COPH Study to Investigate Genetic Component of Blood Pressure Variability

Mohammed Elfaramawi, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology, is the principal investigator for a first-of-its-kind study that will explore the relationship between common genetic variants and arterial blood pressure variability, which has not been tested before in any American population. The main aim of the proposed study is to locate SNPs (genetic variants) associated with medical visit-to-visit blood pressure variability.

Epidemiologic studies have revealed that long-term increases in blood pressure variability are associated with cardiovascular damage, and with an increased incidence of cardiovascular events and mortality independent of elevated mean blood pressure.

The proposed study is important because the discovery of such variants and genetic regions is a stepping stone to uncover biological insights to identify new pharmacological targets for decreasing blood pressure variability; this in turn will lead to novel prevention strategies to reduce the growing public health burden of blood pressure variability-related cardiovascular disease, according to Dr. Elfaramawi.

Researchers will use Genome-Wide-Association (GWAS) data of the Cardiovascular Health Study and the Women’s Health Initiatives in the three-year study, supported by a $447,000 R15 grant from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute. The grant title is “Genes, Blood Pressure Variability and Cardiovascular Diseases.”

Co-PIs on the study are Robert Delongchamp, Ph.D., and Mohammed Orloff, Ph.D., faculty in the Department of Epidemiology. Eleanor Feingold at the University of Pittsburgh will serve as a consultant.

COPH HBHE Faculty Funded to Research Faith-based Intervention for Depression

Tiffany Haynes, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education and Karen Yeary, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, have received a U01 grant from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) to test the efficacy of an intervention addressing depression among rural African Americans.

The award is $2.1 million for five years.

Rural African Americans are disproportionately affected by discrimination, racism and poverty which in turn puts them at higher risk for a host of negative health outcomes including poor chronic disease management, difficulties at work and in social relationships, and the development of clinical depression.

Because as much as 85 percent of the African-American community can be reached through churches, churches are seen as a promising venue for addressing mental health issues in that community.

Drs. Haynes and Yeary along with their collaborators – faith community leaders in the Arkansas Delta and UAMS researchers – have developed an evidence-based, culturally appropriate behavior change intervention to be used in rural African-American churches. The 8-session intervention is based on a previous, NIMHD-funded project, “Faith Academic Initiatives to Transform Health (FAITH), in the Delta.

Besides testing the efficacy of the intervention, the project also aims to identify strategies that maintain implementation fidelity in “real world” settings, such as churches.

COPH EOH Faculty Serves as Journal Guest Editor, Submissions Welcome

Alesia Ferguson, Ph.D., MPH, Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupation Health, is a guest editor for a special issue of the open-source, peer-reviewed International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

The special issue title is “Children’s Exposure to Environmental Contaminants.”

Submissions Deadline is June 30.

The journal website notes that the special issue will focus on a public health concern for which data are limited—children’s increased vulnerability to environmental contaminants due to their small size and play behaviors that may increase their contaminant intake:

“This Special Issue aims to showcase and summarize new information about child behaviors that are useful for quantifying exposures of children to environmental contaminants. We welcome papers that address behavioral patterns specific to children, children’s susceptibility to contaminants at various growth stages, quantify environmental exposures to contaminants, and document contaminant distributions in areas that present exposure risks to children. Innovative risk assessments focused on children’s susceptibility to environmental contaminants are also welcome.

For more information contact Dr. Ferguson or go to this link.

COPH Epi Faculty on Team Recommending New H. Pylori Treatment Guidelines

Lori Fischbach, Ph.D., Associate Professor and Interim Chair in the Department of Epidemiology, serves on the Canadian Helicobacter Study Group, which has produced new consensus guidelines that recommend more intense, longer duration treatment of Helicobacter pylori in adults.

It is estimated that about a third of the US population is infected with H. pylori, which causes gastric ulcer disease and is associated with increased risk for gastric cancer.

The new guidelines are based on the group’s systematic review of the literature on management of H. pylori in response to frequent failures of therapies that follow current guidelines. The group also recognized that emerging therapies called for an update.

An article about the new guidelines, The Toronto Consensus for the Treatment of Helicobacter pylori Infection in Adults, is in the April 19 issue of the online journal, Gastroenterology.

Reuters Health published an article on May 3 about the new guidelines, which was picked up by Medscape.

COPH Communications Assistant Dean Moves to Center for Health Literacy

Nancy Dockter, MPH, who has served as Assistant Dean for Communications and External Affairs, has accepted a job at the UAMS Center for Health Literacy, effective June 1. She will be the Coordinator of the Plain Pages program. Ms. Dockter has been with the COPH Dean’s Suite since 2013. Plain Pages provides readability assessments and editing of health-related documents to make them easier to understand by health services users.

Beginning in Fall 2016, GUS will generate the shells for each course. This change means you will get a new shell for your course each time you teach it. GUS will enroll the students and instructors into the courses; you will no longer be able to add or remove students or add instructors to your courses. If you need to add another instructor or teaching assistants, you will send a request to the Registrar.

Courses will be invisible to the students until it is switched on by the instructor.  At the end of the semester, courses will become invisible to the students seven days after the semester ends. Instructors will be able to turn the course back in if needed.

