Public Health News
2020 Falk College Scholars Announced
Falk College Scholars from the Class of 2020 represent undergraduate students in the College who display academic excellence, exceptional campus and community engagement, independent research and creative work, evidence of intellectual growth and/or innovation in their disciplinary field, and personal integrity.
“Congratulations to our students named Falk College Scholars. Their outstanding accomplishments exemplify academic excellence, creativity, personal achievement and commitment to the campus and local communities, and they are exceptional role models for their peers,” says senior associate dean of academic affairs, Eileen Lantier.
The Falk Scholars from the Class of 2020 include:
April M Hill, Nutrition
Alizee Mclorg, Public Health
Bijal Patel, Public Health
Connor David Monzo, Sport Management
Brandon M Pollack, Sport Management
Nicholas Richard Riccardi, Sport Analytics
Alexandra Tulowiecki, Social Work
“The combination of their outstanding academic accomplishments and dedication to sharing knowledge and experiences outside of the classroom to engage the world represents what Falk College is all about: social responsibility, social justice and service to others,” adds Falk Dean, Diane Lyden Murphy.
Epidemiologist Offers Guidelines for Flattening the Curve
A Syracuse University Story by Jay Cox originally published on April 7, 2020.
When David Larsen first learned of the novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, he hoped it would be contained. Larsen, an environmental epidemiologist and associate professor of public health at Falk College, says that region of the world had previously experienced SARS-1 and MERS epidemics, so the health care system was ready to help battle the COVID-19 spread.
COVID-19 is less deadly than either of those viruses, but more contagious, Larsen says. The coronavirus has now ravaged populations worldwide, and North America’s first confirmed case appeared in Washington in late January. “When scientists in Washington showed that two cases of COVID-19 were genetically identical—and they were a month apart—that’s when I realized it would be bad,” Larsen says. “The acceleration of this growth surprised me, but it won’t surprise me anymore.”
As we grapple with the pandemic, Larsen urges people to follow recommended public health guidelines to help break chains of transmission and flatten the curve of communal spread. He responds to our questions about the new disease, offering insights on the virus and how, both as individuals and a society, we can work together in our attempt to control it.
How threatening is the virus because of its ability to spread so rapidly?
The first death in the U.S. was February 27. By March 27, there were 1,000 deaths, and by March 29, we had 2,000 deaths. This acceleration is hard to understand until you’re actually seeing it that big, that fast. It’s twice as infectious as influenza. Because the pathogen is so contagious, it’s dangerous in its spread, and our world is so connected.
When the U.S. government placed the travel ban for China, it was too late—the virus had already escaped and been seeded throughout Europe and the U.S. That happened early and surprised a lot of people.
Why is it important to wear a face mask?
The entire country should be wearing face masks in public to help reduce transmission of the coronavirus. If we get enough people wearing masks, asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic people will reduce the infected droplets coming from them when they talk and breathe. There’s also evidence a mask provides some personal protection, so it’s both a personal protection and a community protection intervention.
We need to bring anything that can work to the fight, and face masks may help. There are no randomized studies to rely on to guide our interventions. But evidence from historical studies, filtration experiments and observational studies suggests that when the entire community wears face masks in public, the transmission of respiratory infections will decrease.
The caveat is that we also have a huge shortage of face masks for the health care workers. Nobody should be wearing a medical-grade mask in public unless they’re super high risk. It should be a homemade cloth mask, even a scarf or a bandana would work better than nothing. We need to challenge the public to both sew one billion cloth face masks (free templates are available online) and wear them in public at all times. This can help further flatten the curve beyond what social distancing can achieve alone.
You’ve cited Taiwan for its comparatively low communal spread. What lessons should we learn from Taiwan’s approach?
