Inside APE: Christopher Elmlinger & Tennessee Department of Health

This week for #InsideAPE, we sat down with Christopher Elmlinger, rising 2nd year GLEPI MPH student to talk about his work this summer with the Office of Health Policy at the Tennessee Department of Health in Nashville, TN.

Tell us about your APE project.

The new Governor of Tennessee’s first executive order requested a “Statement of Rural Impact and Recommendations for Better Serving Rural Tennesseans.” (Not so fun fact-Tennessee currently has the highest rate of hospital closures per capita in the country). The County Health Assessments aim to identify the needs and assets of rural communities in coordination with county health councils and local stakeholders.

My role has primarily been researching and updating the state’s 12 Vital Signs and the associated intervention strategies and policy recommendations that local health councils can pursue. Tennessee’s Vital Signs are a set of 12 metrics selected to measure the pulse of health in Tennessee (examples include preventable hospitalizations, infant mortality, youth obesity, and access to parks and greenways). I finished a memo on Telehealth for the Governor’s office this week and am currently learning REDCap in order to build out an evaluation for the CHA process.

How did you find your APE project?

My APE is part of the Region IV Public Health Training Center: Pathways to Practice Scholar Field Placement Program, which I found at the Emory career fair in February. I love career fairs and always make a point of talking to every table and collecting every interesting flyer. I enjoyed my conversation with the Region IV representatives and I applied for this opening that evening. The career fair definitely gave me a head start since the position did not go out to the Rollins list serve until a week or two later. My advice to incoming students would be to start looking for APE’s early and to be sure to take maximum advantage of the career fair as there are many paid APE’s advertised there in addition to full-time jobs for graduating second-year students.

What has the experience been like so far?

As an EPI student I have been very focused on math, so I was surprised by the amount of research and writing I have had to do in this position.

One thing that I love about this position: I frequently get pulled into different projects, presentations, conferences, or events. Last Friday, I got called into my supervisor’s office and he sent me to a nearby studio to shoot a commercial on the state’s efforts to address the opioid epidemic. I don’t know how much I will actually be featured in the commercial after all of the edits and cuts, but it was really exciting just to participate.

One thing that’s difficult: getting used to a desk job again. At Rollins we are so used to multi-tasking and running around to classes, events, presentations, and our REAL jobs that we forget how hard it can be to sit at a desk and focus on just one task or project for most of the day (even those of us who have already been in the workforce).

Christopher Elmlinger is a rising 2nd year GLEPI MPH student and a member of the Certificate in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies (CHE). His research interests at Rollins include infectious disease (particularly HIV, TB, and NTDs) and Emergency Preparedness & Response.

Outstanding Teaching Assistant – Katie Labgold

Katie Labgold is a 2nd year Epi PhD student with Dr. Michael Kramer and was this year’s winner of the 2nd Annual Epidemiology Program Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award! Over half of the students in Katie’s lab section of Epi 591U (Applications of Epi Concepts) took the time to write about their appreciation for her efforts as their TA and to explain why she is deserving of this award.  Her name will be added to a plaque that will be hung in the Epidemiology Department, and each year a new name will be added.

We sat down with Katie this week to chat about her experience at Rollins:

Q: What are your research interests?

A: I’m interested in all things social, spatial, and reproductive epi! My current research interests include the application of epidemiological theory and methods to explore the socio-political determinants of family planning access and reproductive health outcomes. I am an incoming doctoral fellow with the Center for Reproductive Health Research in the Southeast (RISE) at Emory.

Q: What is it like to be a Teaching Assistant?

A: One of the best aspects of TAing 591U is that it is a two-way learning experience. I had a great set of students who were very engaged during our lab section. This allowed us to work through the concepts they found challenging, and in the process I gained a deeper understanding of the material. I think these concepts are critical to becoming a better epidemiologist (we didn’t have this class in my program), so it was a great experience to help facilitate our Emory epi students’ engagement with these topics.

Q: Are you going to TA again anytime soon?