Storage limit for your courses will be 1 GB. To keep your storage below the available limit, you will need to clean up your files and storage in all courses. Duplicate files are very common. The eLearning team will help instructors identify duplicate files and recommend storage possibilities. If you want to check the size of your course(s) go to https://uams.blackboard.com/bbcswebdav/xid-3457930_1  for instructions. You may request help in cleaning out your course by emailing BlackboardHelp@uams.edu.

Syllabi changes each semester, create different versions of the syllabi which take up room in your storage. When you have made a change to a pdf, it is good practice to delete the old one at the same time you are uploading the new one. If you see a file name with a number after it (ex. Syllabus (3)), you have more than one copy of the file in your storage. PowerPoint slides and video files take up a great deal of room. eLearning recommends using Impatica for narrated PowerPoints and providing students a pdf copy for download. Also for video files, it is recommended that instructors use another storage site (ex. YouTube, Teacher Tube, the Video Index Server or a cloud storage site) and provide the link in your course shell.

Step by step guides for Blackboard are available on the HELP tab in Blackboard, https://educationaldevelopment.uams.edu/elearning/ or the Faculty Resources – Site License Downloads course in Blackboard. If you need help or have questions you can email me kmboyle@uams.edu or you can email BlackboardHelp@uams.edu

Every year the Online Learning Consortium surveys academic leaders across the United States. According to the Consortium’s 13^th annual report, Online Report Card—Tracking Online Education in the United States (2015), 2.85 million students take all of their courses online; another 2.97 million take some courses online. Seventy-one percent of Chief Academic Officers report that online learning is critical to their long-term strategy; in contrast they report that only 28 percent of faculty accept the “value and legitimacy of online education.”

The College of Public Health at UAMS serves a large, rural state. Those living outside of the Little Rock metropolitan area often find it difficult to come to campus for classes. Moving courses online opens the programs up to many more residents of this state and beyond, allowing the College to serve the whole state and not just a small portion of it.

I was hired to help faculty move their courses online and am available to you to do so.

Why do faculty question the “value and legitimacy of online education”? The answers to that question vary but generally come down to a few concerns.

1. Students will be able to cheat if they are taking courses online. Beck (2014) found that faculty who have not taught online and students who have not taken an online course are more likely to hold the perception that students taking online courses cheat more often than students in face-to-face courses. However, research done by Watson and Sottile have shown that cheating is actually more widespread in face-to-face classes. Despite this finding, the perception is that more people cheat in online courses.

There are ways to combat cheating in the online environment. First, have a narrow window of time for the students to take the exam. Second, time the exam so students do not have time to look things up. Another strategy is to use projects, papers, and essay exams to evaluate students and have them submit their work to Turnitin.com, Safe Assign, or one of the other plagiarism detection sites.

Other ways to discourage students from cheating includes proctoring either on campus or through one of the online proctoring services, such as Proctor U. In reality, students wishing to cheat will find a way regardless of how the course is taught.

2. My course can’t be taught on line. As technology improves, and animations and selection of activities expand, courses that may not have worked online 10 years ago are now being taught that way. Laboratory courses are now routinely taught online in many schools.

Often we have a vision of what an online course looks like, but there is no one way to teach an online course. There can be synchronous video conferencing, working in groups online, and asynchronous discussions all in one course. Students can tape their final projects in Collaborate, and other students can watch and peer review or grade the project. Guest speakers can be brought in through video conferencing to discuss special topics with the students. All of these things can be recorded so students can review them later. The important part is planning the course ahead of time and working out how everything is going to work, from beginning to end, prior to the first time the course is taught. I am here to help with the planning and vision of how certain things can be taught online.

3. I don’t have time to move my course online. I can help reduce the time it will take to put your class online. I will do as much or as little as you want/need me to do. I only ask that you come to me at least a month before you want the course to go live online. Putting a course online is more than taping your lectures that you use in the classroom and putting them up in Blackboard. I am here to give you suggestions and to help you implement the ideas that we come up with together. It is a lot of team work but it can be done and it can be exciting, once you get going.

4. I don’t know anything about Blackboard. There is plenty of assistance for faculty as they begin to move their courses online. I am there to help, Office of Educational Development is there to help, and there are video tutorials by Blackboard and on Facebook that can help you get up to speed. I will also help the students learn to sign in to Blackboard, upload assignments and participate in discussions.

The Advisory Board for the UAMS Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health (COPH) has seven new members, bringing the total number of members to 16. The Board is composed of leaders in state government, the business community, health care, law, and the nonprofit world who embrace the importance of public health and the College.

“We are so pleased to have the opportunity to work with all of these impressive professionals,” said COPH Dean Jim Raczynski, Ph.D.. “We welcome our new members and appreciate the continued advocacy and support all board members provide; and especially thank our board Chairman, Gordon Silaski, as we grow as an Advisory Board and as a college of public health.”

New members:

Melinda Faubel, Director, External Affairs, AT&T. Since joining AT&T in 1981, Ms. Faubel has worked in network engineering and planning, and human resources, as well as on education and economic development projects as the AT&T liaison to the Arkansas Foundation.

