CMH Gets Grant for Healthy Black Family Project

The Pitt Graduate School of Public Health’s (GSPH) Center for Minority Health (CMH) has received a $500,000 matching grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) in support of the center’s Healthy Black Family Project (HBFP), an ambitious intervention designed to prevent diabetes and hypertension in residents of African American neighborhoods in Pittsburgh’s East End.

The Pittsburgh Foundation, DSF Charitable Foundation, Highmark Foundation, and the Poise Foundation together provided an additional $900,000 for a total of $1.4 million to support HBFP.

“These grants represent the largest philanthropic investment in the 10-year history of the CMH,” said CMH director Stephen Thomas, the Philip Hallen Professor of Community Health and Social Justice in GSPH and Pitt’s School of Social Work. “Our hope is that these funds will help catapult the HBFP into one of the nation’s leading efforts to eliminate health disparities among minority populations.”

“The award of a matching grant from RWJF is a tribute and a testimony to the outstanding work by the center and its partners and will help to strengthen very significantly this vital initiative,” said William Trueheart, president and chief executive officer of The Pittsburgh Foundation, which nominated the HBFP for the award. “The Healthy Black Family Project is a superb example of a creative and successful partnership in our community and quickly has become a major influence for addressing critical issues concerning minority health and health disparity among African Americans.”

—Alan Aldinger

Pitt’s Ridgway Center Cosponsors 2005 Eisenhower National Security Conference

Pitt’s Matthew P. Ridgway Center for International Security Studies is one of four cosponsors of the U.S. Army’s 2005 Eisenhower National Security Conference, “Shaping National Security: National Power in an International World,” Sept. 27-28 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C.

The conference is part of an internationally recognized series designed to broaden the policy debate among civilians and the military with representatives from the media and Congress, as well as business and international leaders.

Janne E. Nolan, professor of international affairs in Pitt’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) and a senior researcher at the Ridgway Center, will chair the panel titled “The Intelligence Challenge: Understanding and Preventing Strategic Surprises.” Members of this panel include Dennis Gormley, senior lecturer in security and policy studies in GSPIA; Admiral William J. Crowe Jr., former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; David Kay, former United Nations chief weapons inspector; and Carl Ford, a Central Intelligence Agency official.

Invited speakers at the conference include Representative Ike Skelton (D-Mo.),ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee; His Royal Highness Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan; Hernando de Soto, president of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy in Peru; and Ambassador Carlos Pascual, director of the Office of Stability and Reconstruction in the U.S. Department of State.

Hosted by the U.S. Army, the conference is cosponsored by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy, the Center for Humanitarian Cooperation, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in addition to the Ridgway Center.

For registration information and agenda details, visit www.eisenhowerseries.com/2005ENSC.

—John Fedele

Stebbins Appointed Executive Director of GSPH Center

The Pitt Graduate School of Public Health’s (GSPH) Center for Public Health Preparedness (UPCPHP) has appointed Sam Stebbins as its executive director.

Formerly deputy health officer at the San Mateo County, Calif., health department, Stebbins has extensive hands-on experience in emergency preparedness and disaster response. He helped lead the department’s development of the Public Health Bioterrorism Response Plan, the Public Health 3-Level Response Plan for small, medium, and large outbreaks, and the Neighborhood Emergency Triage, Vaccination, and Antibiotic centers. Additionally during his six-year tenure, Stebbins led both the Disease Control and Prevention Unit and the Public Health Laboratory and served on the advisory committee for the University of California at Berkeley Center for Infectious Disease Preparedness.

Stebbins, who holds dual degrees in medicine and public health from Tufts Medical School, also will be an assistant professor in the GSPH Department of Epidemiology. He has taught at Stanford University, Francis J. Curry National TB Center, and Oregon Health Sciences University.
As executive director of UPCPHP, Stebbins aims to strengthen the public health workforce through effective adult education and by fostering strong collaborations with professionals in the field. Additionally, he plans to advance research to improve front-line professionals’ capacity to prevent and respond to natural disasters and emergencies.

“After six years of working in a local health department, I have a strong desire to do whatever I can to support local public health,” he said. “My main interest is ensuring that public service-related research and the academic side of public health is closely tied to and supports the day-to-day work of the local health department and other practitioners. I am particularly interested in ensuring that response plans designed for rare emergencies, such as bird flu or bioterrorism, also work effectively for more commonly occurring problems such as floods and infectious disease outbreaks.”

“We are pleased to welcome Sam Stebbins as our new executive director,” said Margaret A. Potter, director and associate dean for practice, Center for Public Health Practice, and UPCPHP principal investigator. “Sam brings to this position a wealth of experience in public health practice, especially in emergency preparedness and disaster response. With Sam’s leadership, I am confident that the link the center provides between academia and public health practice will be a two-way street.”

Prior to Stebbins’ arrival, Gail Cairns, codirector of academic programs, had served as interim executive director following the retirement of J. David Piposzar in 2004.

Launched in July 2002, the UPCPHP is housed in the GSPH Center for Public Health Practice. UPCPHP is part of the national network of Centers for Public Health Preparedness funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to train the public health workforce to respond to threats to our nation’s health from bioterrorism, infectious disease outbreaks, and other public health emergencies. For more information, visit www.cphp.pitt.edu.

—Susan Manko

Rubash Lecture to Examine Prosecution of Juveniles as Adults

What happens to juveniles when the crimes they are accused of are so violent that they are tried in the justice system as adults? The pressing problem of juvenile crime and our courts will be addressed in the Norman J. and Alice Chapman Rubash Distinguished Lecture in Law and Social Work—a free public lecture and panel discussion at Pitt from noon to 2 p.m. Oct. 6 in the Teplitz Moot Court Room in the Barco Law Building.

Rosemary Sarri, professor and senior researcher emerita at the University of Michigan, will deliver a lecture titled “Prosecuting and Treating Juveniles as Adults in the United States.” Sarri participated in a multimillion-dollar research project in the 1970s, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, to document the character and problems of juvenile justice in all 50 states. Five major reports, papers, and books on the findings of the project were published, resulting in a movement away from incarcerating juveniles in adult jails and sentencing them to community-based initiatives instead. Now, Sarri says, the pendulum has swung back, and most states are putting juveniles back in adult prisons.

Sarri also has studied women at risk, has helped provide educational programming for women in prison, and has developed schools of social work in countries ranging from China to Peru. In her 40 years at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, she administered both the master’s degree program in social welfare administration and the joint doctoral program in social work and social science.

Following Sarri’s address, a panel of regional experts, moderated by Jeffrey Shook, Pitt assistant professor of social work, will comment. The panelists will include:

• Gwen Elliott, founder and CEO of Gwen’s Girls, a nonprofit agency that empowers girls ages 8-18 through educational programs and experiences;

• Barry McCarthy, professor in Pitt’s School of Law and an expert on criminal law and juvenile law;

• Eric Joy, assistant administrator in Allegheny County Juvenile Court; and

• Eric Woltshock, general trial and juvenile unit supervisor for Allegheny County’s District Attorney’s Office.

Continuing education credits for social work and law are available. For more information, call 412-624-3711.

—Sharon S. Blake