Ninth Annual Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Conference / December 10-12, 2003
BARBARA JACKSON: It gives me great pleasure to introduce the successful effort of the Countryside Lead Prevalence Study, which was the collaborative venture of the Minnesota Department of Health. Local primary care providers WIC Countryside Public Health and the families and children, who participated in the project. Dr. Falken, Dr. Zabel, and Ms. Elms from the Minnesota Department of Health, and Ms. Sonnebin from the Countryside Public Health, which is a five-county public health agency. They lead the effort with funding support from National State and local levels.
Lead Prevalence Studies have been conducted with metropolitan populations. However a comprehensive study of the prevalence of childhood levels in the rural population in a scientifically defensible manner helps the Public Health’s policy for this often neglected area in many of our states. Using a strong scientific methodology, the study’s rigorous implementation recruited 80% of the eligible clients or I should say population. The results demonstrated that age of housing, and public assistance status were key risk factors for lead poisoning and were used to confirm this Minnesota statewide screening guidelines. The results also prompted action by changing the standard of practice for the care of children in Countryside, which is a population of 50,000 with approximately 1500 WIC participants, and by developing a much closer working relationship among public health, local health organizations, Medicaid, and WIC. This project has made a significant contribution to public health practice in Countryside, and serves as a moral for similar projects in other states. As such, the Countryside lead prevalent study exemplifies outstanding maternal and child health epidemiology practice at the local level. It gives me great pleasure to present this award to Dr. Myron Falken and Dr. Erik Zabel.
DR. MYRON FALKEN: Thank you very much. I just want to thank CDC, without their funding we would not have done anything, and we also had funding from a local third party payer in Minnesota. We actually did such good collaboration that one of the public health nurses went to one of the healthcare providers, and one of our, the other nurse, her name is Michelle and Maureen is now in Hawaii getting married. But we wanted to also thank all the little people, which were kids at Countryside that we screened, and the families of those individuals. And thank you for the award.
BILL SAPPENFIELD: Ouur next presenter is Dr. Russ Curtin
RUSS CURTIN: It’s my privilege to make the award for effective practice at the state level, and if you want to turn the page 20 in your book you can get some information about the recipient. I think this may seem to be a nontraditional award for the Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Program.
Because we are giving this award to Garland Land, who would probably never call himself an epidemiologist, and probably would never say that he worked in the field of Maternal and Child Health; and so that may seem a little bit strange that we would do this. Yeah, he does have a Master of Public Health degree from University of Michigan, but so you might wonder why we are doing this. Well since 1971 and I have checked my own personal memory bank, I was graduating from high school in 1971, and I think I look older than Garland, so he must have been a teenager when he started.
He has served in increasingly responsible positions within the field of health statistics, and health information for the State of Missouri, and he now is the director of the Center for Health Information Management and Evaluation, one of the best acronyms in our business, CHIME. But what Garland has done over the years is to create an informatics environment for public health practice in State of Missouri that is really the envy of all the rest of us in the other states around the country. And along the way, he has been an innovator, and trendsetter in record linkage, data warehousing, utilization of vital statistics for follow back, and longitudinal studies, collaborating with CDC, NIH, MCHB, other agencies, and partners, and has really, you know, pioneered a lot of things that we do in our field these days. You know, 10 years before the National Center for Health Statistics, put smoking on the birth certificate, Missouri was collecting data on that important public health issue. And I first met Garland at my very first Public Heath Conference, which was 20 years ago and found him to be, you know, an innovator, and learned a great deal from him over the years. And then I think he really is emblematic of the need in Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology for a partnership between the people who collect and manage public health information systems, and the people who do research with those data. And so for that reason, among many others, I do not have time to go into in my two minutes, it’s my great pleasure to give Garland Land the award this year for effective practice at the state level. And so here is…
GARLAND LAND: I reflect back on a job that I was first interviewed for 33 years ago, which I still hold today, the Director of Health Statistics, and unannounced to me at the time during the interview process, I realized that the Director of Health was an MCH epidemiologist. He handed to me several sheets of paper, that had essentially every perinatal statistic you can imagine on them, and there was no white space whatsoever, and he said “what does this mean?” And I realized that I didn’t have my ________calculator with me. I just met a few people, who were serving in those days. And I can’t remember any of those statistical formulae, but fortunately he realized my conundrum, and he was very patient, he says “No, what does it really mean to you”. Well, that has led me on a journey for some three decades now trying to find the meaning in health information.
