Scarletter
September, 2018
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Welcome back!
I am thrilled to be entering my second year as the Dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health where we are “keeping the public in public health,” daily.
This week we welcomed our largest entering cohort of approximately 200 graduate students and our first cohort of five stellar, fully funded, PhD students. We also start the new year with our new departmental structure being led by four exceptional leaders who we’ve successfully recruited last year: Dr. Paul Duberstein (Health Behavior, Society & Policy); Dr. Leslie Kantor (Urban-Global Public Health); Dr. Jason Roy (Biostatistics & Epidemiology); and Dr. Helmut Zarbl (Environmental & Occupational Health).
Much is underway at our School for the upcoming year including, the development of our academic programming in Camden, our move to a new site in Newark, and the launch of our new programs in Public Health Nutrition, LGBT Public Health, and with the Rutgers School of Social Work, the MSW/MPH degrees. We continue to work towards the launch of our new DrPH in Urban Public Health. We are also looking forward to next summer when we will launch our first global intersession courses in Dodoma, Tanzania, and Athens, Greece, in collaboration with our university partners.
A highly successful year in grant making sets us up well for the many grants in development for the upcoming year—so much so that we will be growing our research team which has worked tirelessly all summer on all pre and post award activities. I am compelled to give a big shout out to all of our colleagues in these units.
And our new website is well into its development. If you haven’t had an opportunity, we invite you to explore our
site
.
This year I will be working with our faculty, students, and staff, as well as through efforts on a committee that I will be chairing for ASPPH, to create a School of Public Health where there is zero tolerance for harassment of any kind be it sexual, verbal, physical, or emotional and where there is zero tolerance for any form of discrimination.
As a nation we continue to be pushed and challenged in unfathomable ways. But as a School dedicated to the principles of social justice, activism, and empowerment, we will continue to build our academic offerings, scholarship, and community engagement programs all with an eye to giving voice to those who would be otherwise silenced. Together with our incredible students, faculty, staff, and partners, we are working towards health equity with and for the people of New Jersey, with and for the people for the country, and with and for the people of our world. These ideals are on full display in this exceptional
editorial
by our Chair of Urban-Global Public Health, Dr. Leslie Kantor, delineating the battles that we face in protecting the sexual and reproductive rights of women.
Upward and onward Rutgers School of Public Health Scarlet Knights!
P.S. This issue of the
Scarletter
marks its one-year anniversary. Take a journey through our past issues
here
.
Sincerely,
Perry N. Halkitis
Dean & Professor
Rutgers School of Public Health
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"Keeping the Public in Public Health"
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Barriers to PrEP Use Among MSM in China
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Chongyi Wei, DrPH, MA
, Associate Professor of social and behavioral health sciences, examines socio-cultural and structural barriers between Chinese men who have sex with men (MSM) and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Data shows that Chinese MSM account for more than a third of all new HIV cases in the country annually, and what’s more, the group of sexual minority men is the only key population with increasing new infections.
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Head & Neck Cancer in World Trade Center Responders
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Judith Graber, PhD
, Assistant Professor and Epidemiology Concentration Director, and
Iris Udasin, PhD
, Professor and Director of the
World Trade Center General Responders Health Program,
have co-authored a case series report of head and neck cancer (HNC) among World Trade Center (WTC) responders who participated in the rescue and recovery efforts at or near ground zero during the events of 9/11.
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Beliefs about End of AIDS, PrEP Functionality, and HIV Risk
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Perry N. Halkitis, PhD, MS, MPH, Dean and Professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health and Director of the Center for Health Identity
Behavior & Prevention Studies (CHIBPS), has authored a timely paper examining the extent to which
beliefs, concerns, and perceptions about pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) may impact PrEP uptake in young
sexual minority men.
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Counterfeit Marlboro Gold Packs in NYC Licensed Retailers
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Marin Kurti, MA
, Instructor of social & behavioral health sciences and member of the Center for Tobacco Studies, along with colleagues, has led the first independent study measuring the availability of counterfeit cigarette packs purchased from licensed retailers in NYC. Findings suggesting that counterfeit Marlboro Gold cigarettes were not available from licensed NYC vendors at the time of the survey.
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Arsenic Testing & Mitigation Behavior in NJ
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Megan Rockafellow-Baldoni, PhD, Rutgers School of Public Health Alum and member of the Center for Public Health Workforce Development, has co-authored a study on the remediation behaviors of private well owners in New Jersey, to provide a clearer vision of the severity with which home owners view naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater, as well as the potential positive impact more strenuous policy and regulations concerning testing could have on the health of residents.
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Interest in Public Health Among Undeclared Undergrads
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Derek G. Shendell, DEnv, MPH
, Associate Professor of environmental and occupational health and Director of the NJ Safe Schools Program, along with colleagues from the Aresty Undergraduate Research Program, assessed the awareness and interest in public health among Rutgers University undergraduate students with undeclared majors.
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Promoting Healthy Eating to Urban Kids With Help From Coqui the Chef
Christopher Ackerman, MPH, Rutgers School of Public Health Alum, teams up with a frog puppet to improve nutrition education through interactive cooking classes and activities with South Bronx youth.