This is the third coronavirus that Taiwan’s had to deal with in less than 20 years. They are prepared and ready to go. When we compare the U.S. response, we’re basically rookies and need to adopt their playbook. One interesting thing Taiwan does is track their citizenry quite heavily through mobile phones. If they identify one person who has the coronavirus, they can immediately alert everybody who’s been within six feet and say, “You need to go into quarantine for the next 14 days; we’ll follow up with you later.” They have been able to track people that way, including incoming travelers.
What advice do you have for families in their home environment?
If we think about social distancing, we should think about our social network. We want to have a closed social network that does not ever come into contact with the virus. But every single contact outside of that household—whether it’s through a drive-thru, a restaurant, grocery store, post office or work—comes with a probability of transmission. Once the virus gets into that closed network, it would spread through the family unit.
Along with following guidelines and being vigilant, what should we do moving forward?
The big thing we need to do is increase our surveillance—increase our capacity as a country, state and county to know where the virus is. First, we need to change the case definition. Right now, a COVID-19 case has to be diagnosed by the laboratory diagnostic. Let’s change the case definition to any viral pneumonia with unknown cause, since the majority of these cases will be COVID-19 and that will give us a truer picture of the numbers we’re facing in this country.
Second, we should include novel types of viral surveillance. In many disease systems, we use environmental surveillance to look for the virus in wastewater, in human sewage. There may be capacity for that with the coronavirus, but that needs to be a fast-track study and, if the proof of concept is there, let’s scale that across the country. Then, at a municipal level, we could establish which cities have coronavirus transmission and which don’t, instead of relying just on the cases showing up at the health center.
It’s a big learning curve for us—this is our country’s first experience with a novel deadly respiratory illness. Hopefully, what we’ve learned will help us to prepare for the next time this happens, because it will happen again, and we need to be ready for it.
New Course Prefix for Public Health Courses Effective Fall 2020
All courses offered by the Falk College Department of Public Health have a new course prefix effective Fall 2020.
Beginning Fall 2020, the existing course prefix “HTW” will no longer be used. Instead, all public health courses will use the course prefix “PHP.”
Two trips are better than one: Falk senior applies public health skills in East Africa
For Alizée McLorg ’20, public health is everywhere—from mentoring young adults in local Syracuse schools, to analyzing demographic health surveys in East Africa. Her time at Syracuse has allowed her to do both, and in the process, discover her passion for improving the health of communities around the world.
McLorg was born in Quebec City, Canada and moved to San Diego, California when she was young. Excited by the idea of going to college far from home, Syracuse University’s neuroscience program caught her attention. It was a perfect fit for her plans to go to medical school. She enrolled as a neuroscience major. But her first semester of freshman year, McLorg discovered something completely new.
As a volunteer with the Office of Engagement’s Young Scholars program, she mentored middle- and high-school students of refugee families. “This experience completely changed my path and made me passionate about working with under-served communities. I was always interested in health. So, after my freshman year, I transferred to Falk College to be a public health major.”
Now as a senior with majors in both public health and neuroscience and a minor in mathematics, McLorg reflects on her time at Syracuse University, which took her all the way to Kenya and back—twice. “All my experiences from freshman and sophomore year pushed me to study abroad in Nairobi, Kenya during Fall 2018. When I returned in Spring 2019, I was eager to start my honors capstone and was interested in returning to Kenya to do meaningful work.”
She connected with her faculty advisors in the Department of Public Health, who connected her with an internship opportunity through nearby SUNY Upstate Medical University. Along with Upstate faculty and medical students and residents, McLorg returned to Kenya in Summer 2019.
Upstate partners with the U.S. Army Medical Research Directorate-Kenya (USAMRD-K) to support its Health and Demographic Surveillance System (HDSS). This is where McLorg focused her internship experience. “The HDSS site is located in Kombewa, Kenya, a rural community about 30 minutes outside of Kisumu and works to collect important information on the health of the population. It covers approximately 40,000 households and 140,000 individuals,” McLorg explains. “Demographic health surveys (DHS) are used all over the world and are critical to capturing accurate information about a population to create solutions to inequities and health problems.”
