Michigan presenters at APHA: From depression to health insurance to asthma

November 8, 2002
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  • umichnews@umich.edu

ANN ARBOR—Dozens of presenters from the University of Michigan School of Public Health are participating in American Public Health Association’s annual meeting Nov. 9-13. Among the 13,000 public health researchers, practitioners and policy-makers attending APHA’s meeting in Philadelphia will be U-M representatives including: ·  Harold Neighbors talking about race differences in the diagnosis of mood disorders. While many have inferred misdiagnosis because African-Americans are less likely than European Americans to be diagnosed with major depression or manic episode, Neighbors finds African-Americans are less likely to receive a diagnosis of a manic episode even under more controlled research interviewing conditions. Race of clinician has no effect on these patterns. Neighbors’ faculty profile: www.sph.umich.edu/faculty/woodyn.html ·  Sharon Kardia presenting on family history and coronary heart disease. A family history of coronary heart disease is a significant predictor of the disease, even after controlling for an individual’s personal risk factors including hypertension or smoking. Kardia will discuss how to best understand family risk for heart disease and to use that in prevention strategies. Kardia’s faculty profile: www.sph.umich.edu/faculty/skardia.html ·  Julie Berson-Grand discussing the applicability of tobacco prevention and control strategies in combating the U.S. adolescent obesity epidemic. She will discuss the political and social forces behind successful tobacco prevention policies and the tobacco industry lawsuits, comparing and contrasting tobacco and obesity prevention. Berson-Grand is a doctoral student in health management and policy. ·  Richard Lichtenstein addressing barriers to health insurance coverage to low-income African-American children and their caregivers in Detroit. He will report on a series of focus groups examining why so many eligible children are not enrolled in Medicaid, and a new project designed to reduce the barriers. Lichtenstein’s faculty profile: www.sph.umich.edu/faculty/lichto.html U-M faculty and students will make several presentations related to asthma research, including the Community Action Against Asthma household environmental intervention, using a community-based approach to assess health status, and gender-related problems for women with asthma. Dozens of others will present on topics from teen smoking to HIV risk factors, from outcomes of a telemedicine experiment in South Africa to debt financing in nonprofit hospitals.

For a full listing of U-M SPH presenters and topics, visit www.sph.umich.edu/news_events/apha.pdf. You will need Acrobat Reader. American Public Health Association’s annual meeting details: www.apha.org/meetings/

www.sph.umich.edu/faculty/woodyn.htmlwww.sph.umich.edu/faculty/skardia.htmlwww.sph.umich.edu/faculty/lichto.htmlwww.sph.umich.edu/news_events/apha.pdfwww.apha.org/meetings/