Neonatal Health

This t-shirt was a gift from Bri's life flight crew:

Life Flight 24/7

My first foray into MPH posting...

Many of you know that our long-awaited baby was born in early July. Bridgette spent the first two weeks of her life in the NICU at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center in Provo and at Primary Children's Medical Center in SLC because she couldn't eat or stool, both of which are obviously critical to survival. She was eventually diagnosed with Total Colonic Hirschsprung's Disease, meaning, her large intestine doesn't function. It will be removed when she is big enough, at approximately 20-25 lbs. Until then, she has an ileostomy and requires some special care. We are hopeful that her ileum will adapt over time and play the part of both small and large intestine, although her digestion will never quite be the same as someone with a working colon.

I have had ample opportunity over the last month and a half to consider the excellent medical care that was at her immediate disposal and without which she would not have survived. Nothing to highlight the many discussions we share in classes about global health care like watching your own daughter struggle to live. I kept thinking, "What if she had been born in ____________?" or, "What if Dr. __________ hadn't been so close?" and, when that first bill for $30,000.00 came along, "What if we didn't have health insurance?"

"Failure to thrive" has a whole new meaning to me now. Bridgette has an uncompromised drive to thrive, but until she received the correct treatment, her illness made her appear despondent and uninterested in life. That same assistance is not available to so many babies. How many infants die and are simply diagnosed with "failure to thrive" when they could and would have turned into proper spitfires given adequate health care?

Kelly, Jeff & Bridgette Johnson with Chewy & Piper the Pups

Just wanted to share my new found emotions about the topic. Hopefully they will kindle a little fire under the aspirations of anyone interested in maternal/child health. We all have personal stories that have led us to the MPH program, and now I feel more strongly about our position and responsibilities than ever.

Dia de Salud -- healthy eating and diabetes-friendly food

Last night, I attended Dia de Salud at Centro Hispano (819 South Freedom Blvd, Provo, UT 84601) hosted by Community Health Connect. Maria Lopez was giving a presentation on healthy eating and diabetes friendly foods. She presents on the first Tuesday of every month.


Turnout was decent (9 adults, 4 teenagers, and a bunch of kids), but everyone was very attentive and stayed the full hour. Mrs. Lopez's presentation seemed interactive and very engaging.


Two Spanish-speaking volunteers, a LPN and an EMT, also conducted blood sugar and blood pressure testing. They wondered how effective the blood sugar test was since many of them had just eaten.


Her food was not only healthy, but looked and tasted wonderful too!


Some attendees were not able to report how they heard about Dia de Salud. The event is advertised through flyers, posters, and health educators/professionals at Centro Hispano, Community Health Connect, Mountainlands, and UCHD. Teresa Tavares also advertises at community English classes she supervises. They have also spread word through Spanish newspapers and TV news programs. The poster was modified to be more culturally appealing based on feedback from key informants.

Mrs. Lopez's daughter, Elsie, usually supervises this event as an intern for Community Health Connect. Lisa Schiffman, MPH, also provides support and health communications consultation.

Ashoka: Innovators for the Public

Hello Everyone,

Grant asked me some time ago, and he has been quite patient, if I would share with the group what I have been up to since I left the south end of the RB. So here's the scoop...

I came out to D.C. to take an internship with an organization I had admired from afar for some time. The name of the organization is Ashoka, named after an Indian king in the 3rd century B.C. who was very progressive in terms of serving the public good, renouncing war, and dedicating his life to social welfare. The Ashoka I work for describes itself as the "global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs-- men and women with system changing solutions for the world's most urgent social problems." What does that mean? A social entrepreneur is often compared to a business entrepreneur with a similar sense of innovation, ambition, and tenacity in pursuing their vision and in creating practical institutions around their idea but in the case of a social entrepreneur the primary motivation and drive is in response to a social problem. A quote from the founder, Bill Drayton, summarizes it nicely, he says, speaking of these social entrepreneurs, "they are not content to give a man a fish, or teach him how to fish, they will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry." The industries being health, education, human rights, the environment etc.

A few examples of their fellows in health:

Abel Albino is a physician in Argentina who was troubled with the status of childhood malnutrition in his country and responded by developing an entire system of lactation clinics and low cost "micro-hospitals" which are extremely efficient and cost effective due to a creative engagement of community volunteers and probono medical services.

