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Dr. Amber Emanuel won UF's 2018 Online Education Excellence Award in the category of "Learner Satisfaction" for the Fall 2017 version of HSC3102 Personal and Family Health. Dr. Emanuel had 326 students enrolled in her course in the fall and she was assisted by her TAs John Lee, Denis Schulz, Ashtin Morio, and Natalia Acosta. She will attend the Interface Conference on April 19th, along with John Lee and Denis Schulz, to receive the award.
Jalie A. Tucker, PhD, MPH, Professor and Chair, Department of Health Education and Behavior, and Director, Center for Behavioral Economic Health Research, received the 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Addictive Behaviors Special Interest Group of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT). The award, given every other year to an individual with a life-long impact on the field of addictive behaviors, noted her work on highly important research priorities that span the gap between science and practice and use a systems perspective not confined to the treatment arena (e.g., how people recover from alcohol and drug problems with and without treatment; what factors influence whether people seek treatment; how to provide appealing, accessible, and effective interventions outside of health care). Dr. Tucker also was awarded Fellow status in ABCT. ABCT is a multidisciplinary organization with over 5,000 members committed to understanding and ameliorating problems of the human condition through investigation and application of behavioral, cognitive, and other evidence-based principles to assessment, prevention, and treatment.
Dr. Joy Rodgers passed the MCHES exam to earn the title of Master Certified Health Education Specialist. A MCHES is an advanced-level practitioner that has:
The purpose of the HHP Professional Development Award is to help faculty recipients, specifically lecturers, in supporting undergraduate and graduate instruction of all students in the college. The award is competitive. Two $5,000 awards are given each year. Eligible faculty members submit one-page proposals that detail a strong and clear rationale for how the funding would be used to enhance instruction and benefit students. Funds are to be used in improving professional (teaching) development and strengthening the bridge between the lecturer’s knowledge and what students learn. Specifically, use of funds may go toward a professional conference or teaching-related workshop for purpose of instructional development, purchase of technology to improve teaching, or purchase of academic books.
In Dr. Rodgers' submission, she proposed to use the Professional Development Award to strengthen and expand her skills in digital health through attendance at a one-week Summer Institute in Digital Strategies for Health Communication held at the Tufts University School of Medicine. The course covers how to develop and implement digital strategies to drive a health organization’s online presence, specifically the processes for selecting, using, managing, and evaluating the effectiveness of web, social media, and mobile technologies. The course format entails a case study, wherein teams of participants work together throughout the week to revise the digital strategy for a prominent health organization. The case study for the 2017 institute was ABC Health News. The 2018 case study will be announced sometime in the spring of 2018.
Dr. Robert Leeman was named the Department of Health Education and Behavior Educator of the Year for the 2016-2017 school year. He was recognized for his outstanding contributions to advancing the success, organization, and excellence of the graduate programs in the Department of Health Education and Behavior.
Jenny Neelands was recognized with the Staff Excellence Award in the Department of Health Education and Behavior. She was recognized for her contributions to the management and development of the graduate programs in the Department of Health Education and Behavior.
Dr. Robert Leeman was awarded a new 2-year UH2 research grant titled Mobile Combined Alcohol and HIV Prevention Including PrEP Uptake/Adherence for High-Risk Young Men. The co-investigators include Dr. Robert Cook (SHARC Director/Epidemiology), Dr. Jennifer Janelle (Infectious Disease), Dr. JeeWon Cheong, and Dr. Jalie Tucker. In this project, they will develop and test a multi-component mobile intervention to reduce alcohol use and risky sexual behavior among young adult men who have sex with men. Another longer-term goal of the project will be to enhance initial use of and adherence to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in this population. This is a highly efficacious medication for prevention of HIV but it is under-utilized and when people do take it, they tend not to adhere to it optimally. This initial 2-year UH2 award will fund laying the groundwork for this project and enable them to build toward a subsequent 3-year UH3 award to fund a randomized, controlled trial to test this multi-component mobile intervention as an adjunct to PrEP.
Dr. Delores James, Associate Professor, has been selected to participate in the Culture of Health Leaders program, a program co-led by the National Collaborative for Health Equity and CommonHealth ACTION with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Read More >> Dr. James Selected for New National Leadership Program to Build Health Equity
Dr. Julia Varnes was named the UF and HHP Teacher of the Year
Dr. Varnes is a lecturer in the Department of Health Education and Behavior and an affiliate faculty member with the center for Gender, Sexualities, and Women's Studies Research. This semester she is teaching emotional health, methods and materials in health education, health and medical terminology, and planning health education programs. In addition to her teaching responsibilities, she serves as faculty advisor to UF's award-winning Eta Sigma Gamma Health Honorary and UF's Inclusive Fitness and Unified Sport Program.
Dr. Varnes is the faculty member of UF's Student Health Advisory Board and a member of the Anti-Hazing Coalition. In her profession, she plays an active role in an appointed position with the Coalition for National Health Education Orgranizations, Eta Sigma Gamma National Health Education Honorary, and the Society for Public Health Education. She is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers and a Master Certfied Health Education Specialist - the highest level of certification for practitioners in her field.
