Adjunct Professor, Department of Epidemiology, Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Director & State Health Officer, Arkansas Department of Health
Length of Time in Public Health:
Current Work Setting:
- Governmental public health
Relationship Building Experience:
- I have been involved in developing an academic health department (AHD)
I am trained as an infectious diseases specialist and first joined the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) in 2004 as Medical Director for the Infectious Disease program. I have also served as State Epidemiologist and Deputy Director. In 2013 I was appointed as Director and State Health Officer. I hold adjunct faculty positions in the College of Public Health and the College of Medicine at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. For several years I have helped to teach the Infectious Disease Epidemiology course at the College of Public Health (COPH), and I serve on the PhD Advisory Committee in the Department of Epidemiology at the COPH. The COPH and ADH have a formal agreement of collaboration, and our senior leadership meet monthly as a joint Oversight Committee to review and plan collaborative activities focused on education, research and service. I strongly believe that academic public health needs to inform public health practice and that public health practice needs to inform academic public health. The partnership between the ADH and COPH continues to prosper and contribute to these goals.
About My Institutions:
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences & Arkansas Department of Health
- University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is an academic health professions institution
- Arkansas Department of Health is a public health practice organization
- Employs 1,000-9,999 people
- Serves urban, rural, and suburban geographic areas
- Are currently joined in an AHD partnership (date of partnership: 2001)
- Have relationships for:
- Public health education/training
- Public health research
- Public health service provision
- Have relationships characterized by:
- Formal written partnership agreements
- Shared personnel
- Compensation for services provided
- Collaborative public health education/training
- Joint research projects
- Notes on AHD-related activities:
- The partnership between the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH) and the College of Public Health (COPH) at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) involves a number of collaborative activities:
- Shared faculty/staff: The ADH Deputy Director for Science also serves as Associate Dean for Public Health Practice at the COPH. Several ADH staff have adjunct faculty positions at the COPH and teach courses or portions of courses at the COPH. The ADH contracts for COPH faculty time to assist with data analysis, evaluations, and special projects.
- Educational collaborations: The ADH provides data and practice settings for MPH, DrPH and PhD students at the COPH, and adjunct faculty from the ADH serve as advisors and mentors for COPH students. The ADH Deputy Director for Science teaches the Advanced Public Health Practice course for DrPH students. The ADH hosts weekly Public Health Grand Rounds that are available by video conference at the COPH. The ADH provides funding for selected ADH staff to pursue degree programs at the COPH. The COPH has developed special courses or curricula focused on public health practice for ADH staff. The ADH and COPH jointly sponsor a summer internship for college students known as the Stead Scholars Program.
- Collaborative research: Faculty from the COPH and ADH have collaborated on multiple research projects resulting in numerous publications. A PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology at the COPH is embedded in the HIV program at the ADH and is funded to complete a formal evaluation using research methodology as part of his academic training. ADH staff serve as co-PI and advisory committee members for a large, community-based COPH research study funded by the CDC.
- Multi-institutional collaboration: The ADH and COPH also partner in joint educational, research, and/or service activities with other academic institutions within UAMS, including the College of Medicine, College of Nursing, and College of Pharmacy.