JUNE 2001 - UCLA School of Public Health

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18 cover story UCLAPUBLIC HEALTH Douglas Wiebe Wiebe, a postdoctoral fellow, is working with Sorenson on her study of the relation between guns and nonfatal domestic violence, based on interviews with residents of battered women’s shelters in California. Wiebe is also conducting research on gun storage methods as a risk factor for homicide, suicide, and unintentional fatalities. His study, funded by the California Wellness Foundation and the Public Health Foundation, suggests that the way people store guns affects the risk of household members becoming victims in each of the three categories. Wiebe became interested in violence prevention while providing counseling for children in a residential care facility. “It was such a challenge for families to recover after violence occurred,” he recalls. Firearms are responsible for such a great proportion of unnatural deaths, he notes. At the same time, discussions about limiting access to firearms are rife with controversy. “Research can help address issues that are often swayed by politically motivated conjecture,” Wiebe says. Alina Bueno, M.P.H. ’99 While a student at the School, Bueno learned the concept of photo voice — using photography as a vehicle for disenfranchised people to convey what their daily lives are like. During her second year in the M.P.H. program, Bueno devised Shoot with Cameras — Not Guns. Elementary schoolchildren learn the basics of photography, then photograph the positive and negative aspects of their community. Bueno, now a Program Coordinator at Harbor-UCLA’s Childhood Injury Prevention Center, continues to implement the program as part of her fulltime position. The children exhibit their photographs in the classroom to foster discussion, then identify and implement a community improvement activity. “The idea is to help them realize, even as young as 9 and 10 years old, that they have the ability to make a difference in their neighborhoods,” Bueno explains. Bueno started the program at a single elementary school in Wilmington, Calif.; this year she is also implementing it at a second school. In addition, she is helping to expand the program to 12 other sites across the country through the national Injury-Free Coalition for Kids. Alina Bueno, M.P.H. ’99, with elementary school students in Wilmington, Calif., where Bueno has implemented Shoot with Cameras — Not Guns. The students exhibit their photographs showing both positive and negative aspects of their community. an international collaborative study comparing both victimization and perceptions of the severity of abuse among women living in Mexico and women of Mexican descent living in the L.A. area. And on the topic of school shootings, an unresolved question is whether they are a sign of increasing overall aggression in schools, or merely a product of easier access to the lethal weapons. Public health researchers and professionals have had a major impact in shaping policy, particularly as it pertains to guns. Weiss notes that more health departments are recognizing the need to include injury and violence prevention as part of their core activities. But public health has been less effective in attracting funding for violence prevention research and programs. “We’re constantly looking for money,” says Weiss. Indeed, agrees Sorenson, scientific evaluations of existing policies are sorely needed, but limited resources are available to conduct these studies. The School has fared better than many at attracting funders, particularly from foundations, as well as from the state Department of Health Services. In fact, the School has long been a leader in violence prevention teaching and research. Since 1986, Sorenson has taught a course on family and sexual violence — a subject that, to this day, is part of only a handful of university curricula. She also teaches a gun policy course. A course on the epidemiology of assault, homicide and suicide is taught by Dr. Jess Kraus. Many graduates who have taken these courses are now making an impact in the community. In 1991, Sorenson co-founded the Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles. She and Peek-Asa have both played active roles in the organization, which Weiss, also a co-founder, serves as Executive Director. The Violence Prevention Coalition includes public health professionals and academics, law enforcement, and community-based organizations ranging from domestic violence prevention programs and shelters to job- and after-school programs. “You want to create the kind of nurturing environment in a community that enables children to flourish, and supports their parents,” says Weiss. Like the contribution of public health in general, the Violence Prevention Coalition has contributed a sense of optimism to groups dealing with a problem that once seemed inevitable. “This has made people aware that there’s something they can do,” Weiss says. “People are beginning to realize that working together, we can really make a difference in our communities.”
Pillars of the Community FOUR YEARS AGO, ROBERT AND MARION WILSON (ABOVE) MADE A GENEROUS DONATION TO SUPPORT STUDENTS IN COMMUNITY-BASED HEALTH IMPROVE- MENT EFFORTS. THE IMPACT OF THEIR GIFT CAN BE SEEN IN NEIGHBORHOODS ACROSS THE REGION. While a student at the UCLA School of Public Health, Rachel Gonzales gave something back to the community in which she was raised. Gonzales and fellow M.P.H. student Mehrnaz Davoudi, working with the El Monte Union School District in Los Angeles’ San Gabriel Valley, implemented a school-based anti-tobacco program. Project E.M.P.A.C.T. (Empowerment and Media Prevention Advocacy for Controlling Tobacco) included an eight-week media literacy program for 10th graders, designed to increase awareness and knowledge of the influence of advertising and other media on tobacco use. “By instilling in the students critical thinking skills and the ability to decipher hidden messages in tobacco-company advertisements that targeted them, we hoped to change attitudes and decrease their tobacco use,” Gonzales explains. While Gonzales and Davoudi are still analyzing their results, the anecdotal evidence indicates that the program made a strong impact. “The change in the students from the beginning of the program to the end was very exciting,” Gonzales says. “They started out very reserved, because they’re used to the traditional format of listening to the teachers. By the end, they were much more actively involved, and were very anti-tobacco. They became advocates themselves.” Project E.M.P.A.C.T. is one of nearly four dozen UCLA School of Public Health student-initiated projects to make an impact on poor and underserved populations in Southern California communities since 1998. In 1997, UCLA alumni Robert and Marion Wilson made a generous gift to the School to provide internship stipends for students working in community-based health improvement efforts, particularly among the region’s poor and underserved. The gift enabled the School to establish the Community Health Promotion Program, which has supported 46 innovative public health projects, planned and implemented by the School’s students in conjunction with local community agencies (see the list on the next page). “Projects were extremely varied in topic and scope, but they shared the common goal of providing assistance to populations in need,” says Kirstin Chickering of the School’s Office of Public Health Practice, who administered the program. “The addition of this innovative program has enabled UCLA’s Public Health Practice Program to become a national model for public health schools throughout the country.” The underserved individuals and organizations targeted by the projects weren’t the only ones to benefit. Participating students spoke of the richness of In Project E.M.P.A.C.T., initiated by two UCLA School of Public Health students, high school students find tobacco ads in their libraries, then conduct “ad-busting” sessions in which they discuss the facts not mentioned in the ads. 19 feature UCLAPUBLIC HEALTH
Page 1 and 2: UCLA PUBLIC HEALTH JUNE 2001 UCLA S
Page 3 and 4: When the Best Medicine Is Public He
Page 5 and 6: DEAN’S ADVISORY BOARD 3 ANDREW AL
Page 7 and 8: Chiropractic Care Appears Slightly
Page 9 and 10: Disadvantaged Groups Less Likely to
Page 11 and 12: The Healthcare Collaborative at UCL
Page 13 and 14: 11 Why so much bickering over the r
Page 15 and 16: 13 There is a national shortage of
Page 17 and 18: measure it and find places to inter
Page 19: Left to right: Postdoctoral fellow
Page 23 and 24: alumni profile Heal the Bay’s Mar
Page 25 and 26: 2001 student awards 23 DAVID M. SOU
Page 27 and 28: honor roll 2000 THE SCHOOL THANKS A
Page 29 and 30: ALEXANDER CAPRON AND KATHLEEN WEST
Page 31 and 32: WILLIAM AND FLORA HEWLETT FOUNDATIO

JUNE 2001 - UCLA School of Public Health

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