APHA

CPHA Conference - Edmonton 2012: Abstracts due Dec 2, 2011

Public health and environmental health professionals, researchers, policy-makers, academics and students from across the country and around the world will meet in Edmonton, Alberta for the 2012 Annual Conference of the Canadian Public Health Association (CPHA) - June 11 to 14, 2012. Don't miss out on this national event in Alberta!

The conference theme for 2012 is Public Health in Canada: Creating and Sustaining Healthy Environments. You can find a full description of the conference theme and sub-themes here. The call for abstracts ends Dec 2, 2011. Please see the call for abstracts for full details.

The Dr. John Waters Memorial Award Recipient for 2011 is Dr. Ameeta (Ami) Singh

News Release Contact: Agnes Honish, Chair Phone: 780 457 2200

The Board of Directors of the Dr. John Waters Memorial Committee is pleased to announce that Dr. Ameeta (Ami) Singh has been selected as the recipient of the Dr. John Waters Memorial Award for 2011. Dr. Singh was presented with an award of two thousand dollars at the September 19, 2011 Alberta Public Health Association (APHA) annual general meeting in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Dr. Singh is an infectious diseases expert committed to public health efforts to reduce sexually transmitted and blood borne infections.Since the start of her career, she has been a passionate advocate for marginalized populations. Dr. Singh is described by her colleagues as an enthusiastic and energetic leader who has made significant contributions to public health locally, provincially, nationally and internationally.

Dr. Singh studied medicine in the UK, received her postgraduate medical training at the University of Alberta, and a Master of Science in Epidemiology from Harvard University. Locally, Dr. Singh has worked with harm reduction agencies to reach street involved pregnant women during a syphilis outbreak and she received the HIV Edmonton Bob Mills Community Leadership Award in 2010. Provincially and nationally, Dr. Singh has contributed to the development of a wide range of guidelines, programs, and policies for HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STI) and viral hepatitis, and she has published extensively in these areas.

Internationally Dr. Singh has worked with the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization, and recently developed a national strategy for STI in Guyana. In 2006, she climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro to raise funds for the Canadian Foundation for Infectious Diseases. Dr. Singh is currently a Clinical Professor in Infectious Diseases at the University of Alberta and Medical Director of Edmonton’s STI Clinic.

The Dr. Waters Memorial Award was established in 2001 as a way to remember Dr. John Waters and to acknowledge the contribution of others in the same field. This award is given biannually to the nominee who best meets the criteria based on the late Dr. John Waters’ vision and leadership in the field of public and children’s health, including commitment to accessible, high quality population based immunization programs.

Information and applications regarding this award is available on the Alberta Public Health Association website. Inquires may be forwarded to the Board of Directors of the Dr. John Waters Memorial Committee. Donations to the fund are welcome and are tax deductible.

APHA prepared a formal written submission in response to the recommendations from the report of the Minister�s Advisory Committee on Health

APHA prepared a formal written submission in response to the recommendations from the report of the Minister’s Advisory Committee on Health.

The Minister’s Advisory Committee on Health released its report in January 2010. http://www.health.alberta.ca/documents/MACH-Final-Report-2010-01-20.pdf

APHA was invited to prepare a written submission on the report, including perspectives on the proposed Alberta Health Act. Your APHA board worked together to prepare a report. It is attached to this message and will be posted to the website in the near future (www.apha.ab.ca). In addition, three board members (Kim Raine, Mary McIntyre and Jacqueline Schnider) met with Mr. Fred Horne and members of the Advisory Committee in person in Calgary on July 5.

APHA members still have other opportunities to respond individually, and we urge you to participate. Response options include an on-line survey (http://www.health.alberta.ca/initiatives/your-health-act-share.html) , as well as a series of community consultations hosted by Health Advisory Councils throughout the province. For a schedule of community consultations see: http://www.health.alberta.ca/initiatives/your-health-act-contact.html. There are still a few dates available next week!

All details of the consultation process as well as background documents can be found at www.yourhealthact.alberta.ca.

Heart Muscle Renewed Over Lifetime, Study Finds

By NICHOLAS WADE

Published: April 2, 2009

In a finding that may open new approaches to treating heart disease, Swedish scientists have succeeded in measuring a highly controversial property of the human heart — the rate at which its muscle cells are renewed during a person’s lifetime.

