named for Professor Thomas Wadden, Ph.D. of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, who for more than 30 years has mentored dozens of scientist-practitioners who have pursued successful careers in obesity research and clinical care.
Throughout his years as a member of The Obesity Society, Allison has mentored dozens of students, post-doctoral fellows, and young faculty members. He enjoys helping them rise to the challenges of interdisciplinary research, appreciate the beauty and wonder of discovery, and develop an abiding commitment to the pursuit and communication of truth through science.
“[Dr. Allison] could not be more deserving of the Society’s award as this is a nomination by your peers,” said Penny Gordon-Larsen, Ph.D., F.T.O.S., Chair of the 2017 Awards Committee. “Congratulations on a well-deserved honor.”
Allison joined the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington in August 2017 after most recently serving as associate dean for research and science in the School of Health Professions at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. While at UAB, he was also a Distinguished Professor, the Quetelet Endowed Professor, director of the Office of Energetics and director of the NIH-funded Nutrition Obesity Research Center.
Allison is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Medicine, one of the most prestigious medical societies in the world. His research includes a breadth of activity — including basic science using drosophila (fruit flies), rodent models, epidemiology, human clinical trials, statistical methodology, meta-analysis, mathematical models and human behavioral research — and engages in cross-disciplinary collaborations with scientists from many academic backgrounds.
Allison received his Ph.D. in clinical and school psychology from Hofstra University in 1990; his master’s degree in clinical and school psychology at Hofstra in 1987; and his bachelor’s degree in psychology at Vassar College in 1985.
Five Indiana University alumni received IU’s Distinguished Alumni Service Award on Oct. 12 during homecoming weekend. It is the university’s highest award given only to an alumna or alumnus.
IU School of Public Health-Bloomington alumnus Raymond E. Pavy of New Castle, Ind. was among the recipients of this year’s award. Additional recipients included Dr. Kent Brantly of Fort Worth, Texas; Roselyn Cole of Indianapolis; Alice Jordan-Miles of Fort Wayne; and John F. “Jeff” Richardson of Washington, D.C.
IU President Michael A. McRobbie presented the awards to the honorees. Brieanna Quinn, national chair of the IU Alumni Association, presided at the presentation ceremony in Alumni Hall at the Indiana Memorial Union.
The Distinguished Alumni Service Award recipients were chosen for service and achievement in their fields of endeavor and significant contributions to the community, state, nation or university. With the addition of these recipients, IU has honored 335 alumni since the award’s inception in 1953.
Coach, educator, inspiration. Those words all describe Ray Pavy, a high school basketball legend and a promising IU guard until an automobile accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Although the accident ended his playing career, Pavy returned to IU to resume working toward his career goal of becoming a basketball coach. Thought to be IU’s first wheelchair-bound student, Pavy received assistance from professors and fraternity brothers to attend classes. A 1965 graduate of IU, he earned graduate degrees from Ball State University.
Pavy had a successful seven-year coaching career in Indiana with Sulphur Springs and Shenandoah high schools and later became assistant superintendent of the New Castle schools, from which he retired after 31 years.
Inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1990, Pavy has been honored by Ball State with its Disabled Student Development’s Outstanding Alumnus Award and by IU, where he received the coveted Clevenger Award. He attends almost every IU football and basketball game, driving to games in his wheelchair-accessible van.
IU trustee Jim Morris describes Pavy as “one of the most extraordinary graduates in the history of Indiana University.”
“What he has accomplished with his life is truly extraordinary,” Morris said. “I have been so proud of the man’s service to public education and how he has inspired thousands of Hoosiers for the last 40 years.”
Indiana University’s Eppley Institute for Parks and Public Lands, part of the School of Public Health’s Department of Recreation, Parks and Tourism studies, has been awarded a grant from the US Environmental Protection Agency to design, develop, and host an online boater education course for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary (FKNMS).
The three-year award will fund Eppley’s work to educate boaters in the Sanctuary’s waters. The FKNMS protects 2,900 square miles from Biscayne Bay to the Dry Tortugas on Florida’s southern coast. In addition to sensitive seagrass meadows, the Sanctuary’s waters contain the nation’s only coral reef adjacent to the continent. The area is home to multiple state and federally protected species, including the American crocodile, West Indian manatee, and several species of sea turtles. When it was designated in 1990, Congress described the FKNMS as “the marine equivalent of tropical rain forests in that they support high levels of biological diversity, are fragile and easily susceptible to damage from human activities, and possess high value to human beings if properly conserved” (FKNMS Protection Act, 1990).
