Public Health Buckeyes make an impression at APHA

The American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting and Expo hosted more than 10,000 public health practitioners from around the world, including approximately 40 CPH faculty, students, staff and alumni.

Throughout the four-day San Diego event, APHA attendees explored public health-based solutions to the issue of health equity. Numerous Public Health Buckeyes presented seminars of their own, including:

• Andrew Wapner, DO, MPH, hosted a roundtable presentation for Project OPIATE, a project in Lake County, OH, developing a youth-leadership approach to opioid misuse prevention education. Wapner also showed a poster on health care and non-profit partnerships to teach physicians disease-specific and patient-specific cooking methods. 

• Pamela Salsberry, PhD, RN, FANN, presented on the patterns of accreditation engagement over time by Ohio local health departments. Salsberry's findings point toward an acceleration of accreditation submissions and accreditation in Ohio compared to national patterns.

• Meredith Cameron, program director for CPH's Center for Public Health Practice (CPHP), presented on the unique relationship between the Ohio Department of Health and CPHP, to provide technical assistance to Ohio’s local health departments and study accreditation readiness and the processes that local health departments undergo to obtain accreditation.

• Doctoral epidemiology student Brittney Butler detailed results from a 36-year trend analysis of black and white infant deaths in the United States from 1980-2016. She explored disparities by all-cause mortality, cause-specific mortality and timing of death to assess how the nation was performing against Healthy People goals for infant mortality reduction. Butler also presented policy recommendations addressing social determinants of health that could aid in decreasing the overall disparity between black and white infants.

• Fellow doctoral epidemiology student Rebecca Cash presented detailed trends in patient and incident characteristics of EMS-administered naloxone to potential fatal and non-fatal opioid overdoses from 2012-2016. Using data from the National EMS Information System, she found an increase in naloxone administration by EMS for males, non-Hispanic whites, those in urban areas, as well as a slight increase in the number of administrations in public locations (e.g., a street or place of business). This work demonstrates that EMS-generated data can provide a more robust description of the injury burden of opioid overdose, especially for non-fatal overdoses, than mortality data alone. Cash was selected by APHA for the Student Oral Presentation Award, which she shared with another student.

• Doctoral health behavior and health promotion student Elizabeth Hustead shared an oral presentation of her abstract titled Celebrate Your Plate: Ohio SNAP-Ed's Social Marketing Campaign to Promote Fruit and Vegetable Consumption, which highlighted the 2016 SNAP-Ed social marketing campaign and its goal of increasing fruit and vegetable consumption for SNAP-eligible families with children.

• Health services management and policy and law professor Micah Berman, JD, was spotted at APHA signing copies of his new book "The New Public Health Law: A Transdisciplinary Approach to Practice and Advocacy," alongside co-authors Scott Burris, Matthew Penn and Tara Ramanathan Holiday.

• Jon Bullock from the Office of Academic Programs and Student Services and the Office of Advancement’s Jose Rodriguez held down the fort at the college booth where they shared information about the college to conference participants. 

• CPH director of development Emily Bell held a reception for alumni, students, faculty and staff to network during APHA. Other attendees included Dean Bill Martin, MD, and students Sara Sexton and Evan Goldstein.