A native of Little Rock, Ms. Faubel holds a BS degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and an MBA degree from the University of Dallas.

Steve Jones, Senior Vice President and Director, Water Services, Garver Engineering.  Mr. Jones has more than 30 years’ experience in water resource development and in design and implementation of water and wastewater utility infrastructure. As a senior project manager, he provides quality control on projects with water and wastewater treatment facilities.

Jayme Mayo, Physician Assistant and Wellness Director, Nabholz Construction. Ms. Mayo has been the in-house medical care provider and has led health-improvement efforts at Nabholz for nine years. For her innovative program at Nabholz, she was named Arkansas’ “Worksite Wellness Healthcare Hero” and was featured in HBO’s documentary on obesity, “Weight of the Nation.”

Ms. Mayo has also worked with the Department of Defense, Winthrop Rockefeller Institute, Clinton Foundation and many businesses across the country on successful worksite wellness programs.

Martha Jane Murray, Director, Clinton Climate Initiative’s Home Energy Affordability Loan (HEAL) program. Ms. Murray wrote and received grants of more than $4 million, which supported the creation of the HEAL program, the first employer-assisted energy benefit program in the United States.

Ms. Murray was a practicing architect for 15 years, the first LEED-accredited professional in Arkansas, and an adjunct professor for seven years at Tulane University’s School of Architecture in New Orleans. She and her husband are co-owners of a shoe manufacturing business in northeast Arkansas.

She has a BA degree in Art from Hendrix College and a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Tennessee.

Denver Peacock, Principal, The Peacock Group. Mr. Peacock has more than 20 years’ experience in public affairs, public relations, communications and logistical support. He is also an attorney. His clients have included the Clinton Foundation, Arkansas Municipal League, Arkansas Department of Health, Walton Family Foundation, The Peabody Hotel Group, Arkansas Rice Federation, FedEx, Napster, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He worked on two presidential campaigns and served a stint at The White House.

Originally from McCrory, Ark., Mr. Peacock is a graduate of Ouachita University and the William H. Bowen School of Law, University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR).

David Rainey, retired educator and state legislator. Mr. Rainey has served as a building administrator and superintendent for the Dumas School District, as well as a state legislator and director of the Arkansas School for Mathematics and Sciences. He also was an advisor to schools, school districts, and state departments of education across the Southeast on initiatives to improve school performance.

Mr. Rainey has a BS degree in History and Government from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, an MS degree in Secondary School Administration from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, and an EdD degree in Educational Administration and Supervision from UALR.

Greg Ramon, Chief Executive Officer, Little Rock Wastewater (LRW). Mr. Ramon has nearly 30 years’ experience in wastewater management, having led several large utilities. He joined LRW in 2014.

Mr. Ramon has a BA degree from National Louis University in Evanston, Ill., and an MBA degree from the University of Phoenix.

Other COPH Advisory Board members:

Hershel Cleveland, attorney at law; former speaker, Arkansas House of Representatives

Anthony Fletcher, physician, Baptist Health Cardiology and Medicine Clinic

Allan Gates, environmental attorney, Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard

Janet Jones, owner and president, Janet Jones Company Real Estate

Jim Raczynski, COPH Dean

Ruth Shepherd, president and CEO, Just Communities of Arkansas

Gordon Silaski, Advisory Board Chair; president, Little Rock Market, Centennial Bank

Jodiane Tritt, Vice President for Government Relations, Arkansas Hospital Association

Wesley Walls, COPH building architect; principal, Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects

Two faculty in the COPH Department of Health Policy and Management, Joe Thompson, M.D., MPH, and Bill Golden, M.D., MACP, were quoted in an April 18 story in the Los Angeles Times about the payment reform in Arkansas, “How a healthcare revolution came to one red state while the Obamacare battle raged on.”

William Golden, M.D., MACP, Professor of Medicine and Public Health (Department of Health Policy and Management), has been named Co-chair of the Primary Care workgroup of the Health Care Payment Learning Action Network (HCPLAN).

The HCPLAN is an initiative of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Alliance to Modernize Health Care, the federally funded research and development center operated by the MITRE Corporation.

The HCPLAN established its national Guiding Committee in May 2015 as the collaborative body charged with advancing alignment of payment approaches across and within the private and public sectors. This alignment aims to accelerate the adoption and dissemination of meaningful financial incentives to reward providers and systems of care that implement person-centered care and patient-responsive delivery systems.

In keeping with the goals of the US Department of Health and Human Services, the HCPLAN aims to have 30 percent of US health care payments in alternative payment models (APMs) or population-based payments by 2016, and 50 percent by 2018. One possibility for reform is a move away from fee-for-service payments to APMs, such as population-based payments in which providers accept accountability for total cost of care, care quality, and health outcomes for a patient population across the full care continuum. This is a particularly promising approach for creating and sustaining a delivery system that values quality, cost effectiveness, and patient engagement.

Dr. Golden also serves on the HCPLAN’s national Guiding Committee. He is the Medical Director for Arkansas DHS/Medicaid.