Over the past few years, Charles Branas and other researchers at the University of Pennsylvania's  Urban Health Lab  have undertaken a study into the effects of neighborhood blight on rates of violence. A recent article published in the American Journal of Public Health breaks down for the first time the financial ramifications of efforts to eliminate local blight.

  Read the article here. 

Allison Curry led a study that found that a vast majority of New Jersey's intermediate licensed teen drivers do follow the state's Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) passenger and nighttime restrictions. The article is published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. 

   Blog post by Dr. Curry with links to the abstract, press release, and infographic about the research.   

Al Golinkoff, Moriah Hall, Carolyn Cannuscio, and Rosemary Frasso collaborated with Dallas artist Willie Baronet to do a qualitative content analysis of signs that he collected over the summer of 2014 in 24 cities across the US.  Thematic analysis revealed a set of themes that underscore the challenges faced by those experiencing poverty and homelessness. The themes can be found in the article. 

Anastasia Hudgins recently published an article that provides ethnographic insight into drivers of emergency department use, highlights how structural forces negatively affect health-seeking behaviors, recommends place-based care by community health workers, reveals how ethnographic research can inform healthcare system redesign, and expands literature on fear, social forces and health-seeking behaviors. The article can be found here. 

Allison Karpyn is traveling to Italy for the International Symposium on Sustainable Food Systems on December 1 and 2. 

The program can be found here 

The Common Place Initiative (CPI) was born out of a collaboration with Heather Klusaritz and others to meet the needs that were identified in a health-needs assessment. The primary goal of CPI is to expand the availability of fitness classes and health education to an underserved community in Southwest Philadelphia. The hope is to empower young students to be proactive about their own wellbeing, encourage families to make healthy, sustainable lifestyle changes, and open up a dialogue about health and development between parents and their children. Read more about the process and the new initiative here. 

Marion Leary is changing the way we learn CPR with the use of virtual reality. 350,000 people experience sudden cardiac arrest annually, and survival is unfortunately only 10% given that only 1/3 receive CPR. Bystander CPR can double a person's chance of survival. Current classroom training does not incorporate the stress and emotion present in real life. This method will change that to make the experience feel real for people as they learn. 

  Read about the virtual reality exhibit at the Franklin Institute 

Susan Levy recently traveled to Dubai, where she was one of a few international child development experts invited to a symposium to educate clinical and special education professionals about current best practices in diagnosing and treating ASD and other developmental disorders.

More information can be found here. 

A conference, sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania and The Scattergood Foundation, among others, recently looked at concerns of mental health issues among people in prison. Dominic Sistib organized the event to spur more thought about the ethics of mental health care delivery in prisons.Read more about the event here. 

Getting Americans Health Coverage: Marketing HealthCare.gov

Friday, December 9, 2016, 12:00-1:30pm 

Claudia Cohen Hall Class of '55 Terrace Room

Chris Koepke, Ph.D. is the Director of the Strategic Marketing Group at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). He is responsible for all Medicare, Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Health Insurance Marketplace communication campaigns, strategic planning, and marketing research. With the goal of insuring every American has health care coverage, the Affordable Care Act created the Health Insurance Marketplace and the online enrollment portal HealthCare.gov. Millions of people enroll and re-enroll each fall during the open enrollment period. For four years CMS implemented full-scale marketing campaigns that meld traditional media, digital outreach, and direct marketing techniques to promote enrollment.  Successes and lessons learned concerning the application of traditional market research (surveys and focus groups), digital optimization (e.g. A/B testing), and econometric modeling on media mix and message development will be discussed. 

More Information and Registration 

Developing eHealth Apps for Sexual and Gender Minority Youth: A Tale of Two Cities 

Tuesday, December 13, 2016, 12:00-1:30pm 

Claudia Cohen Hall Class of '55 Terrace Room

José Bauermeister, PhD, MPH is the Penn Presidential Associate Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania. He directs the Program on Sexuality, Technology and Action Research (PSTAR) at the School of Nursing. Nadia Dowshen, MD is a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist who serves as Director of Adolescent HIV Services in the Craig-Dalsimer Division of Adolescent Medicine at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). She is also an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Both Bauermeister and Dowshen have built mHealth apps for MSM and trans populations in Detroit and Philly. They will discuss the development process. 

More Information and Registration 

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REGISTER TO ATTEND

Annual Women in Medicine Luncheon 

Tuesday, November 29, 2016, 1:00-2:00pm 

Henry A. Jordan, M'62 Medical Education Center | Room 505

Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine | South Pavilion
This lunch features  the Recipient of the 2016 Elizabeth Kirk Rose, M'26, INT'30 Women in Medicine Award, Diane K. Jorkasky, M'77, FEL'83, Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, and Head of Development, Complexa Inc.  Hear from Dr. Jorkasky about her career, and enjoy lunch with fellow alumni and current  students, including members of the  Elizabeth Blackwell Society . 

Register Here

Penn Medicine CARE's Grant 

Apply for a grant to support your work in the Community

Penn Medicine faculty, staff and students throughout the organization donate their time and expertise to provide countless hours of work to improve the health and well-being of the communities we serve.  To help with these efforts, the Penn Medicine CAREs Grant program  was established to offer institutional support to these individuals and programs in the form of grants that can be used for the purchase of supplies and other resources needed to perform this important work in the community.

More information and application can be found here. 

Wisconsin Population Health Service Fellowship

This is a two-year service learning program for masters and doctorally prepared individuals in public health and allied sciences with p ractical field assignments in community-based governmental, non-profit and health service organizations in Wisconsin. Fellows will c omplete core activities of learning that document Fellows' practice and research experiences.  Click here   to visit our website and find information on application materials 

Be sure to check out the  ASPPH Friday Letter  for News, Events, and Opportunities.  Click here  to sign up to receive the letter.