Vol. 1 March 2023

Welcome to our

IMPACT Newsletter

Monthly News from MPACH

Hey SPH, How Are You?

Message from the Chair

In the midst of all the things we work toward, sometimes we forget to celebrate and recognize how far we've come. This newsletter seeks to do just that by highlighting the achievements and success of our dedicated faculty and bright students. It is with great joy I welcome you to the inaugural edition of the Impact newsletter!

Dr. Aanand Naik

Chair of the Department of Management, Policy and Community Health

Team Member Alert

DR. MEESHA IQBAL IS A CO-EDITOR OF A BOOK!

Health Services Research PhD student, Dr. Meesha Iqbal, is a co-editor of a book: Making Health Systems Work in Low and Middle-Income Countries: Textbook for Public Health Practitioners, that was published by Cambridge University Press on Dec 29, 2022. he book is the product of teamwork of 3 years of work focusing on building capacity of public health professionals in comprehending different approaches to assess health systems and to identify options for accelerated progress towards universal health coverage and health security in low-and middle-income countries.

From Left to Right: Lee Spangler Associate Professor CHCD, Alexander Testa Assistant Professor San Antonio, Heidi Russell Professor Houston, Youngran Kim Assistant Professor CHCD, Zhanna Novikov Assistant Professor Houston , Rafael Samper-Ternent Associate Professor Houston, Laura Uribarri Associate Professor El Paso, Ginger Raya Associate Professor El Paso

Center for Healthcare Data

The National Association of Health Data Organizations (NAHDO) has elected Lee Spangler, JD, associate professor at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, and executive director of the All-Payor Claims Database, to its board.

HealthofTexas.org

Introducing the new Non-Medical Drivers of Health Dashboard

The new Non-Medical Drivers of Health Dashboard (NDOH) provides data readily available to those seeking to answer questions to improve the population’s health in Texas. The NDOH dashboard provides Texas Data Snapshot tables you can use to learn about non-medical factors that affect a person’s health such as education, economics, access to care, and the environment by county or zip code level. In addition, you can look through our NDOH Data library to select topics of interest.

Learn More

Health Systems Center

Dr. Robert Morgan announced that he is the site-PI for the new CHA funded multi-site pragmatic trial to reduce falls among residents in State Veterans Homes using an evidence-based, frontline staff huddling practice. Dr. Morgon is also the site-PI of an NIA R61/R33 multi-site pragmatic trial investigating use of the LOCK sleep program, a staff oriented huddling intervention, to improve sleep among nursing home residents with dementia.

Dr. David Lairson is the site-PI on a new 5-year NCI Ro1 grant based at Indiana University on colorectal cancer screening in rural Indiana. We are responsible for aim 3 of the grant; to determine the cost-effectiveness of the intervention for increasing colorectal cancer screening and follow-up of positive cases. The project has a large implementation science component to aid the implementation and maintenance of the intervention in rural clinics.

We want to hear from you. Share what you and your teams are working on.

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Celebrating Wins

The department would like to recognize...

Dr. Stephen H. Linder

Dr. Stephen H. Linder was appointed to the Board of Environmental Change and Society (BECS) of the National Academy of Sciences in July 2022

Dr. Linda Highfield

The Centers for Medicine and Medicaid Services (CMS) has recognized Dr. Linda Highfield and their broader Accountable Health Communities team as national leaders in implementing the AHC model