The Bridge: Hofstra MPH Newsletter

Greetings from the MPH Program Director! Anthony J. Santella, DrPH, MPH, Adv Cert, MCHES Welcome to the 2016-17 academic year edition (Volume 8) of the Hofstra MPH newsletter,  The Bridge !    We have moved the newsletter to a blog format as it became very expensive to lay out and print hard copies. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the content just as much in this format!    We were fortunate to bring on two MPH student co-editors/writers this year –  Utsavi Kapadia and Nina Garambone . Although Utsavi and Nina wrote many articles, you will see there are articles written by their fellow MPH classmates as well a a student from our undergraduate Health Sciences program. The 2016-17 academic year had many highlights which include but are not limited to: Received full (5-year) accreditation from the  Council on Education for Public Health . Special thanks for Dr. Corinne Kyriacou who led us through this rigorous process!  We celebrated this mile...

Shifting the Perspective: Aging and Creativity by  Arpita Hazra, MPH ‘18 and  Vianca Mercado, MPH ‘17 To age does not mean to wither away, We must motivate the seniors to find fulfillment in their day, Regardless of age we believe creativity is a great way to accomplish and find fulfillment, In this direction, The Creativity and Ageism conference at Hofstra University this past year was a big achievement! Ageism is often a topic overlooked. The daylong conference, Shifting the Perspective: Aging and Creativity , has been organized in attempt to eradicate negative attitudes about growing older and to break down the barriers that affect the older population. This conference was the brainchild of Carol Waldman who is the executive director of Glen Cove Senior center. After some brainstorming sessions and arranging funding for the conference she got in touch with Dr. Corinne Kyriacou, who was our program director at that time and is on sabbatical for next few months...

Addressing Unmet Needs of Immigrant Children by Marshea Garland, MPH '17 and Gulberly C adeau, BS Community Health '17 Dr. Omolara Uwemedimo is a Pediatrician at Cohen Children’s Medical Center at Northwell Health and is conducting a research study to see if unmet needs and psychosocial adversity affect health utilization outcomes like doctor visits, emergency room use in minority immigrant children compared to non-immigrant children and if so what factors are contributing to these differences? To collect this data parents will complete a screen at their children’s appointments the general pediatrics clinic at Northwell answering a series of questions consisting of demographic information and questions regarding any unmet needs they may have about their finances, immigration status, health insurance, employment and a host of other needs that affect their everyday life and their child’s. If any responses indicate need then that patient is one that will need to follow up with...

History and Applications of Healthcare Informatics by  Harish Datta, BS Health Sciences ‘17 Dr. Morris F. Collen, one of the founders of Kaiser Permanente, is often regarded as the father of healthcare informatics. Dr. Collen believed that technology was the catalyst to administer effective, inexpensive, and more efficient healthcare. He followed one of the principals in public health: striving for a prevention model of healthcare. In the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Collen and his team first established a checkpoint and screening system to analyze people’s risk for diseases.  Their objective was to refine a medical system based on providing effective primary and secondary care (Culp, 2013). After establishing this program, Dr.Collen was able to transfer the data collected into a punch card computer system and one of the first electronic medical records was born.  Dr.Collen specifically envisioned the use of computers in healthcare and, as a result, healthcare informatics...