McLorg worked directly with the HDSS team. “I observed the collection of demographic health data and verbal autopsy data: a common method of determining cause of death in low-income countries. After observing, I helped administer surveys to health facilities to better understand the available resources.” In addition, she improved her Swahili language skills and improved her skills with DHS, a data collection format commonly used in developing countries. “I also solidified my interest in social determinants of health and reducing health disparities in low-income countries,” she adds.
A Renée Crown Honors student, McLorg’s internship was also her honors capstone, supported by a Crown-Wise Award to cover the cost of travel and living expenses. McLorg, who typically works full-time in the summer, says the Crown-Wise Award made this trip possible.
After graduation, McLorg plans to attend graduate school and use her skills in international health, implementing and evaluating public health programs for East African and refugee populations. “My experience in Kisumu helped me understand how to be effective and useful in a foreign setting and how to develop lasting relationships that lend to successful and meaningful projects. I believe this ‘boots on the ground’ work will give me better context and perspective when working in the future,” she says.
“My time in Kenya and with the Young Scholars program brought significant meaning and purpose and have helped me identify my passion for global and refugee health,” says McLorg. “Syracuse University and Falk College have given me tremendous opportunities to identify my passions and connect with like-minded individuals.”
For more information about the Department of Public Health at Syracuse University’s Falk College, visit the Falk College website.
Public health in action: Applied epidemiology students host coronavirus community forum
When Syracuse University announced on March 10 that its academic residential programs would move to online course delivery in response to the coronavirus global crisis (COVID-19), graduate students in a Falk College applied epidemiology class were finalizing details for an already-planned public forum that evening.
The idea for the Department of Public Health-sponsored coronavirus forum came out of an impromptu conversation two weeks before in HTW 668—Applied Epidemiology, taught by Professor David Larsen who specializes in the control and epidemiology of the infectious disease in lower-income countries. Many students in the class are enrolled in Falk College’s master of public health (MPH) program.
According to public health graduate student, Tim Bryant, it was during the start of a recent class that Professor Larsen asked if students had questions regarding the virus. “It proceeded to be a 20-minute question and answer session,” says Bryant. “I made a statement that if we as public health students had so many questions, I’m sure the rest of the student body did as well. And, wasn’t it our responsibility and obligation as public health professionals to inform and educate our campus community?” adds Bryant. When he asked Professor Larsen if there was a planned teach-in or open forum, Larsen said, “no, let’s make it happen!” The students scheduled the event on March 10, purposefully before Spring Break, to reach the student community.
The day after the forum was held, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus as a pandemic.
The forum was moderated by public health graduate student Pruthvi Kilaru, and began with an overview on the coronavirus presented by Professor Brittany Kmush in the Department of Public Health who specializes in infectious and global disease epidemiology. Professor David Larsen, also from Falk College’s Department of Public Health, presented on the current U.S. coronavirus situation and important next steps. Dr. Kathryn Anderson, an internal medicine physician and assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at Upstate Medical University where she also serves as Director of the Center for International Research in the Institute for Global Health and Translational Services, addressed the clinical aspects of COVID-19.
The three experts then joined a panel discussion with Professor Peter Bell, Syracuse University College of Law who teaches a seminar in public health law; Professor Tracey Marchese, a licensed clinical social worker who teaches in Falk College’s School of Social Work and is a clinical professor at Upstate Medical University, and; Dr. Karen Nardella, a family physician who serves as medical director for Syracuse University Health Services. Michelle Mignano, Deputy Commissioner, Onondaga County Health Department, also provided updates and information from the health department. The audience was encouraged to ask questions, including livestream users who could use the hashtag #SUCOVID-19PANEL on Twitter.
“I think I speak for many of my peers when I say that we all have a deep and abiding passion for the field we study. Being able to take concepts out of the classroom and apply them in a meaningful way highlights that,” says Bryant. “We wanted to get this done before students traveled for spring break to help protect themselves and their loved ones, their communities, and to gain and advance accurate information.”