The finding upturns what has long been conventional wisdom: that the heart cannot produce new muscle cells and so people die with the same heart they were born with.

About 1 percent of the heart muscle cells are replaced every year at age 25, and that rate gradually falls to less than half a percent per year by age 75, concludes a team of researchers led by Dr. Jonas Frisen of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. The upshot is that about half of the heart’s muscle cells are exchanged in the course of a normal lifetime, the Swedish group calculates. Their results are to be published Friday in the journal Science.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/03/science/03heart.html?hp

URGENT NOTICE TO ALL MEMBERS

The Alberta Public Health Association has received notification from Alberta Health and Wellness that effective immediately any further operational grant funding has been cut. The Board believes this reflects the ongoing challenge of the low priority attached to public health within the health budget.

Our response is the implementation of an exciting new membership campaign to find 2000 members within the next 2 months!

For over 60 years, APHA has been serving public health in Alberta. APHA is about Keeping Alberta on Track regarding actions to address public health issues. APHA has contributed to the ten greatest achievements in public health1 including vaccination, motor-vehicle safety, safer workplaces, control of infectious diseases, decline in deaths from coronary heart disease and stroke, safer and healthier foods, healthier mothers and babies, family planning, fluoridation of drinking water and recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard.

Building on the very successful October 1st Public Health Renewal Think Tank held in 2008 and its subsequent report, we are currently in preliminary discussions to hold a May 1st follow up event as well as planning the delivery of the 2009 Public Health Summer School. We want and need your help to ensure that these valuable activities continue.

You can help by:

Renewing your membership
Paying for your previous free membership
Donating directly to APHA
Encouraging friends, family and colleagues to become members

Just click: http://www.apha.ab.ca/membership
We are and will continue to be stronger because of our members that speak with one voice to Keep Alberta on Track regarding actions to address public health issues.

Maya Charlebois
President

1 http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDF/wk/mm4812.pdf
see Resolutions page on APHA website

Cure for cancer just might be prevention

Cure for cancer just might be prevention New report promotes cutting back on fatty, sugary foods, exercising regularly and slimming down

MARTIN MITTELSTAEDT

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

February 26, 2009 at 9:11 AM EST

Some of the world's leading experts in nutrition epidemiology have cast a resounding vote in the decades-long debate between treating or preventing cancer: Prevention wins.

Their report, being released today, argues strenuously for diet and exercise as the keys to fighting cancer. It calls research and spending on the treatment of cancer "necessary but not sufficient," and contends that a far better strategy for reducing the world's annual tally of 11 million cancer cases would be to develop a public-health policy aimed at preventing people from getting the disease in the first place.

The report, issued by the World Cancer Research Fund/American Institute for Cancer Research, is based on an exhaustive review of nearly 7,000 scientific studies into whether cancer rates are influenced by diet, obesity and exercise.

Based on this review, it concludes that cancer "is mostly preventable," estimating that about one-third of all cases in advanced countries like Canada could be eliminated by diets that aren't loaded with fatty, sugary foods, by people exercising regularly and, if they are obese, by slimming down to an appropriate weight. Among the cancers with links to these factors are those of the breast, prostate, mouth and colon.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090226.wcancer26/BNStory/specialScienceandHealth/home

Slowing the Growth of Health Care Costs � Lessons from Regional Variation

Volume 360:849-852 February 26, 2009 Number 9

Slowing the Growth of Health Care Costs — Lessons from Regional Variation

Elliott S. Fisher, M.D., M.P.H., Julie P. Bynum, M.D., M.P.H., and Jonathan S. Skinner, Ph.D.

Slowing the Growth of Health Care Costs — Lessons from Regional Variation --> Elliott S. Fisher, M.D., M.P.H., Julie P. Bynum, M.D., M.P.H., and Jonathan S. Skinner, Ph.D.

--> The expansion of health insurance coverage in the United States is likely to be on the front burner of health care reform efforts in the new presidential administration. But boiling on the back burner is perhaps the most serious threat to Americans' access to care: rapid growth in health care costs.

Pessimism abounds. Most observers see rising costs as an inexorable force, blame advancing technology, and conclude that only by rationing beneficial care or making draconian price cuts can we slow the growth of health care costs.

