U of MN School of Public Health alum lifts Minneapolis youth out of street crime and into more promising lives

Emergency physician Dave Dvorak goes beyond ‘treat and street’ to stop the cycle of violence for Minneapolis kids.

A victim of child abuse who ends up in the emergency department would never be treated and sent back to a violent environment without some sort of intervention. But all too often that’s exactly what happens when young people arrive at the hospital stabbed or shot as a result of street crime.

As an emergency physician, Dave Dvorak knows this troubling reality well. As an SPH graduate, he understands the power of viewing violence as a public health issue.

A few years after the city of Minneapolis introduced Blueprint for Action, an initiative to curb violent crime among young people, Mayor R.T. Rybak asked Dvorak to help launch the program’s hospital-based component. At the time, Dvorak was working toward an MPH degree through the executive program in public health practice.

Those political and school connections helped Dvorak implement violence-prevention protocols at Hennepin County Medical Center and North Memorial Medical Center. The work — in which he partnered with Minneapolis health commissioner and fellow SPH alum Gretchen Musicant — served as the basis for his master’s project.

Now when young victims of violent crime arrive at the two trauma centers, they are connected to a social worker who evaluates them on a host of issues — anger management, chemical dependency, mental health, just to name a few. The patient is then matched to any one of 35 community organizations that can help with GED tutoring, job training, breaking from a gang, and other services to cut the chance of repeat violence.

The hospital protocol has been running for just a year, but similar efforts in Baltimore and Oakland have proved to save lives, as well as the financial costs of violent crime.

While the emergency department may seem like a questionable place for initiating big life changes, Dvorak says it’s ideal. “In the hospital, kids are out of their environment and quite often feeling vulnerable,” he explains. “It’s a perfect time to break through.”

By Kristin Stouffer on January 20, 2011

This post was originally published here: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/sphpod/advances/2011/01/sph-alum-lifts-minneapolis-youth-out-of-street-crime-and-into-more-promising-lives.html

Edward Ehlinger appointed Health Commissioner

More news in the good-for-Minnesotans (and GREAT for MCH) category…

Edward Ehlinger — former medical director at the University of Minnesota’s Boynton Medical Center and adjunct faculty at the School of Public Health — was recently appointed Commissioner of Health by Governor Mark Dayton.

Ehlinger is a stalwart proponent of public health, one who regularly speaks out about health disparities here in the Midwest and acknowledges the important role of policy in ensuring good health for all. If you’re curious about his stance on health reform, preventative care, or the importance of collecting surveillance data, I recommend recent episodes of his local access television show. Archives of “A Public Health Journal” are available online: click here for details.

To read Ehlinger’s 2009 testimony in favor of the Minnesota Health Act, click here: http://muhcc.org/sites/muhcc.org/files/TestimonyEhlinger02-25-09.pdf

To read the MDH’s press release on his appointment, click here: http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/comm/ehlinger.html

Ehlinger also wrote a piece in the recently published CityLights (a publication of CityMatCH) celebrating 20 years of that national MCH membership organization, availabe here: http://webmedia.unmc.edu/community/citymatch/CityLights/CityLights2010Conf.pdf

CityMatCH is a freestanding national membership organization of city and county health departments’ maternal and child health (MCH) programs and leaders representing urban communities in the United States. The mission of CityMatCH is to improve the health and well-being of urban women, children and families by strengthening the public health organizations and leaders in their communities.

And, if that isn’t enough -  for a statement from Ehlinger on the importance of taking a community-wide approach to sexual/domestic violence prevention, check out this presentation:

National Radon Action Month

Ahem. The EPA has designed January as “National Radon Action Month”:

Pretty great, right? But for those readers reluctant to take advice from a Lego figure, here’s an overview:

What’s radon, anyway? Radon is a naturally occurring, radioactive gas that is released as uranium in the soil breaks down.  It is also the number one cause of lung cancer in non-smokers, and the number two cause (after tobacco) of death among smokers (see this factsheet from the World Health Organization for details).

