Public Health Magazine: Spring 1996, Vol.4, No.1
Faculty News

Fullilove to IOM Committee

Robert Fullilove, Ed.D., associate dean of Community and Minority Affairs at the Columbia School of Public Health, was invited to serve on the Board on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention at the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in Washington D.C. The Board oversees the IOM's activities regarding the promotion of public health, particularly through population-based intervention. It examines and develops strategies for disease prevention, addressing the science bases for such interventions, the public health infrastructure and the education and supply of health professionals necessary for their implementation.

New violence prevention and treatement programs will be developed by CSPH's Mindy Fullilove, M.D., and New York State Psychiatric Institute's Lesley Green, thanks to a $45,000 grant to PI from the United Hospital Fund. From left are: Howard Smith, chairman, UHF; Mindy Fullilove, M.D., associate professor of clinical psychiatry and public health, PI; Allan Weissglass, chairman, UHF Distributing Committee; and Lesley Green, research associate, Community Research Group, PI.

APHA Honors Allan Rosenfield

Allan Rosenfield, M.D., dean of the Columbia School of Public Health, received the American Public Health Association's (APHA) Carl Shultz Award for his significant contributions to the field of population, family planning and reproductive health. The award was presented to him at the business meeting of the Population, Family Planning and Reproductive Health section of the APHA Annual Meeting in San Diego last October. A member of the section since 1977, Rosenfield served as its chair from 1985 to 1986; he also served as chair of the executive board of the APHA from 1993 to 1994. Rosenfield represented the APHA at the UN International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.

RWJ Awards for Two in Health Policy

Assistant Professor Sherry Glied, Ph.D., and Associate Professor Bruce Link, Ph.D., M.S., were recently awarded separate Robert Wood Johnson Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research. The awards are administered by the Association for Health Services Research, for the promotion of the development of creative solutions to critical health issues. Up to ten awards are granted annually for researchers to "provide broad-based analysis and insights into major health policy issues, synthesize a body of work, or explore innovative ideas that might not fit within existing policy or program paradigms and are not easily funded from current sources."

Glied is studying the employer-based health insurance system. Her research will assess the strengths and weaknesses of employer-provided coverage within the context of the changing health care system and the labor market. She will examine how the employer-based insurance system has responded to developments such as the expansion of managed care, increased international competitive pressures, and more women working.

Link is currently working with UCLA sociology Assistant Professor Jo Phelan, Ph.D. on an investigation of fundamental causes-for instance, socioeconomic status-in explaining social inequities in health. His project explores the health and policy relevance of access to resources such as money, knowledge, power, prestige and the social connections that determine the extent to which people are able to avoid risks for morbidity and mortality.

Environment, Cancer Link Probed

Consideration of individual differences in risk assessment and standard setting for environmental contaminants, rather than acceptance of the silent assumption of recent molecular epidemiologic research that all individuals are uniformly vulnerable to environmental carcinogens, is urged by Frederica P. Perera, Dr. P.H., professor of public health, and deputy director, Columbia University Comprehensive Cancer Center, in the May issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Because most cancer has an environmental component, an opportunity exists to prevent the majority of new cases, Perera says. In her article, "Molecular Epidemiology; Insights into Cancer Susceptibility, Risk Assessment, and Prevention," she points out that certain groups-the very young, elderly, some ethnic groups, and persons with predisposing genetic traits or nutritional deficits-are more likely to have greater cancer risk than other groups similarly exposed to certain carcinogens. She calls for regulation, public education and other interventions to protect these more sensitive groups from environmental carcinogens. Perera sheds more light on cancer prevention in "Uncovering New Clues to Cancer Risk,"published in the May issue of Scientific American.

Litwak Leads Campus Colleagues

A recent outside evaluation of each unit of the University's Arts and Sciences campus reveals that CSPH's own Eugene Litwak, Ph.D., was the most cited member of the Sociology Department in the first half of this decade.

How often a faculty member is cited in the literature is one measure of how influential his or her work is in a given field. Litwak, division head of Sociomedical Sciences, was cited more than 48 times per year, on average, between 1990 and 1994.

Lead Exposure Study Renewed

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has renewed its support for Dr. Joseph P. Graziano's long-range study of the consequences of environmental lead exposure.

