The good and the bad of working with media: flu

We were delighted that the University of South Carolina Office of Media Relations choose to feature some recent publications from our Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP)-funded Center work. If only they had understood that we weren't working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention!

Oh well, at least the "get a flu shot" message got out. Thanks to our own Kevin Bennett:

On who gets flu shots

http://www.sc.edu/portal2/carolinaminutes/m_1290448691.mp3

On flu myths

http://www.sc.edu/portal2/carolinaminutes/m_1290448805.mp3

Off to Tucson!

The SCRHRC will have multiple presentations at the upcoming NRHA Minority and Multi-cultural Health Conference. Working on cutting down our presentations to the right size -- We love what we do, so our first drafts tend to contain way more information than anyone else is likely to be interested in.

Looking forward to seeing old friends in a couple of days!

Rural Congress Representative

Congrats to all of the newly elected NRHA members. And special thanks to the new Rural Congress Constituency Group representative for Research and Education, our own Kevin Bennett.

Teaching Rural Health: Dr. Amy's Delta Omega Award

The APHA experience was indeed as rich -- overwhelming -- as Jeff described. But one part of it sparkled for the SC Rural Health Research Center: Delta Omega awarded its Innovative Public Health Curriculum Award to our own Dr. Amy Martin (mistakenly referred to as "Amy Brock" by the first presenter!).

In the accompanying video, Dr. Martin walks the Delta Omega attendees through the construction, goals and activities involved in her rural health course. Folks interested in designing a parallel course for their home state are invited to watch. [Jan, who took the video, apologizes in advance. A Flip does a great job in the 5 - 10 foot range, but it less helpful from a distance.]

Amy's talk: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9pe972uQ0M

The APHA experience

Hi all and greetings from the Mile High City. Today marks day 3 of the conference and it's about ready to end. The APHA conference is unlike any other I have attended. The size is just staggering. I knew the public health community was big, and APHA is just a small sample of that population.

Upon registering, attendees receive a book about the size of the JC Penney catalog that includes all of the sessions. There is something here for everyone, and there's lots to see. There are 5 time slots with sessions, and there's around well over 50 sessions in each time slot. I counted one session at random, and it had 78 sessions. During each time slot, there is a poster session. I'm afraid to try to count how many posters are presented every hour.

My poster session went well. I presented right after the welcoming address, and the exhibit hall was flooded with participants. I don't think I had more than 60 seconds between people coming by to ask questions. Many people said that they were maximizing their time by identifying posters and sessions they wanted to see. With a conference this size, you have to do that. And you still only see a fraction of what you want to see.

Let's not forget about the time needed in the exhibit hall to get free swag... Actually, the exhibit hall was pretty educational as well. I learned about some services for students offered by SAS, saw many, many new textbooks out on the market, and I was able to talk to some universities about post-doctoral fellowships and faculty positions. They were also giving away free flu shots and chair massages. I do think I picked up way too many pens this time so guess what my colleagues back home are getting from me when I return...

It was great to see faces from USC that I don't always see, faces of previous cohorts from HSPM, former graduate assistants from the Center, hang with Center staff, and meet a lot of interesting people from all over. My hotel was in the suburbs, but wound up being filled with other conference attendees. It was not unusual to strike up a conversation on the train headed to or from the conference, or wound up sitting next to a conference attendee at the restaurant next to the hotel. Just goes to show you that public health is everywhere... :)

But after all of this information and talking, I'm wiped out. Signing off... ---Jeff

Getting ready for a full day!

SCRHRC faculty and staff have multiple presentations today at the APHA annual meeting. To get everyone in the mood, please note the cool public sculpture in front of the Colorado Convention Center.

See you in Denver!

Several faculty and staff from the South Carolina Rural Health Research Center will be in Denver for the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association. Come see us! Since many of us are cross listed on each other sessions, or are also listed in connection with student presentations, I've just identified the presenter for each session.

As you can see, Monday Nov 8 will be a busy day for us:

Sunday, Nov 7 @ 2:30: Poster Session 2018.1 Childhood and Adolescent Issues. Jeff Hatala. Oral health in rural South Carolina: The importance of the relationship between school nurses and the dental community.

Sunday, Nov 7 @ 2:30, Poster Session 2042.0, Eliminating women’s health disparities, Jessica Bellinger, Cervical cancer prevention and control practices, knowledge, and preferences among women living in the Southeastern United States.

Sunday, Nov 7 @ 2:30: Poster Session 2045.0 Social and cultural contexts of women’s health. Minnjuan Flournoy, moderator.

Monday Nov 8 @ 8:30: 3052.1 Health Services Research: Subjective and Objective Barriers to Vaccination Delivery. Jan Probst, Moderator. Kevin Bennett, Receipt of Influenza and Pneumonia Vaccinations: The Dual Disparity of Rural Minorities

Monday, Nov 8 @ 10 :30, Session 3136.1, Ethnic and racial disparities. Jan Probst, Racial disparities in mortality among middle aged adults in the United States: Is helath Insurance the Solution?

Monday, Nov 8 @ 10:30. Session3132.0 Greg Alexander Outstanding Student Paper Session: Maternal and Child Health Research. Alexa Gallagher “Weight gain during pregnancy in obese women: Should they gain even less?

Monday, Nov 8 @ 10:30: Poster Session 3088.0 Improving the Oral Health for Children and Adolescents, Amy Martin, Rural-urban differences in early childhood dental service utilization patterns among Medicaid-enrolled children in South Carolina.

Monday, Nov 8 @ 10:30: Delta Omega Poster Session I. Amy Martin’s rural health course will be featured as the 2010 award winner for Innovative Public Health Curriculum.

Monday, Nov 8 @ 12:30, 3253.0 Women’s health equity: An examination of social determinants in disadvantaged populations. Jessica Bellinger, moderator

Monday, Nov 8 @ 4:00: Delta Omega Business Meeting at the Grand Hyatt. Amy Martin will be presented with the Delta Omega Innovative Public Health Curriculum Award for her graduate course in rural health.

See everyone there!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010: 12:30 PM. 4221.1 Public health approaches to breast cancer: Epidemiology, treatment, and survivorship. Minnjuan Flournoy, moderator.

Tenth Anniversary Year!

Belatedly, we are beginning our celebration of 10 years of the South Carolina Rural Health Research Center. We first received funding from the Office of Rural Health Policy on September 1, 2000.

Throughout the year, we will be having guest speakers who can help energize us for our mission of research into rural health disparities. Our kickoff speaker was Francis Chesley, MD, Director of Extramural Research, Education, and Priority Populations for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

Dr. Chesley was kind enough to provide two talks to interested faculty and students across USC and from our community partners, including the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control and Greenville Hospital System. Both talks were well attended and appeared to fire up the troops. One student sent a note reading "the event was the highlight of my semester." Hope we can match that for our next speaker!

If you would like to see the slides from Dr. Chesley's presentations, they are available at: http://www.sph.sc.edu/hspm/.