The shallow-water seagrass habitat is prone to damage from boat propellers and vessel groundings. Despite federal regulations against damaging the seabed in the FKNMS, over 100 vessel groundings per year are documented within the sanctuary waters. The local county has around 30,000 acres of significantly scarred seagrass beds – more than any other county in Florida. Creating a widely accessible, targeted, online boater education program will be a strategic management tool for protecting the FKNMS’s natural resources.
The Eppley Institute is preparing to launch another set of online courses for boaters in Everglades National Park. As part of Everglades’ general management plan, the Park is going to require powerboaters there to pass the online training before obtaining a mandatory boating permit. The Everglades National Park Online Boater Education course is offered in both English and Spanish on proValens Learning, Eppley’s online course catalog. The online course for the FKNMS will incorporate content from the Everglades project as well as site-specific information.
Partners in the new project include the National Parks Conservation Association, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and many other community and agency stakeholders.
This week, during the 33rd Annual Indiana Public Health Celebration and Hulman Awards, Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington Master of Public Health (MPH) student Joshua Bundy received the Stephen Jay Award for Leadership in Public Health.
Bundy is a rising star in public health and a future programmatic leader, according to those who nominated him for the award. He has taken full advantage of the training, research, and service opportunities available through the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington MPH program. The Stephen Jay Award for MPH students is an important acknowledgement of Bundy’s contributions and leadership in public health.
The Stephen Jay Award for Leadership in Public Health was initiated over 10 years ago by Lloyd Kolbe, now an emeritus faculty member from the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington, to recognize and honor the inspirational work of Stephen Jay. Jay served as the first department chair of the IU Department of Public Health, which is now the Indiana University Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health in Indianapolis. Award recipients are current MPH students who exhibit exemplary public health leadership, scholarship and practice resulting in the improvement of public health in Indiana.
In addition to Bundy, students from Purdue, the University of Indianapolis, and the IU Richard M. Fairbanks School of Public Health in Indianapolis were also recognized with Stephen Jay Awards for Leadership in Public Health.
Homicide is the largest contributor to potential years of life lost among black Americans, according to a study published Oct. 10 in PLOS ONE and conducted by researchers at the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington.
By contrast, homicide was the 12th highest contributor to potential years of life lost for white Americas. Potential years of life lost is the number of years a person would have lived had they not died of a particular cause.
Although black Americans are disproportionately affected by homicide, the amount invested in homicide research is dramatically underrepresented in public health, according to Molly Rosenberg, lead author of the study and an assistant professor in the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington.
“Homicide is, unfortunately, a common cause of premature death, and black Americans are more likely to be affected by homicide than white Americans,” Rosenberg said. “Homicide-related deaths in America, most of which are caused by firearms, constitute a public health crisis. Yet when we look at what kind of public health research gets funded and published, we find homicide to be conspicuously absent. The top causes of death that impact the health of white Americans, on the other hand, are much better represented in public health research and funding.”
Research on heart disease, white Americans’ No. 1 cause of potential years of life lost, received 341 grants and almost 600 publications during 2015; research on homicide received just a handful of federal grants and publications.
The IU study reviewed all deaths of white and black Americans in 2015 and calculated the potential years of life lost for each of 31 causes of death. By reviewing potential years of life lost instead of simply number of annual deaths, the study was better able to capture the loss of human potential as well as the burden of premature deaths.
In addition to the emotional and psychological devastation of a homicide, premature death can have long-lasting economic consequences.
“If we look at the estimated value of remaining lifetime productivity for a 31-year-old American, which is the average age of death for black Americans killed by homicide, it’s more than $1.5 million,” Rosenberg said. “The more premature a death, the greater the loss in economic productivity for the family, community and society. This loss of human potential can push families into poverty and societies toward heightened inequality.”
Rosenberg and her team also found that disparities existed in the number of potential years of life lost per death between black and white Americans for all causes of death. For example, they found that the average age of a black American who died from a congenital abnormality was 15 years old, compared to 26 years old for a white American. And black Americans who commit suicide die, on average, 10 years earlier than white Americans who commit suicide (38 years old versus 48).