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E-Cigarettes: Effective Smoking Cessation Tool or Public Health Threat?
Olivia Wackwoski, PhD
, Assistant Professor of social and behavioral health sciences and member of and Center for Tobacco Studies,
weighs the risks and benefits of electronic cigarettes and how perception fuels their use.
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Emily Barrett, PhD, Associate Professor of epidemiology, and member of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, along with colleagues from the Rutgers Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy and University of Pennsylvania, has received a $2.5 million National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) grant to study how exposure to cadmium during pregnancy can impact fetal development.
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Jesse Plascak, PhD, Instructor of epidemiology, has been awarded a National Cancer Institute (NCI) Career Development Grant titled, “Social Environmental Factors, DNA methylation of inflammation genes and Breast Cancer Survivorship among African American Women.” The 5-year, $760,661 grant seeks to improve public health by identifying novel social and biologic factors that can be targeted to prevent breast cancer mortality or improve survival.
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Cristine Delnevo, PhD, MPH, Professor and Director of the Center for Tobacco Studies, along with colleagues from the Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, has received a 5-year,$3,157,179, NCI grant to understand the adoption, implementation, and maintenance of policies that raise the minimum legal age for tobacco sale to 21 and considers the impact of “Tobacco 21” on racial/ethnic tobacco disparities in the context of a diverse tobacco environment.
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The Rutgers School of Public Health has just wrapped up two sessions of PHocus, its first ever public health summer experience for high school students. PHocus
,
which stands for
Public Health: Outbreaks, Communities, and Urban Studies
, was open to students entering the ninth through twelfth grades who wanted to learn more about the factors that influence health and disease.
PHocus was hosted in both Newark and New Brunswick with a total of sixty-six participants, representing thirty-nine high schools in New Jersey and beyond, across the two sessions.
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“I didn’t even know what public health was before PHocus, but I really want to pursue a career in environmental public health. It really changed my future & life.”
-2018 PHocus Participant
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Student
Blog:
A Haitian from Mexico City, in New Jersey, Making the World Better.
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How I’m “keeping the public in public health.”
I recently arrived to the United States to study at the Rutgers School of Public Health after completing four years of medical school.
The medical school curriculum trains students to be experts in the biological basis of disease. By the time we graduate, we tend to believe it’s the unique way to understand and explain health. Such an approach takes into account only those whose field is biology, which is why we have such a hard time to keeping people healthy.
The
Montefiore Albert Einstein Medical Center,
Department of Family and Social Medicine's website, contextualizes health in a better way. It states that
health is a state of physical, social, economic, psychological, and political well-being, and healthcare is a right.
Such a definition is broader, more inclusive, and reminds me of the puzzle pieces that we received at our new student orientation at Rutgers School of Public Health. “We all have a pieces,” said Mike Vega, Director of Student Support Services, “you will have to bring them together because you are part of something bigger than yourself.” I love the school’s moto of “keeping the public in public health.” I connected with the motto so much so that it was the reason I came to New Jersey to study here.
To me, “keeping the public in public health” means to make public health more accessible to the community and in turn allowing the community to lead and contribute to their own health related decisions. Connecting with the public allows us to educate and engage the community in an effort to make people more receptive to health related information. We have to remember that beside our scientific background we are all part of a community. We are the community’s senses in science and public health and with that, it’s our responsibility to help them make better healthcare decisions. Do not decide for them. Let them speak. Let them lead. It is important for community members to be empowered, supported, and in control of their own healthcare needs.
I’m happy to be at a place that shares my values. I’ve studied medicine in Haiti, Mexico, France, and the USA. During all of my years of studying, I’ve always said that what is missing in academia is advocacy. We have to transform knowledge into action, and data into better policy. Academics should not be separate from the population that they are ultimately intending to serving. How can we serve a population when we are not connected with or experiencing their struggle? We have to always remember: to be a public health student or professional is a privilege and also a responsibility.
I’m excited to be at Rutgers School of Public Health and embrace those values. If you have any projects that you believe that I can contribute to, especially if it is in Mexico, Haiti or the Dominican Republic, please
reach out to me!
Otherwise, let's connect on twitter @jonasattilus to continue “keeping the public in public health.”
Jonas Attilus, MD, is pursuing his MPH in Social & Behavioral Health Sciences.
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Anita Y. Kinney, PhD, joins us and the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey as Director of the Center of Cancer Health Disparities at the Rutgers School of Public Health where she will develop a Cancer Health Equity work group, and as Associate Director of Cancer Health Equity and Engagement at Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey.
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Kitaw Demissie, MD, PhD
, Professor of Epidemiology, has been named as the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs, where he will manage faculty appointments, evaluations, assist in hiring, retention, and promotion, implement strategies to enhance faculty diversity, and develop and implement systems to support faculty mentoring.
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Kevin Schroth, JD
, joins the Rutgers School of Public Health as an Associate Professor and member of the Center for Tobacco Studies with a wealth of health policy and research experience.
Professor Schroth joins us from the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) where he served as Senior Legal Counsel within the Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Tobacco Control. During his seven years at DOHMH, he played a principal role in drafting and advancing more than a dozen laws designed to improve public health.