Fifth Annual Ann Selkowitz Litt Distinguished Speaker Series features Rob Skinner
Falk College is pleased to welcome Rob Skinner, MS, RD, CSSD, CSCS as the featured speaker of the Fifth Annual Ann Selkowitz Litt Distinguished Speaker Series. We invite you to join us Tuesday, February 25, 2020 at 6:00 p.m. in Grant Auditorium, Falk Complex for his lecture, “From the Military to the Olympics: Nutrition for Sport Performance Enhancement.” The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served prior to the lecture at 5:30 p.m.
Skinner is the Senior Sports Dietitian at the United State Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He brings 22 years of experience working as a dietitian and exercise physiologist with athletes at all levels, including positions with the Washington Redskins as a Sports Dietitian/Nutritionist, the U.S. Navy SEALs as a Performance Dietitian, the University of Virginia as Director of Sports Nutrition, and several positions with Georgia Tech.
In his lecture, Skinner will share about his role preparing athletes to compete at the highest level with the United States Olympic Team in the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, as well as insights from his career experiences preparing professional and collegiate athletes for competition and military forces for combat.
“Rob’s extensive experience in nutrition and sports intersects numerous disciplines and interests. He has worked with many different populations, particularly with the military and with professional and collegiate athletes,” says Kay Stearns Bruening, PhD, RDN, FAND, Falk College associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies. “We are thrilled he will share his insights with us for this year’s Litt Lecture.”
Skinner holds a master’s degree in exercise science from Georgia State University, as well as bachelor’s degrees in education and nutrition from the University of Georgia and Georgia State University, respectively. He is a registered dietitian with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) and holds certifications with AND, the National Strength and Conditioning Association, and the American College of Sports Medicine. Skinner is author and co-author of several publications, including chapters in AND publications, Sports Nutrition: A Guide for the Professional Working with Active People and Working with the Collegiate Athlete and Weight and Body-Focused Sports.
Now in its fifth year, the Ann Selkowitz Litt Distinguished Speaker Series is named after Falk College nutrition alumna Ann Selkowitz Litt ’75, a nationally known nutritionist who helped children and adolescents with eating disorders and assisted developing athletes in reaching their full potential. The nutrition consultant to CosmoGirl magazine, Litt was the author of “The College Students’ Guide to Eating Well on Campus,” “Fuel for Young Athletes” and “The ADA Guide to Private Practice.” She was the nutritionist for the NFL’s Washington Redskins and served as spokesperson for several media campaigns during her career, including the “Got Milk” campaign. After her death, the Ann S. Litt Foundation, Inc., was created to support nutrition education.
For information about the Ann Litt Lecture and for accommodations requests, please contact Annette Hodgens at ahodgens@syr.edu or 315.443.9816.
Dean Murphy welcomes Falk students to campus
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Dear Falk College Students,
Welcome back to campus, returning Falk students. And welcome to new and transfer students joining us this spring. We are so glad to have you join our Falk family. I hope that your winter break was filled with family, friends, and loved ones, and plenty of time for both restful and exciting activities.
As the Spring 2020 semester begins, I would like to offer you a few reminders and updates:
Falk faculty, staff, and I as your Dean, are here to support each of you on your journey here as students, as people, and as citizens. Our doors are always open to you.
In addition, you were invited to an open house with me and Falk College faculty and staff on January 14. It was great to see many of you there for the first in a series of regularly scheduled events that we will continue this semester and into future semesters. I welcome your feedback for future College activities.
As we face challenges on our campus, and as our students advocate for a better Syracuse University, you have my assurance as Dean that Falk College is fully committed to playing a critical role in these efforts, doing what we can to strengthen and build the campus community we know we can be.
Some of you are actively involved in the Falk College Dean’s Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, established in 2018. We are so grateful for the action and positive change resulting from the efforts of our members, which include faculty, staff, graduate students and undergraduate students from all academic programs in Falk College. There is much work yet to do, and we strongly encourage you to be part of it. Committee meetings are held monthly throughout the academic year. Students interested in being involved in the Committee should contact Professor Chandice Haste-Jackson at cmhaste@syr.edu or the Falk College Dean’s Office at tbattist@syr.edu.
I’d like to remind all students that Falk College Student Services is your dedicated support system. Student Services counselors are here to provide you with private academic advising and help you meet your requirements and goals. In addition, they are your resource for private consultation related to student social and emotional concerns. If you have any concerns throughout your academic career, please contact Student Services or visit 330 Barclay Hall in the Falk Complex.
Particularly for new students, I encourage you review my Fall 2019 welcome message, which contains helpful information about other important resources like Falk Career Services, the Falk Student Lounge, Falk Café, and our computer labs. You’ll also find information about campus resources, such as health and counseling services in the Barnes Center at the Arch, spiritual life through Hendricks Chapel.
To those of you who will be graduating in May, I give you a special word of encouragement to make the most of this semester to maximize your academic and personal growth, and of course, enjoy it! To all our students in Falk College, I wish each of you an excellent Spring 2020 semester.
Go Orange!
Diane Lyden Murphy, M.A., M.S.W., Ph.D.
Dean
Falk College
Professor Lane receives American Anthropological Association honors
The American Anthropological Association honors Professor Sandra Lane for multidisciplinary teaching, research, scholarship.
Falk College professor of public health, Sandra D. Lane, received the 2019 George Foster Award for Practicing Medical Anthropology in recognition of outstanding contributions to applying theory and methods in diverse contexts that demonstrate a significant impact on policy. The award was presented at the American Anthropological Association’s annual conference in Vancouver, Canada on November 22.
Her impact on the field of medical anthropology is demonstrated both inside and outside of the classroom, including extensive mentorship to undergraduate and graduate students across the Syracuse University campus as well as high school students in the local community. Lane is the Laura and L. Douglas Meredith Professor of Public Health, with appointments in the Department of Anthropology in Syracuse University’s Maxwell School and in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Upstate Medical University.
Along with Robert A. Rubinstein, distinguished professor of anthropology in the Maxwell School, Lane developed a model that links the community-participatory analysis of public policy with pedagogy, known as Community Action Research and Education, or CARE projects. This model integrates action anthropology and community-based participatory research with teaching by bringing students out of the classroom to address health disparities in their communities.
Lane’s CARE projects help students and professionals gain the understanding and skills to take action in partnership with community members and other organizations. One of these projects focused on lead poisoning in rental housing, a topic that was recently covered on the WCNY public television program, CONNECT NY. She has also led CARE research projects on food deserts in Syracuse, neighborhood violence, and healthcare for the uninsured. These CARE projects resulted in 16 journal articles where 75 student and 22 community members collaborated as co-authors. The student co-authors include undergraduates and graduate students in anthropology, public health, medicine, education, physician assistant training, and several high school students.
In 2015-2016, Lane chaired the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine’s committee that wrote the Framework for Educating Health Professionals to Address the Social Determinants of Health. This report proposed a conceptual model to help organizations, educators and communities collaborate to address health inequalities.
The World Health Organization defines the social determinants of health as the conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life. An essential element in Lane’s approach with all students is that innovative learning strategies must encompass experiential, community-oriented, problem-based and other types of transformative learning to identify the social determinants that lead to health disparities.
The Framework publication led to extensive discussions among faculty in five upstate New York institutions including Syracuse University’s Departments of Anthropology, Marriage and Family Therapy and Public Health; University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work; Le Moyne College’s Physician Assistant Program; The Sage Colleges’ Nursing Program, and; Upstate Medical University’s Medicine and Bioethics. The collaborators’ network, called the Route 90 Collaborative, supports faculty interested in implementing the framework in their curricula.
Professor Lane’s work recognized for this award also includes her doctoral study with collaborators from Egypt and the United States conducting ophthalmological research that was integral to UNICEF’s SAFE strategy policy; her work as an anthropologist with a Centers for Disease Control (CDC)-funded research team that evaluated the public health costs and benefits of needle-syringe exchange in 12 cities in the United States and Canada, and; her work with the Onondaga County Health Department where she led the team that wrote the first two successful Healthy Start grants, from the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, totaling nearly $10 million. She later became the founding director of Syracuse Healthy Start, a multi-agency, community-based project to reduce infant mortality among infants of color.
Lane’s current areas of research focus include the impact of racial, ethnic and gender disadvantage on maternal, child, and family health in urban areas of the United States and the Middle East.
Watch an interview with Professor Lane on WCNY Connect NY
Falk College offers graduate program scholarships for 2020
Alumni admitted to one of Falk College eligible master’s program for 2020: All Syracuse University alumni can apply for a scholarship equivalent to 25% of tuition for one of Falk College’s eligible residential master’s degree (listed below). In addition, GRE tests and application fees waived.
Scholarship is for residential programs, only.
All students who are full or part-time Syracuse University alumni and do not qualify for the 50% Forever Orange discount are eligible for this scholarship; this includes students already admitted to a Falk master’s program for 2021.
Falk graduate programs include:
- Exercise Science M.S.
- Food Studies M.S.
- Food Studies C.A.S.
- Applied Human Development & Family Science M.A.
- Human Development & Family Science M.S.
- Marriage and Family Therapy M.A.
- Child Therapy C.A.S.
- Trauma Informed Practice C.A.S.
- Nutrition Science M.A., M.S.
- Dietetic Internship C.A.S.
- Integrative and Functional Nutrition C.A.S.
- Public Health MPH
- Addiction Studies C.A.S.
- Global Health C.A.S.
- Sport Venue & Event Management M.S.
Interested students should contact Falk Admissions, submit their application, and must formally matriculate. For more information, please contact the Falk College Office of Admissions at 315.443.5555 or email falk@syr.edu. Award is subject to change.
Syracuse University’s Falk College Announces Master of Public Health (MPH) Degree
MPH degree prepares students to have a global impact by reducing health disparities produced by economic, social, and environmental inequalities.
Providing a field-based learning opportunity is an integral part of the Falk College MPH curriculum. Through this opportunity, students apply global health competencies through direct experience in an international setting, providing cross-cultural experience and understanding of global health policies and practices in the field. These purposeful opportunities provide students valuable hands-on experience that translates well into future professional roles in global health. Faculty and staff advisors have extensive connections in the global health field, which translates into tremendous international networking opportunities for students.
The global perspective of the program is invaluable for graduate students interested in meeting the needs of the increasingly diverse population of New York State and the United States. The program’s combination of theory and practice allows students to work in policy, research, and service settings.
Unique features of the program include:
- Understanding multi-faceted challenges (environmental, physiological, social, psychological) on health
- Ecological and cultural contexts of health/well-being and relationship to health practices
- A global perspective to understanding public health and implementing public health programs
- Understanding how to develop international partnerships for practice
- Opportunity to engage in global health practice with established SU and world partners
- Collaborative research projects are funded by numerous grants from multiple agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR), and New York State
The MPH program at Falk College at Syracuse University is an applicant for accreditation by the Council on Education for Public Health. The accreditation review will address the BSPH, MPH, and the BSPH/MPH. Other degrees and areas of study offered by this institution will not be included in the unit of accreditation review.
Please contact the Falk College Office of Admissions at (315) 443-5555 or falk@syr.edu, for more information about the MPH as well as other programs in Falk College’s Department of Public Health, including a Bachelor of Science in Public Health (BSPH), Master of Science in Public Health (MSPH), accelerated BSPH/MSPH and BSPH/MPH programs in which both the bachelor’s and master’s degrees may be earned in 5 years, and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Global Health.
Read this story at news.syr.edu
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