Rani Bang was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 but Ashoka discovered her in 1984 at the very beginning of her work. She revolutionized health care in a poor rural area in India by building health services were designed by listening to the wants and needs of the local people, creating a unique blend of traditional medicine, government, and private services.

Rita Sembuya in Uganda has been the first to systematically respond to the unaddressed and complex issue of infertility in her country.

Every Ashoka Fellow has an amazing story and is doing absolutely incredible work. I enjoy being in their international headquarters to meet and hear the stories of their Fellows when they come through the office. If anyone ever wants to hear more feel free to get in touch and I'd be happy to spout off a few more. Go Cougs.

More on Media and Public Health

Well that UPHA presentation sure has stirred up a lot of conversation and action! One person I met at UDOH, said that she now has three blogs instead of one and is working on developing an arthritis blog for her program. Can't wait to see it!

Another result of this program is my new position at the Diabetes Prevention and Control Program at UDOH as a media specialist. I was just compiling some information about media, social marketing and public health and thought I'd share it here.

First, the video called Brochures to Blogs is a great resource (produced by the California Department of Public Health Immunization Branch). It summarizes the need for public health professional to have a presence on the web. I say check it out (even though I'm not a huge fan of the background music).


Watch the rest of the video here.

Second, one of the experts interviewed on that video is from the National Center for Health Marketing. Their website is another great collection of resources like examples of success (e.g. REACH's marketing efforts (4.62 MB)) to global health applications.

Third, I heard about a keynote address at the recent UPHA conference by R. Craig Lefebvre, PhD. Apparently I totally missed out because he spoke on "The Mobile World and Behavior Change." If you attended it, please fill me in. In the mean time, I found his blog and really like his post on Segmenting Black America. Another great resource.

Fourth, after just a few clicks, the Guide to Managing U.S. Government Websites has already given me simple ways to make improvements of the Diabetes Program's website.

Finally, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services has a research-based guide to usable and useful websites (usability.gov). So far I'd say it's straightforward, easy to navigate, and ... practices what it preaches. It has a lot of great examples of how to organizations using their guidelines as well.

There you go! Hope this helps. Let me know what you think of these!



[UPDATE] We are gearing up at UDOH to develop an updated web presence based on the above guidelines. Speaking of, a colleague just forwarded this article to me, titled New Media Cases in Cases in Public Health Communication & Marketing: The Promise and Potential. Check it out and please share your thoughts!

Future applicant to the program

Meet Brianna McKell, MPH (c)

Newly installed Adobe Creative Suite 3.3 Design Premium

The MPH administration loves us! CS3 Premium was recently installed in the 126 RB Lab on computer #4. This is a potentially powerful tool for public health professionals. If you have questions on how to use it, try the online help, visit the multimedia lab in the Lee Library, or for examples of potential applications ask Lisa Schiffman about her Family Health History Toolkit.

Adobe® Creative Suite® 3.3 Design Premium combines Adobe Bridge CS3, Adobe Version Cue® CS3, Adobe Device Central CS3, and Adobe Acrobat® Connect™ with full new versions of the following components:

* Adobe InDesign® CS3
* Adobe Photoshop® CS3 Extended
* Adobe Illustrator® CS3

* Adobe Flash® CS3 Professional
* Adobe Dreamweaver® CS3
* Adobe Acrobat 9
* Plus Adobe Fireworks® CS3

Here is what past MPH students had to say about Adobe CS3:

Grant Sunada

I believe that InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, and Acrobat would greatly expand our skills, effectiveness, and marketability as public health professionals -- specifically when it comes to social marketing, health promotion, health advocacy, and other aspects of health communication. It will also help us more effectively frame the issues we address.

Lisa Schiffman

You already know that I am a fan of adobe products, that is why I splurged and bought them. I mainly used InDesign and Photoshop and adobe professional for pdf files. I'm not that familiar with the other programs, but maybe I would be if I knew how to use them. I'm an advocate for access to Adobe products. They are very useful if you know how to use them.

Lisa Morris

Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator would have been good for our social math assignment. I would love to know how to use Adobe Dreamweaver. This could have been used with our project in Mike's class.

Erin Johnson

I think I would have used Indesign and Photoshop if we had had it.