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Paul R. Duberstein, PhD, joins
the Rutgers School of Public Health as the incoming Chair of the Department of Health Behavior, Society, & Policy (name change pending).
Dr. Duberstein’s appointment will begin on November 1, 2018.
Currently, Dr. Duberstein is a Professor of Psychiatry, Medicine, and Family Medicine at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry (URSMD), where he also serves as the Director of Research in the Division of Palliative Care for the URSMD’s Department of Medicine.
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Leslie Kantor, PhD, Chair of the Department of Urban-Global Public Health has authored an op-ed examining
the potential reversal of the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, which could make access to reproductive health services more difficult.
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Qiana Brown, PhD, MPH, LCSW, Assistant Professor of urban-global public health comments on the decline of cigarette use and increase of marijuana blunt use in women in the United States, highlighting her research on marijuana use among pregnant women.
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Cristine
Delnevo, PhD, MPH
, Professor and Director of the Center for Tobacco Studies, comments on the new NJ Tobacco 21 law and her new grant to study Tobacco 21 laws with Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey.
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Dean Perry N. Halkitis, PhD, MS,
MPH, comments on
the new APA, Division 51 report, "Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic and Sexual Minority Boys and Men" that finds racial/ethnic and sexual minority men are among the unhealthiest people in America.
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Faculty Receives Best Abstract Award:
Thomas I. Mackie, PhD, Assistant Professor of health systems & policy, has been awarded the best abstract award with co-authors from the National Council on Foster Care, Adoption, and Kinship Care for the American Academy of Pediatrics National Conference and Exhibition.
Learn More
Doctoral Student Receives Dissertation Grant from RWJF:
Michelle Doose, PhD student in epidemiology, has been awarded $10,000 by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to support her dissertation research. The award is part of the RWJF’s Health Policy Research Scholar program – a program for doctoral students from a wide variety of research-focused disciplines whose research, connections, and leadership will inform and influence policy toward a Culture of Health.
Learn More
Rutgers Student Recieves AAUW Scholarship:
Michelle Malinowski, MPH student in epidemiology, has received the Lew Williams and Leila Sulkes Scholarship from the American Association of University Women (AAUW). The award is given annually to women who show exceptional ability through community service, passion for their careers, and care about society and the world.
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September 6
5:00PM - 6:00PM
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V.O.I.C.E.S. Interest Meeting:
Join Volunteer Opportunities in Community Engaged Services (V.O.I.C.E.S.) first meeting for Rutgers School of Public Health students.
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September 25
12:00PM - 1:00PM &
5:00PM - 6:00PM
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21st Century Seminar Series
:
"
Are You the
Hero
or
Victim
of
Your
Life Story? Claim Your Resilience for Your Health’s Sake,
”
presented by John-Manuel Andriote
.
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September 11
5:00PM - 6:00PM
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SGA Interest Meeting -
Newark:
Meet the Student Government Association (SGA) and discuss ways for students to make a difference in the Rutgers School of Public Health community.
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October 2
8:00AM - 4:00PM
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NJPHA Annual Conference:
Join the Rutgers School of Public Health and New Jersey Public Health Association for their annual conference, "
What Dictates Health - Is it Genetics or Zip Code?"
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September 12
5:00PM - 6:00PM
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SGA Interest Meeting -
New Brunswick:
Meet the Student Government Association (SGA) and discuss ways for students to make a difference in the Rutgers School of Public Health community.
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October 18
8:00AM - 4:30PM
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Topics in Urban Public Health: New Findings & Approaches
Join the Rutgers School of Public Health as it brings
together researchers, community based organizations, policy makers, advocates, students, and community members to foster conversations on some of the most important health issues facing urban areas in NJ.
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September 13
9:00AM-12:30PM
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Global Nutrition Colloquium
Join the Rutgers School of Public Health and School of Health Professions as they examine dietary risk factors - the number one contributor to the global burden of disease.
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October 26
8:00AM - 4:30PM
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Public Health & Our Ports: The Road to Clean Air
Join the Rutgers School of Public Health and Center for Environmental Exposure and Disease as they examine the $80 billion NY/NJ port industry and its impact on health.
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Getting Social @RutgersSPH
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Follow and interact with the Rutgers School of Public Health (@RutgersSPH) on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Tag us in your posts and show us how you're "keeping the public in public health," for a chance to be featured on our social media accounts and in t
he
Scarletter
.
Follow and interact with Dean Perry N. Halkitis (@DrPNHalkitis) on Twitter and Instagram.
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Have an idea for an editorial?
Do you want to tell your story?
Did you just win an award?
Have a cool job in public health?
Did you just publish?
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Donating to the Rutgers School of Public Health supports scholarships for students to be engaged in discovery-based learning through research and practice activities working with populations who experiencing health disparities here in New Jersey, in our country, and globally. By giving, you are helping us further our mission – we thank you. To donate, follow the URL and type “School of Public Health” in the search box.
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Rutgers School of Public Health
Rutgers School of Public Health
683 Hoes Lane West
Piscataway, NJ 08854
732-235-9700
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