Minnesota, like some other states in the upper midwest, has a high level of naturally occurring radon (the curious can find a county-by-county breakdown here).  Add to that our long winters indoors, with windows sealed tight–and you’ve got a serious public health problem.  According to a press release from the Minnesota Department of Health, one in three homes here has levels of radon that “pose a significant health risk” to their residents.

Wait — how does it get inside my home? Radon can enter a home through a number of pathways: cracks in foundations, spaces behind walls, through floor joints and crawlspaces.  Once inside, it can concentrate–particularly during the winter months, when ventilation may be less than adequate.

What can I do about it? First of all, have your residence tested. The MDH provides low-cost, short-term radon test kits here. If your home contains levels of radon above 4 pCi/L, the EPA recommends that you take action as soon as possible. By sealing up cracks or other radon routes and setting up a “radon reduction system” to mitigate the impact of any remaining gas, you’ll protect your health and the health of your loved ones.

For more facts on radon, check out a brochure from the Minnesota Department of Health, available here: http://www.radonleaders.org/sites/default/files/MDH%20Radon%20Brochure.pdf

More data, please! Ezra Klein on the investment deficit (and why numbers matter)

A column by Ezra Klein in last week’s Washington Post should provide some comfort to recent (and soon-to-be!) graduates of public health programs around the country.

The bad news first: along with the staggering federal budget deficit, Americans face an investment deficit that will have repercussions for decades. Americans need to invest more money into our infrastructure:  education, job training, and new technologies — in short, we need to invest in the systems that support human capital.

The good news: now is a good time to invest in those same systems. As Klein asserts, “government borrowing costs are lower” than they’ve been in decades.

Okay, more bad news: we don’t have the data to evaluate existing programs and substantiate funding. Klein interviews Michael Greenstone, former chief economist for President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, who sums it up bluntly: “In the first year of the Obama administration [...] I appointed myself to run around and argue that the stimulus was the greatest opportunity for evaluation of federal programs that’s ever happened. But the federal government is not equipped to do that. No one is against it, really, but it’s not a priority. It’s not part of the culture. And so it doesn’t have the sense of urgency that running a fit government would require.”

And finally, some more good news. This idea of government “fitness” — of regular, rigorous evaluation, of applying data to support (or shelf) programs — is getting some play beyond the beltway.

So now, some questions for you, dear reader: is data being used to support your programs? Would you like more support for evaluation efforts in the field?  Share your thoughts in the comments.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” and your health

The recent repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) should provide some additional holiday cheer for public health professionals–as it represents a substantial victory not just for GLBTQ advocates, but for all of us who care about protecting and promoting sexual and reproductive health.

DADT, a federal law designed to prohibit gay and lesbian military members from revealing their sexual orientation, was first signed into law in 1993 as part of a larger policy compromise by President Bill Clinton. At the time, members of the military who were gay or lesbian would be discharged immediately. Advocates of DADT noted that it was meant to protect these individuals, particularly after a series of violent, well-publicized attacks.

An excellent commentary by Dr. Kenneth Katz in the latest New England Journal of Medicine (available here for NEJM subscribers: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1012496) gives us a sense of what happens when military members are afraid to reveal portions of their health history. In Katz’s community, men who would otherwise have regular testing and treatment for STIs might neglect these same services, fearing discovery and dishonorable discharge. Katz asserts, “I’ve heard the same thing from scores of other active-duty service members I’ve cared for clinically or interacted with socially.” In fact, Katz notes, “during a 2-month period in 2002, active-duty U.S. Navy sailors accounted for 9% of the clients of a gay men’s health clinic in San Diego”–men who were eligible for free, convenient on-base health services through TriCare.

We may never know exactly how DADT affected the health of gays and lesbians within the military. But we do know that most Americans–gay, bisexual, and straight–support its repeal.

For an interview with a local officer discussing the repeal, click here:

http://minnesotaindependent.com/75513/a-gay-officer-reacts-to-the-repeal-of-dont-ask-dont-tell

To watch President Obama sign the repeal, click below: