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February 21, 2012
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Greetings!
A special note of congratulations to the new Duke Cancer Institute which is holding its grand opening celebration today. We look forward to working with our colleagues to establish an initiative focused on the global burden of cancer. Stay tuned for more details.
Until next week,
Geelea Seaford and Everyone at DGHI
PS- The DGHI staff is at it again! Click to see pictures from Monday's DGHI Chili Cook-Off.
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Duke Study Questions Assumptions on Immigrant Health
New research from Duke University challenges a long-held assumption that immigrants are generally healthy before they move to the United States but become less so while living here.  | |
Read is associate professor of sociology and global health
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The research suggests that widely used data from National Institutes of Health surveys paint an incomplete picture of immigrant health because many of the questions on the surveys inquire specifically about health care interactions. Those questions miss the many immigrants who, for a variety of reasons, do not seek health care at all, said Jen'nan Read, a Duke sociologist who is also a faculty member of the Duke Global Health Institute. Read authored the study along with doctoral candidate Megan Reynolds. The result: While immigrants may not be visibly ill when they start their lives in the United States, they may have underlying, chronic maladies like high blood pressure that can go undetected for years because they simply don't know they're sick, Read said. Over time, immigrants' likelihood of interacting with the healthcare system increases as they become more comfortable with life in their new country and are then more likely to think seriously about their health, Read said. Read and Reynolds draw their conclusions from a new analysis of the same NIH data, called the National Health Interview Surveys. The new Duke research will appear in the March issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior. The findings suggest that that immigrants may live in the U.S. for years before ever seeing a doctor, whether due to a lack of insurance, language difficulties or other barriers. As a result, immigrants don't receive ongoing care for illnesses that can be relatively easy to treat, but can eventually become a drain on the American health care system when a serious problem - like a heart attack or stroke - does arise.  |
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Researchers Scale Up Program to Address Mental Health Gap Among African Orphans
One third of the 50 million orphaned and abandoned children living in sub-Saharan Africa have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. Research by the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research (CHPIR) shows these vulnerable children have significant unmet psychosocial needs due to parental death and trauma,
and faculty are working to fill that mental health gap using intervention studies designed to inform program development.
With a new five-year $2.2 million award from the National Institute of Mental Health, CHPIR will expand a childhood traumatic stress and grief intervention, which has shown promise in helping orphans and their guardians cope with unresolved grief.
Working with collaborators from the University of Washington and African-based HIV/AIDS grassroots organizations, Duke will train and supervise local lay counselors to carry out a trauma-focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) program for more than 300 orphans ages 7-13 in Moshi, Tanzania and Bungoma, Kenya - two East African sites with a high prevalence of HIV.
"So many children have unresolved grief about parent(s) who died. Their guardians, who are also suffering with their own grief, don't know how to deal with the child's grief and behavior," said Karen O'Donnell, who is leading the intervention at Duke, along with CHPIR Director Kathryn Whetten. "We have seen the intervention help with grief issues and also facilitate a deeper connection between the child and his or her guardian."
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Med Student Studies Impacts of Nutritional Supplement on Malnourished Children
Every hour, 300 children around the world die of malnutrition. The malnutrition crisis is especially evident in Haiti where one in 10 children is malnourished and one in five is underweight. Chronic malnutrition weakens a child's immune system, putting them at greater risk of death from diarrhea or pneumonia.
Working to fight against these alarming predictions, Duke third year medical student Kate Wiegert is completing her field research year in Haiti with the Family Health Ministries (FHM), a partner organization of the Duke Global Health Institute.
Under the mentorship of DGHI faculty member David Walmer, Wiegert is working with Haitian staff at FHM's Blanchard clinic in Port-au-Prince to evaluate and enroll children into the organization's child malnutrition prevention program.
The FHM program targets severely malnourished infants and toddlers to receive medical check-ups and six to eight weekly batches of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), which is a high-protein, high-energy nutritional supplement designed to treat severely malnourished children in low-resource settings.
Wiegert's research is investigating whether the RUTF improves the health of the children over time. She and FHM employee Annaus Franckel track the children using GPS technologies at program enrollment and at six and 12 month follow-ups.
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from DGHI's Fieldwork Blog "Global Health Dispatch"
*Applications being accepted for DGHI grants supporting 3rd year med student global health research*
Ma O Nobajatak Shishu
 By Jon Higgins, 3rd year medical student
Project: Chronic Diseases and Public Health in Bangladesh
"I realize it has now been several months since my last post, and I am now slightly past the halfway point of my Fogarty year in Bangladesh. There are many reasons for this (certainly not a dearth of stories to tell!), but most probably because the novelty of living and working in Bangladesh has transitioned into a sense of normalcy. And one does not rush to blog about normal things. Of course, a "sense" of normalcy does not mean actual normalcy. Hardly a day goes by where I fail to see, experience, or learn about something utterly extraordinary, which until I witnessed it only existed in the most creative recesses of my imagination. The very foreignness itself is what actually becomes normal.
It is awe-inspiring to think that I am in my Third Year of medical school, with my self and my worldview being stretched in ways unimaginable in the confines of an American lecture room or developed-world hospital ward. I have many more lessons to learn, about this people and place. And about myself, my career, my goals, my dreams, my life as a doctor, leader, follower, and sojourner. I rather look forward to the latter half of my time here..."
Enjoying the Journey By Logan Christensen, 3rd year medical student
Project: Anemia & Malnutrition in Argentina "We have reached the halfway point here in Rosario. Life around here seems more normal now with less daily surprises that occur while abroad. The weather has cooled down a little bit, at least enough so that the power does not routinely go out from over usage. The data collection has begun in earnest and it will continue to pick up steam as more field workers complete their training and begin recruitment on their own. We recently passed the 100 pt mark. While I was proud to hit that mark, I certainly hope the next 100 comes a little easier. Preliminary data looks promising and so I am excited to see all the data once we have it. The prevalence of the data is showing a similar percentage to that reported by the government five years ago despite a rather aggressive public health approach. Our hypothesis is one major contributing factor is a low level of medication adherence for reasons we hope to elucidate. Our goal is to get 300 subjects for the anemia prevalence aspect of the paper which does not appear to be an issue. We are hoping to get at least 100 patients for the adherence aspect of the study. This is slightly more challenging because we have to have subjects that are currently taking iron, but I am confident that we will be able to recruit enough before my time in Argentina comes to an end..."
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Global Health Opportunities
Job Opportunity
Research Manager, Duke University
Upcoming Conferences
NCD Child Conference, March 12-21, Oakland, CA
Global Surgery Conference, March 22-23, Salt Lake City, UT
Global Health & Innovation Conference, April 21-22, New Haven, CT
Genetics Awareness Project Conference, May 31-June 1, Miami, FL
International Conference on Global Health, July 18-21, Washington, DC
Health Disparities Summit, Oct. 31-Nov. 3, National Harbor, MD
Faculty
Education & Research Innovations in China (ERIC) Request for Proposals - due Mar. 1
Academic-Community Partnership Conference Series (R13) - due Apr. 10
Drug Use Prevention, Addiction Treatment, and HIV in an Era of Health Care Reform (R21/R33) - due July 22
Post Residency Experience in Rwanda
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