The more than 2.7 million deaths in the U.S. in 2015 tallied up to nearly 21.4 million potential years of life lost. Black Americans accounted for 20 percent of these years despite representing only 13 percent of the U.S. population. This incredible number of potential years of life lost brings focus to deaths with high societal and economic impact.
“Homicide research is dramatically underrepresented in public health research in terms of grant funding and publications,” Rosenberg said. “This lack of investment threatens to perpetuate a system that disadvantages the health of black Americans.”
This study was co-authored by Ashley Townes, a doctoral student in the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington; Shabbar Ranapurwala at UNC Gillings School of Public Health; and Angela Bengtson at Brown University School of Public Health.
In a study recently published in the Journal of Rural Studies, researchers from the Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington found that farmers who want to maintain their business for their children and grandchildren are more likely to diversify the production aspects of their farms. With advancements in technology, U.S. farms have moved from producing an average of 4.2 crops and animals in 1950 to 1.3 in 2000, according to the study. Areas of the Midwest, known as part of the Corn Belt, are the least agriculturally diverse in the country.
“We know that product diversification is an avenue for farms to increase their economic and environmental resiliency,” says James Farmer, assistant professor at the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington. “This study aimed to better understand what motivates farmers to diversify their agricultural outputs.”
Farmer, along with Post-Doctoral Fellow Julia Valliant from the IU Ostrom Workshop, Academic Specialist Stephanie Dickinson from the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington, Post-Doctoral Fellow Analena Bruce from the IU Ostrom Workshop, and Professor of Practice Jennifer Robinson from IU’s Department of Anthropology, studied diversified and non-diversified farms in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. The team interviewed five farmers and 13 agricultural advisors, and sent a 10-section questionnaire to 1,000 farms in the study area.
“Our principal finding is that farmers who want their farms to be able to employ their children and grandchildren as adults have a more favorable outlook on further diversifying their agricultural products,” Farmer explains. “Farmers are more inclined to diversify more when they place a higher priority on the ability of their farms to sustain descendants.”
Additional findings in the research indicate that having children under 18 raises a farm’s interest in diversifying, and non-diversified farms typically diversify by adding products when their children are in their teenage years in order to save money for college or to satisfy the requirements of the children’s participation in FFA or 4-H.
The full text of the paper may be found online at http://go.iu.edu/1H8c
The fight against HIV is most effective when people have access to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) or the use of antiretroviral medications to combat HIV infection among individuals who are HIV-negative. While PrEP access will likely turn the tide of the HIV epidemic in the U.S. and elsewhere, not everyone or every community has equal access and several social and economic factors remain barriers to PrEP use. This is particularly the case for black young men who have sex with other men (YMSM) and young transgender women.
The need for increased HIV prevention awareness and access has prompted researchers from the Indiana University Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention (RCAP) to team up with colleagues at the University of Chicago, Indiana Minority Health Coalition, Larkin College of Pharmacy, and Walgreens Pharmacies to expand access to PrEP in community pharmacy settings, particularly in communities with high rates of STI and HIV infections.
“Our studies among Indiana pharmacies have shown that pharmacists are open to expanding their roles in HIV prevention,” says Dr. Beth Meyerson, Associate Professor of Health Policy & Management and RCAP Co-Director at the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington. “Our partnership with pharmacies in Gary, Indianapolis, and Chicago will help us develop an intervention to expand PrEP awareness and access, especially in communities with low resource and high need.”
The research team is led by Dr. Brandon Hill, Executive Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry and Innovation in Sexual and Reproductive Health (Ci3) at the University of Chicago. Through a two-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, the team will develop a scalable community pharmacy-based PrEP educational training program, referral system for pharmacists and providers, and PrEP educational kiosk tailored to the needs of pharmacy patients and the pharmacy staff who serve them.
“RCAP is pleased to be part of this research team,” said Dr. Bill Yarber, Senior Director of RCAP, Kinsey Institute Senior Scientist, and Professor of Applied Health Science at the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington. “Our intervention development experience, pharmacy research experience, and community research partnerships can potentially advance HIV prevention here and elsewhere.”
