Columbia Mailman at APHA
Thousands of public health researchers, practitioners, and students—including a sizable Columbia Mailman contingent—gathered in Minneapolis this week for the 2024 annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA) in Minneapolis. Held at an uncertain moment ahead of the November presidential election, the meeting offered ample opportunities for connection and reflection on the full spectrum of health priorities under the banner of the meeting’s theme, Rebuilding Trust in Public Health and Science.
Two recent graduates were among those sharing their research findings. Yuqing Liu, MPH ’24, a research assistant in Epidemiology, presented a poster on her research on using machine learning to predict risk factors for cancer. Torra Spillane, MPH ’17, a research manager at Columbia Mailman, gave an oral presentation on the availability of oral nicotine pouches, a potential tobacco harm reduction strategy—research she conducted with sociomedical sciences professor Daniel Giovenco. Ohshue Gatanaga, MPH ‘24, MS ’24 Columbia Nursing, a PhD student at the University of Washington, gave an oral presentation of his work to uncover the varying ways discrimination is experienced by LGBT+ Asian people and how it gives rise to mental health challenges. Gatanaga’s mentor, sociomedical sciences professor Christian Gloria, attended the session.
Hannah Kaebnick, a second-year MPH student, presented her poster on moral distress—a negative emotional response that occurs when someone knows the right thing to do but is unable to take the action due to internal or external constraints—experienced by clinicians during the 2020 peak of COVID-19 cases. Kaebnick and her co-author, Columbia Mailman epidemiology professor Guohua Li, drew on data collected through the COVID-19 Healthcare Personnel Study led by epidemiology professor Ezra Susser.
New books by Columbia Mailman faculty were the subject of panel discussions and signings. Building the Worlds That Kill Us by sociomedical sciences professors and longtime collaborators David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz. This new history of the United States illuminates the connections between population health and broader social, political, and economic structures and inequalities. Calderone Prize winner Mary Bassett was among those participating in the discussion. (Another event celebrating the book will take place on Nov. 7 at the Columbia Nursing School.) Causal Inference and the People’s Health by professors Seth Prins and Sharon Schwartz presents a reinterpretation of causal inference to encompass social forces as causes of health. The Public Health Approach by epidemiology professor Alfredo Morabia, editor-in-chief of the AHPA’s American Journal of Public Health, examines how public health has historically developed in response to pandemics. Morabia also hosted a panel discussion on how scientific publications can avoid excluding papers based on identity or subject matter.
Faculty presented research, too. Heather Krasna, Associate Dean of Career & Professional Development and assistant professor of health policy and management, presented on her efforts to gain an official job classification code for public health nurses through the U.S. Department of Labor’s Standard Occupational Classification system. Renata Schiavo in sociomedical science spoke on building trust in health and science.
For the twelfth straight year, Columbia Mailman Vice Dean of Education Michael Joseph taught a biostatistics class at the APHA meeting. Joseph, who has also taught the subject in countries, including Zimbabwe, South Africa, Estonia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, was joined by teaching assistants Kamiah A. Brown, a second-year MPH student in sociomedical sciences, and Michelle Smith, a third-year PhD student in epidemiology. Most students were mid-career public health educators and practitioners who may have taken a class in statistics but said they needed a refresher—many because they yearned to do more research. Over two days, the class covered topics from T tests to multiple logistic regression. “My goal is not to create biostatisticians but instead to get you to a place where you won’t skip over the methods section [in a research publication],” Joseph explained.
The Columbia Mailman community—faculty, students, alumni, staff, and friends—came together at an evening reception organized by the School’s Alumni Affairs team. Among the enthusiastic attendees were the 25-strong 2024 cohort of Summer Public Health Scholars. It wasn’t the first time the group of undergraduates had traveled together. The 10-week CDC-funded and Columbia Mailman-administered pathway program for members of historically excluded and socioeconomically disadvantaged communities concluded in late July, as participants presented their research at the CDC in Atlanta. At APHA, Scholars took in research presentations and stopped by recruiting booths representing various public schools—including Columbia Mailman.
Brenda Senyana, MPH ‘10, member of the Columbia Mailman Alumni Board and a Minneapolis native, spoke at the reception about some valuable career advice a fellow alum gave her at an alumni mixer years ago: good experience is the best experience. “She told me to work on my skills,” Senyana recalled. Later, after taking jobs that broadened her expertise, she secured her dream job working in Sub-Saharan Africa with ICAP at Columbia. Now a planning analyst at Hennepin County Public Health, Senyana added, “All that was from staying involved and going to a mixer and meeting an alumna who gave me great knowledge.”