The project, "Environmental Lead: Reproduction and Infant Development," investigates cognitive function, behavior, growth, hematologic and renal function in a cohort of children, now 10 years of age, who have been studied since birth.

The grant renewal, which took effect January 1, will provide $1,021,529 for three years of work. This is the fifth time that this long-term prospective study has been completely renewed.

In addition, Graziano has shifted his primary affiliation from the Medical School to the School of Public Health and is now a professor of public health and pharmacology.

In other grant news:

Sylvia LeBlanq, Ph.D., has received a three-year grant for salary research support from Columbia University's Center for Environmental Research and Conservation for her work on Cryptosporidium and the New York City water supply.

Paul W. Brandt-Rauf, M.D., has been awarded a three-year grant from the National Cancer Institute, totaling $514,737, for his project "Cancer Biomarkers in Vinyl Chloride Workers."

Laurels for PFH Pair

In honor of her contributions to Head Start, Rosemary Barber-Madden, Ed.D., clinical professor in the Division of Population and Family Health, was awarded a medal by the Manhattan Cluster Head Start Programs at Head Start's 30-Year celebration. Barber-Madden is a Strong Beginnings advisory board member (Save the Children) and a senior consultant for the United Nation Population Fund's Evaluation of Family Planning Training in Five Lusophone African Countries.

Population and Family Health Clinical Professor Catherine Cowell, Ph.D., has received the "Excellence in Public Health" award from the Labor-Management Quality of Life Committee of the New York Department of Health. Cowell is co-author of the second edition of "Nutrition Assessment: A Comprehensive Guide for Planning Intervention."

This January, Cowell collaborated in the organization of an innovative pilot program recently conducted by the New York affiliate of the American Heart Association. The project, The Beautiful Black Woman & Heart Disease, was a targeted health awareness program for black women conducted in eleven hair and beauty salons throughout New York City. More than 1200 African-American women received information about black women's higher risk for developing heart disease and stroke than women of other races, along with advice to control significant risk factors such as smoking and high blood pressure.

Both Cowell and Barber-Madden are the recipients of a 1993-1996 grant from the Administration for Children and Families of the Department of Health and Human Services. They recently edited two publications, "Reconfiguring Health Services in Head Start: Report of the Region II Head Start Health Needs Assessment," and "Head Start on Health: In a Time of Change."

Parasitology Lectures

Dickson Despommier, Ph.D., was the plenary speaker at the annual meeting of the British Society for Parasitology in Bangor, Wales, in April. The society is the oldest and one of the most prestigious parasitology organizations in the world.

In August, Dr. Despommier will co-chair a plenary session on cell biology of Trichinella at the Ninth International Conference on Trichinellosis in Mexico City.

Clockwise from upper left: electron micrograph of a larva of Trichinella spiralis in its nurse cell; the nurse cell-parasite complex of Trichinella spiralis; a newborn larva of Trichinella spiralis entering a striated skeletal muscle cell; a female adult Trichinella spiralis.

Biostatisticians Count!

The Division of Biostatistics has appointed Daniel F. Heitjan, Ph.D., a co-director of the Biostatistics Core at the Columbia Comprehensive Cancer Center, as associate professor of public health.

Myunghee Paik, Ph.D., of the Division of Biostatistics, was promoted to associate professor of clinical public health.

Marcella Devoto, Ph.D., and Steven Ellis, Ph.D., were appointed assistant professors of clinical public health (joint with Psychiatry). Ellis is associate core director for the statistics and computing core of the Mental Health Clinical Research Center for the Study of Suicidal Behavior.

Eva Petkova, Ph.D., was appointed assistant professor of clinical public health (joint with Psychiatry); Petkova works with recent appointee. Christine Waternaux, Ph.D., in the biostatistics unit of the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

Melissa Begg, D.Sc., continues her research on statistical methods in dental research. The work is supported by a First Award from the National Institute of Dental Research.

New and continuing studies in the Division of Biostatistics:

Paul Meier, Ph.D., and Alan Weinberg: Dr. Milton Packer's Left Ventricular Assist Device trial.

Meier and Joseph Fleiss, Ph.D.: Dr. Thomas Bigger's Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Patch trial.

Meier: Dr. Jane Sisk's Patients' Outcomes Research Team study.

William DuMouchel, Ph.D.: Dr. Stanley Fahn's study of Parkinson's Disease and fetal tissue.