Much of our work in Missouri as been noted has been in building data systems, linking files, and informatics more recently that’s what we have been involved in. But the real challenge is to find the meaning, and the meaning to relate to our policy makers and to our program people, and to media, to anybody who will listen, they can ought to help make the change needs to be made. If there is any contribution that we have made in this field in the last three decades, I would want to credit the environment in which we have worked. We have been very fortunate to have strong public health leadership in Missouri that has allowed us, encouraged us, prodded us to make sure that we are providing the data that was needed in our agency. And secondly, I had just excellent staff, really this award should to them, it should not go to me, and I have already told them that.
Some of them have been with me from the very beginning over 30 years ago and they have done much of the work and I am very proud of the work that they have done. So I really wasn’t aware of this award because my career is kind of ventured off in a lot of different areas of public health and so I have been strictly in the Maternal and Child Health area as Russell mentioned. And so I wasn’t aware this award is even available and certainly did not seek it, but I was quite surprised, but really have a lot of gratitude for it and feel very honored in receiving it and I thank you for it.
BILL SAPPEMFIELD: Our last award presenter is Jose Codero
JOSE F. CORDERO: Thank you Bill. Good morning and good afternoon for all of those in the Eastern Time. I am honored to present Larry Edmonds, who is the recipient of the 2003 MCH EPI Effective Practice Award at the national level. This award recognizes an outstanding individual that has improved public health’s practice through effective use of data, epidemiology, and applied research. I think that we all have dreams about the future, but it really takes a special person to translate those dreams into reality.
And Larry is one of them. In the early 80s, those of us who were interested and concern about our birth defects dreamed of the time when states will conduct birth defect surveillance as part of the public health practice. We dreamed of a network of birth defects’ programs throughout the other countries with centers of excellence in birth defects. We dreamed of a national study to accelerate the finding of causes of birth defects. We also dreamed of a seamless relationship between birth defects programs, and Maternal and Child Health Programs. And I remember in my very early years all those discussions between Godfrey Oakley, Larry Edmonds, David Ericson, and many others. And we were fortunate that over the time congress offered to fund some of those activities, but it was really Larry, who made them happen. Now, we have the National Birth Defects Prevention Network that includes over 225 members, 50 states, and Porto Rico, as well as other countries. The centers for birth defects research and prevention, we have eight states, aiding in states, and we currently have the ongoing national birth defects prevention study. Over 14,000 mothers have been interviewed, and as we speak, throughout the country researchers are looking at those data looking for causes of birth defects. Larry is a true consensus builder.
All these things could not have happened without strong leadership and strong consensus. And he really has reached out to, I think, the entire Maternal and Child Health community, and some examples are the programs in Alaska and in Georgia of birth defects and maternal and child health. But Larry is not only a wonderful worker, and a wonderful friend, but he is really also a great family man. And he is really an example to all of us of a solid balance between outstanding work and family life, and still he has time to go bird watching. So it is the pleasure and an honor to present to Larry Edmonds the 2003 MCH EPI Effective Practice award at the national level.
LARRY EDMONDS: Thank you Jose very much. I really do feel quite honored. I have had privilege of doing something I love for 35 years, and it’s working with state people like you. And when I look at the young people coming up as you pointed out, which is very good idea you really are the future, and opportunities are going to boundless, I think. If you are future, I am the ghost of Christmas past. The reason I love working with states and locals, I started in this State Health Department and I think that is how I kind of keep the city safe they were learning of some other states. I started in the Missouri Health Department even before Garland. And then I had the opportunity of go to EIS and CDC and really been a great career. And I want to thank Jose, and as he said Godfry Oakley and Dave Erickson, who supported me for getting out, and working with the state. We have a great staff on our team, they have been very helpful _______ , Peggy ______and, I think, I am very lucky to have very good people to work with. And also I want to thank my family. My family has been unbelievably supportive. We have our jobs with special needs and my wife has been there and help me do this job, something I love and I thank you very, very much. And I am sorry I broke up.