But a careful look at variations in spending growth and spending patterns among U.S. regions reveals a more optimistic picture. By learning from regions that have attained sustainable growth rates and building on successful models of delivery-system and payment-system reform, we might, with adequate physician leadership, manage to "bend the cost curve."

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/9/849?query=TOC

Health, Medical Care, and Economic Crisis

Health, Medical Care, and Economic Crisis

Ralph Catalano, Ph.D.

On December 1, 2008, the National Bureau of Economic Research declared that the U.S. economy had been in recession since December 2007. The number of Americans seeking unemployment compensation has reached levels unmatched since 1983, when we were suffering the worst recession since the Great Depression. Intuition suggests that the fear or experience of job loss, coupled with the declining value of homes and investments, makes many of us anxious, causes us to reduce discretionary spending (including that on medical care), and distracts us from taking preventive measures. Many physicians may therefore assume that our economic crisis will increase the burden of illness on our society. But does a contracting economy actually affect the health of a population? And if so, how?

http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/360/8/749?query=TOC

When Panhandlers Need a Wordsmith�s Touch

February 17, 2009, 12:33 pm

— Updated: 2:45 pm --> When Panhandlers Need a Wordsmith’s Touch By Gay Talese

Brennan Cavanaugh Jimmy Roberts, who collects money for the homeless, and the writer Gay Talese, whose idea for a new sign — including the words “Obama’s Stimulus Plan” — encourages passers-by to give.

As I strolled past Bernard L. Madoff’s apartment house in the East 60s the other day on my way to cash a check at my neighborhood bank on Madison Avenue and 63rd Street, I was greeted by a middle-aged panhandler who sat on the sidewalk leaning against the bank’s brick wall waving a plastic cup in my direction.

After handing him a few dollars, I asked, “How’s the economy affecting you?’’

“No different,’’ he said. “It’s always lousy.’’

I entered the bank to complete the transaction, and when I came out he was gone. But as I headed downtown past Barney’s I met another panhandler who held up a sign that read: “Homeless. Please Help.’’

I dropped a dollar into his container, but at the same time thought that the sign might benefit from updating — it needed a touch of stimulus, that word that dominates the headlines. “I assume you’ve been reading and hearing about the financial crisis, yes?’’ He nodded. He was younger than the other fellow, and appeared to give me his full attention. “Maybe if you’d change the words on your sign you’d get more attention in the street, and people will donate more money…’’

I stopped talking and reached into my pocket for one of the strips of laundry board on which I make notes when I’m interviewing people. On one strip of laundry board I wrote: “Please Support Pres. Obama’s Stimulus Plan, and begin right here … at the bottom … Thank you.’’ I handed it to him, and he said he’d copy the words on his sign and have it on display the following day.

Later that afternoon I returned home and printed those words in large type on my computer. After printing out two dozen copies, I taped each page onto separate pieces of laundry board (14 by 8 inches) that the dry cleaner sends home with my shirts.

The next day, on Sunday, and during the Monday holiday as well, I handed out these boarded messages at random to people who approached me for money, explaining why I thought their economy would be stimulated by my street signs. I further pointed out that the big bankers and industrial leaders the government was bailing out had lobbyists and public relations companies doing their bidding; but these wandering men who were seeking handouts in the street had to tap into the topicality of their plight, had to link themselves into the headlines and the top priority of President Obama. Stimulus, stimulus!!

I took down the names and phone numbers of many of my street clients. All said they would display the signs I made for them, and on Monday night I telephoned a few to ask if the message had yet had any effect.

Most said it was too early to tell. But all were hopeful. Jimmy Roberts, who had stationed himself on Fifth Avenue near 58th Street, said on Monday, “It’s a powerful pitch.’’

Another man named Byron Breeze, who sat in a wheelchair on Madison and 60th with the sign held in his lap, said that a number of pedestrians read the sign and paused to discuss it with him. And, more important, he added: “I think I made 10 or 20 dollars more yesterday than before. So maybe the sign is already working.’’

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/when-panhandlers-need-a-wordsmiths-touch/

Alternatives to randomisation in the evaluation of public-health interventions: design challenges and solutions