Begg: Dr. Ira Lamster's program project to study oral manifestations of HIV infection.

Begg: Dr. Regina Santella's American Institute for Cancer Research randomized study of vitamin intervention to protect smokers from the genotoxic agents in cigarette smoke.

Shaw-Hwa Lo, Ph.D.: Dr. Ann Gershon's study of varicella in HIV-infected children.

Paik: Dr. Sergio Piomelli's study of sickle cell anemia.

Paik: Dr. David Desmond's study of dementia among stroke patients.

Paik and Wei-Yann Tsai, Ph.D.: Dr. Frederica Perera's study of molecular epidemiology of lung cancer.

Paik: Dr. Ralph Sacco's studies of stroke risk factors in ethnic groups and epidemiology of recurrent stroke.

Bruce Levin, Ph.D., and Tsai: Santella's study of Aflatoxin DNA adducts in Taiwan.

Tsai: Dr. Yakov Stern's study of the epidemiology of dementia in an urban community.

Tsai: Stern's study of predictors of severity in Alzheimer's disease.

Levin and Fleiss: Dr. Richard Mayeux's studies of gene-environment interaction in Alzheimer's disease.

Levin: Mayeux's case-control study of incident Parkinson's disease.

Levin: Dr. Robert Mellin's study of a childhood asthma program in NYC Department of Health clinics.

Levin: Dr. Marilee Gammon's study of breast cancer and the environment among Long Island women, a congressionally mandated study.

Levin: Dr. Jennie Kline's study of trisomy and reproductive aging.

Levin and Fleiss: Dr. J.P. Mohr's warfarin and aspirin recurrent stroke study.

Priya Wickramaratne: Dr. Myrna Weissman's genetic studies of depressive disorders, psychobiology/genetics and treatment of panic disorder in opiate addicts' children-psychopathology and neurobiology, children at high and low risks for depression and depressed children grown up.

Wickramaratne: Dr. Laura Mufson's study of interpersonal psychotherapy for depressed adolescents.

Epidemiology Update

Geoffrey Howe, Ph.D., division head, continues a number of ongoing research studies on the relationship between radiation and dietary factors and cancer risk. He is also developing new studies in collaboration with other faculty in the division and other Columbia divisions and institutions.

Bruce Link, Ph.D., follows Bruce Dohrenwend, Ph.D., in leading a widely recognized training program in psychiatric epidemiology in association with faculty that includes Patricia Cohen, Sharon Schwartz, Elmer Struening, Myrna Weissman and others. The training grant is now in its 24th year with 12 pre- and post-doctoral fellows.

Dr. Dohrenwend also organized a highly successful international meeting of the Section of Epidemiology and Community Psychiatry of the World Psychiatric Association in New York City in May 1995.

Alfred Neugut, M.D., Ph.D., is sustaining an active research and training program. Funding for a training program in cancer epidemiology looks promising and should support eight to ten pre- and post-doctoral students. Neugut is also continuing his studies of colon cancer epidemiology and second malignancies. He is also co-principal investigator of the Long Island Breast Cancer Study with Marilie Gammon, Ph.D.

Thomas Pearson, M.D., Ph.D., continues his work in Cooperstown, New York on heart disease.

Marilie Gammon, Ph.D., is principal investigator of three federally-funded, population-based case-control studies: one focuses on the environment and breast cancer on Long Island, another on tumor markers in breast cancer etiology among women in New Jersey, and the third on the epidemiology of esophageal and gastric cardia adenocarcinomas in New Jersey. Dr. Gammon also authored an invited editorial on abortion and breast cancer risk for the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Pam Factor-Litvak, Ph.D., continues to collaborate with colleagues in the Division of Environmental Health Sciences and at the New York State Psychiatric Institute on studies of lead exposure and cognitive and behavioral development of children. She is exploring the association between lead exposure and blood pressure and renal dysfunction in children; several of her papers are under review. She is the epidemiologist for the National Reproductive Medicine Network and, in conjunction with their clinical trials of treatment for infertility, is conducting analyses of environmental exposures and semen quality. Factor-Litvak received a grant from the Columbia Comprehensive Cancer Center to undertake pilot studies for a large tri-

ethnic cohort study of diet and other environmental factors and health outcomes. This work will be a collaboration with other members of the Division of Epidemiology.