Jun Yanagishita

So you want to know how helpful Adobe is? The following are what I've seen in job qualifications: Dreamweaver, InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop.

Marin Poole

Learning the Adobe Suite during class projects would provide an excellent skill to take to the job force. I know that photoshop would be valuable many times in laying out information pages and within presentations. It would also be useful in developing social math posters during Mike Barnes' class.

Heather Sanders

Yes, I think it would be really helpful. The InDesign training we went to was really helpful.

Web 2.0 and Public Health -- As seen at UPHA Conference 2008

(Click on "Menu" then "Web 2_0 and Public Health" to view it in full screen)

Carl and I had a great time presenting information from the upcoming publication in the American Journal of Health Education (Hanson, C.L., Thackeray, R., Barnes, M.D., Neiger, B.L., & McIntyre, E. (2008). The changing face of Internet communication in the 21st century: Integrating Web 2.0 in Health Education Preparation and Practice. American Journal of Health Education. [In press]). The crowd was very responsive and asked a lot of great questions. If you have questions too, please post them as a comment.

I enjoyed the presentation on Personal Leadership by Joyce Gaufin, BS. She was actually using ideas from The Leadership Challenge (as seen in Carl's class), which provided me with a bit more than a review since I had the added benefit of hearing the perspectives of public health professionals.

The final speaker was Nicole Hawkins, Ph.D. whose presentation on "Understanding the Pressures Placed on Women to be Perfect" ended with a quick summary of the nutrition philosophy of intuitive eating. Thanks to Dr. Steve Hawks, many current and past BYU public health are already fans of it. I certainly am a convert and can't wait to learn more about it!




The scenery and the conference center in Midway were both wonderful. On a personal note, sometimes my public health, Air Force, and LDS worlds overlap. I actually met a UDOH staff member whose family knew mine in Ohio 25 years ago.

In addition, a friend who was attending the conference recommended I try a 5-day old restaurant on Main Street -- The Cafe Galleria. What a great chance to give intuitive eating a try!


The place is a combination of a photo art gallery and wood fired pizza restaurant straight out of Italy, but right in the middle of Midway, Utah. As you can see below, I ordered a pizza with prosciutto (\prō-ˈshü-(ˌ)tō\) and fresh basil. Those toppings, mozzarella, great sauce, and crust simply melted in my mouth. I kept monitoring my body's satisfaction level. The pizza was so light compared to most "American" pizza, I ended up eating the whole thing! I've learned that one way that my body tells me that I have overstuffed myself is through feelings of grogginess. But after a couple hours, I still feel great.



Has anyone else had similar experiences with intuitive eating principles?

BYU MPHers Attend the 2008 Health Education Advocacy Summit in Washington D.C.

One of my favorite experiences during the BYU MPH program has related to the Health Education Advocacy Summit, hosted by SOPHE and made possible by the leadership of Dr. Michael Barnes and the funding of Mary Lou & Ira Fulton.


This year, we were able to increase our numbers to 20. This led to us building greater connections between faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates; meeting with representatives from a wide variety of states; eating a lot of great food; and making memories to last a lifetime. The sites to be seen and spirit to be felt in our nation's capital seemed to be amplified for me as we walked (and sometimes ran) back and forth between the Senate and House sides of the Capital building, advocating for public health programs and funding which have been shown to prevent disease and promote health on a population level and in a diversity of communities.


In between and following Hill visits and workshops, we able to tour Smithsonians, galleries of art, and monuments. What a blast!

Stay tuned for more about this!

For statistical purposes only...

Just wanna send out a public props to Mike B for sending out that alumni MPH survey. Honestly, I really enjoy taking surveys (TAKING, not administering nor analyzing).
And double props for the t-shirt reward! So benevolent of the department.

Caribbean Food & Nutrition Institute - Jamaica

This is an example of what the class of '08 considers "Public Health work," the locals just call it "Dunn's River Falls, Ocho Rios, Jamaica." I was there to check for cryptosporidium & cholera. Luckily we didn't find either, just beautiful clear water, sandy beaches, tourists and plenty of sunshine. Although not one of my official PH duties, I did make sure that appropriate skin cancer prevention measures were taken by family.

PH-related website

Check this out:
http://www.peterrussell.com/Odds/WorldClock.php