I’ll be TAing spatial epidemiology with Michael in the fall, and I am very excited to TA this course for so many reasons, I don’t think I can list them all here! An exciting aspect of this course is the combination of spatial epidemiology thinking/theory with hands-on analysis in R – I’m getting excited just thinking about it!

…

Katie studied Archaeology and Chemistry during her undergrad at the University of Virginia, followed by an MPH in Population Health Research at UVa.

CONGRATULATIONS EMORY EPIs!

Congratulations to our Emory EPI graduates! We are so proud of your hard work and success throughout your time at RSPH and are excited to see the great contributions you will make to public health. Make sure to keep in touch– we’ll still see you each Monday with our Alumni Confounder! Congratulations on a job well done!

Thesis Spotlight: Ramya Ramaraju, EPI MPH 2019

Ramya Ramaraju, EPI MPH 2019

Thesis: Assessing the Unexpected Impacts of Rotavirus Vaccination on Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP) in the United States

Advisor: Dr. Ben Lopman

My Experience: “I worked with Dr. Lopman and used the MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database to assess whether there are any existing associations between Rotavirus Vaccination and ITP.

What’s next: “I’ll be completing the one year MBA at Emory’s Goizueta Business School.”

Share your #IamEmoryEpi story!

We want to share the success of current students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Let us know what you’re up to now & how Emory Epidemiology led you there! The Google form will take <5 minutes to complete! Feel free to email us at sphepidept [at] emory [dot] edu if you have questions! Click Here to Submit your Experience!

Student Spotlight: Ariana Gobaud, EPI MPH ’19

Ariana Gobaud,  Second Year EPI MPH

Practicum Name and Organization: “Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis Provider Inquiries in the United States: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Expert Medical Consultations, 2013-2017” at the CDC Division of TB Elimination, Field Services Branch

My Experience: Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the oldest diseases, and we are lucky that the rates of incidence are so low in the U.S. These low rates, however, mean that healthcare providers are not well trained in diagnosing and providing treatment for patients with TB. The CDC funds 5 centers to provide expert medical consultation and training to assist US providers in the management of TB. Medical consultations are saved as text documents in an online database. I quantitatively and qualitatively  analyzed consultations provided specifically for multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB from 2013-2017 to identify the provider type, setting of caller, and year of the call, and to identify main themes of consultations regarding MDR TB. This week I am presenting these findings at the National TB Conference in Atlanta!

What’s Next for me:I will be attending Columbia in the Fall for my PhD in Epidemiology.

Congratulations, Ariana! The Epi Department will miss you!

First Year Students Emma Klein and Christina Chandra present at the HIV and Aging Conference

First year GLEPI MSPH student Emma Klein and EPI MPH student Christina Chandra presented this week at an HIV & Aging Conference.

Emma said:

“I was able to present research that I conducted at my REAL job about older adults using methadone for recovery from opioid use disorder. It was an honor for my abstract to be selected and for my PI to allow me to represent the team. My favorite thing about the conference was the opportunity to connect with more established researchers who were very supportive of my work and my career ambitions.”

Congratulations Emma and Christina!

Student Spotlight: Allison Foster, 2nd Year EPI

Allison Foster, 2nd Year EPI MPH

Practicum: Marshfield Clinic Research Institute, WI

Last summer, I completed my practicum in Marshfield, Wisconsin at the Marshfield Clinic Research Institute (MCRI) in the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Population Health. For my REAL position, I work on domestic influenza surveillance efforts in the Influenza Division at CDC, and the MCRI is one of five sites in the U.S. Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness Network which provides annual estimates of flu vaccine effectiveness. During my practicum, I had the opportunity to be mentored by some of the nation’s leaders in flu research while working on a project to assess the association between asthma and serious outcomes following influenza illness among school-aged children. I was also able to lead a journal club discussion, shadow clinicians and other clinic staff members, and assist in drafting a funding application for vaccine research. I recently presented a poster of my project at the ASPPH Annual Meeting in Arlington, VA on March 21, and I am currently working on a manuscript for publication.