Dean Provides Keynote, More than 70 from School Present at APHA.
More than 70 School of Public Health faculty, staff, students, and alums presented their research and programs during the 147th American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting and Expo, held in Philadelphia November 2-6.
The five-day gathering officially commenced with a rousing keynote speech by Sandro Galea, dean and Robert A. Knox Professor, at the Nov. 3 Opening General Session. Galea delivered a 20-minute speech in which he challenged each audience member to translate their research and knowledge into action to tackle critical, wide-spread health barriers such as racism and a lack of access to safe neighborhoods and affordable education, housing, nutritious food, and health care.
“We are indeed living in a healthier world than ever before,” Galea said, citing less overall poverty and hunger, a greater pursuit of education, and higher life expectancies. “But that is not the full story.”
Although people are living longer today—there are 800,000 fewer deaths in the US now than there were in the 1960s—when compared to other countries that perform well on health, such as Japan, the US has an excess of another 800,000 deaths, Galea said. “We are better than we once were, but we are nowhere near as good as we can be.”
The day before the opening session, several SPH students kicked off the conference at the workshop “The Doctor of Public Health Degree: A Vision for the Future of Public Health Leadership.” DrPH student Hiwote Solomon, helped organize the workshop as the SPH representative for the DrPH Coalition, a group of DrPH students from 20 schools whose goal is to promote and advance DrPH programs and opportunities. The event featured a panel of public health professionals who discussed how their DrPH degree enhanced their careers.
“We wanted to hold this event during APHA to start a broad conversation about the DrPH degree and its future, especially as many organizations begin to hire DrPH graduates to lead their teams,” said Solomon, who is completing her second year of the program at SPH with an interest in global health, prior to the event.
Galea, who holds a DrPH degree from Columbia University School of Public Health, provided the opening remarks at this workshop as well. He imparted the strengths and value of the degree, especially as the nation faces what he identified as three top public health issues of the future: climate change, population urbanization, and population aging.
“If you’re going to choose a profession, you might as well choose one where there’s a lot of work to be done,” said Galea. A doctor of public health degree creates leaders in all aspects of the field, who are trained to combat “a system that ultimately works against our goals of generating health in populations,” he said, citing nationwide inequities in income, assets, health care, and access to nutritious food.
He stressed the importance of recognizing that health is generated “when we intersect at all stages of the life course and eco-social levels. “It’s a powerful thing to be able to live for something greater than oneself,” Galea said. “Fifty years from now, people in groups such as this will look at data from today and say, ‘See how far we’ve come?’—and it will be thanks to the work that you all have done.”
Throughout the rest of the conference, several members of the SPH community presented on a variety of public health issues, including gun violence, transgender health, maternity care, intimate partner violence, noise pollution, HIV/AIDS care, and more. Following Galea’s keynote speech on Nov. 3, Lisa Sullivan, associate dean for education and professor of biostatistics, led the session “Teaching Public Health: Best Practices,” along with population health scientist James Schultz. They discussed strategies, challenges, and opportunities in teaching and learning public health, and presented their new textbook, Public Health: An Introduction to the Science and Practice of Public Health, which they co-wrote with Galea as a resource for motivated, self-directed learners.
“Our field is dynamic, our graduates enter more industries and sectors than ever before, and faculty are preparing students for careers that don’t even exist yet,” said Sullivan.
On Monday, Nov. 4, Harold Cox, associate dean of public health practice and associate professor of community health sciences, participated in a panel session on “Creating Change Through Practice Partnerships,” where he offered a broad overview of the programs and initiatives of the Activist Lab, including the Water Squad, Life on Albany, Activist Bucks, advocacy workshops.
“The Activist Lab was formed five years ago as a way to think about how to engage faculty, staff, and students in real-world activism, and we do that in three ways: educate, innovate, and advocate,” Cox said to the audience.
Later that day, Nicole Huberfeld, professor of health law, ethics & human rights, moderated the session “Reading the Fine Print: Challenges in Public Health Jurisprudence,” which featured a panel discussion on corporate influence in public health, as well as the impact of legal doctrines of preemption and free speech on health outcomes.
“We need to understand what the changing scope in limits in governmental power are, because in public health and health law writ large, we’re often talking about the tension between individual rights and government acting in the name of safety and security,” said Huberfeld. “And that tension is really heightened in this moment.”
On Tuesday, Salma Abdalla, doctoral student and research fellow in epidemiology, participated on a panel about mass shootings and mental health. Abdalla shared the results of a study she conducted that compared the effectiveness of stepped care versus psychiatric care interventions in reduced the burden of PTS in a community affected by the 2018 mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
“This is a public health crisis that needs to be addressed, but it’s not receiving the same attention that other public health crises are receiving,” said Abdalla, who noted that one of her presentation slides reflecting the latest number of mass shootings in the US already needed to be updated since she prepared the slide the previous day. “There has been at least one mass shooting in the US per day since the start of the year, and unfortunately, 2019 is not an anomaly.”
On an afternoon panel that addressed health disparities through health promotion, Adriana Black, academic program administrator in the Department of Community Health Sciences, shared how storytelling can help faculty and staff understand students’ needs and improve racial justice within institutions. She discussed results of a study that she conducted with Yvette Cozier, Candice Belanoff, and Sandro Galea called “Difficult Conversations in the Classroom,” which highlighted negative classroom experiences by students of color.
“I can’t speak highly enough of storytelling and using it as a research methodology to get a profound emotional effect that leads to sustained actions in an academic and public health institution,” said Black. “It’s important for us as public health practitioners to lead with race and look at things with a race-explicit lens, not race-exclusive lens to achieve racial justice and diversity and inclusion initiatives.”
In conjunction with the conference, Development and Alumni Relations organized an Alumni and Friends Reception, during which alum Bahby Banks (SPH’05) received the SPH Distinguished Alumni Award.
“I thank all of my professors and fellow students for adding to my academic experience and for showing me me my role as public health change agent, not only here in the US, but around the world,” said Banks, a leadership strategist, adjunct professor, and CEO of Pillar Consulting.
SPH also won second place for the most “visually appealing and informative” booth at the conference’s daily Expo.