As an instructor for both graduate and undergraduate courses, Varnes' teaching is focused on practice-based health education and promotion and psychosocial health. In her teaching, advising, and mentoring, she aims to instill concepts of empowerment, compassion, acceptance, and cultural competency in future professionals.
Neo Gebru, doctoral student in HEB, was awarded a TL1 predoctoral training grant from UF’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). The CTSI training program is a competitive program that provides trainees the skills required to develop a career in multidisciplinary clinical and translational research. The program uses a team-science approach and provides mentoring and didactic training for predoctoral students performing clinical and/or translational research in health-related fields at UF.
Eta Sigma Gamma earned their third connsecutive Chapter Excellence Award and their first Research Acitivity of the Year Award at the annual SOPHE conference.
The Chaper Excellence Award is the highest award a chapter can receive and recognizes a year of chapter achievement. Chapters can submit documentation of chapter functions to receive this award. Any chapter with three activities (at least one service and one education) are eligible. The activities must meet all four Standards for Health Education and Promotion, one research project meeting both the Standards for Research, and adherence to all eight of the Standards for Chapter Management and Student Professional Development. The activity must involve at least five Gammans from the chapter.
ESG won the Research Activity Award for their research: Process Evaluation of a Student Health Agency at UF. This included a process evaluation of current practices to promote and conduct chlamydia screenings at the University of Florida Student Health Care Center (SHCC). Structured and semi-structured interviews with SHCC employees were conducted to assess current chlamydia screening practices and to offer suggestions to improve these services and decrease barriers for students to get screened.
Dr. Danielle Jake-Schoffman has been selected to attend the Physical Activity and Public Health Postgraduate Course on Research Directions and Strategies. She is one of 25 candidates who were selected to attend this 8-day course. The course serves post-doctoral personnel and is designed to develop research competencies related to physical activity and public health. Topics include grantsmanship skills; research funding opportunities; measurement of physical activity; design of epidemiologic studies; dose-response issues; individual, community, and policy interventions; critical research needs on physical activity in women, minorities, youth, and the elderly; and numerous special topics.
HEB Undergraduate Advisor Brittany Schambow was named the UF and HHP Advisor of the Year.
Third year PhD student Tyler G. James was recently selected as the Society for Public Health Education’s (SOPHE) Student Fellow in Patient Engagement for 2018-2019. The fellowship provides funding for a yearlong project related to patient and family education, health literacy, health communication, and shared decision-making. Tyler’s project will focus on a qualitative analysis of the patient experience in the emergency department among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing patients who use American Sign Language.
HEB student Maegan Chant was selected to receive the University of Florida International Center Certificate of Excellence. This award will be presented at the International Student Achievement Award Ceremony which honors the top international students whose immigration records are sponsored by the University of Florida International Center.
Dr. Joy Rodgers' HSC 4713 Planning and Evaluating Health Promotion Programs course has been reviewed and was awarded a "High Quality" designation. The course met all of the essentials UF + Quality Matters standards and received a total of 143 points. This designation is good for 5 years.
HEB Undergraduate Advisor Brittany Schambow was named the UF and HHP Advisor of the Year.
Dr. Ali Yurasek is the receiptient of a K23 Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award from the NIH National Institute on Drug Abuse titled "A Behavioral Economic Intervention to Reduce Marijuana Use in Truant Youth." This 5-year award supports research and training on patient-oriented research that will improve the efficacy, accessibility and cost-effectiveness of marijuana use interventions within the juvenile justice system. Specific aims are to adapt a brief behavioral economic intervention for parents and adolescents, test the feasibility of the intervention, conduct a randomized pilot trial, and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of outcomes to ensure the protocol addresses the needs of the larger juvenile justice and court systems.
Dr. Yurasek will work with an experienced and knowledgeable team of mentors (Drs. Linda Cottler, UF; Carla Fisher, UF; and Marina Tolou-Shams, UCSF) and collaborator/contributors (Drs. Haesuk Park, UF; Jim Murphy, University of Memphis; and Anthony Spirito, Brown University) to master relevant content areas, including: (1) Substance use treatment research in juvenile-justice settings; (2) community-based intervention development and adaptation for substance-using adolescents; (3) qualitative data collection and analyses; and (4) developing basic competencies in economic evaluation of legal, social and mental health outcomes.
Dr. Jalie Tucker, Professor and Chair, UF Department of Health Education and Behavior, received the prestigious Betty Ford Award from the Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse (AMERSA) at the association’s November 2018 conference in San Francisco. The award is given in honor of former First Lady Betty Ford, a visionary who transformed her difficulties with substance abuse into great benefit for the common good. It recognizes an individual who has made a significant impact on the field of substance abuse, particularly with regard to women’s issues. Dr. Tucker led the adoption of a public health approach to substance use disorders (SUDS) and has extensively studied help-seeking and natural recovery without treatment. Going beyond the clinical arena is important because most people with SUDs, particularly women, never enter treatment. Dr. Tucker’s contributions to understanding and promoting addiction recovery were the focus of her invited award address titled “The Many Pathways to Recovery from Substance Use Disorders: Contributions from Public Health, Psychology, and Behavioral Economics.”
HEB International Student Jessica Pascoe was selected as a recipient of the Diane Fisher Award ($500 scholarship). This scholarship is awarded to two deserving international students at the University of Florida and is given in honor of Diane Fisher who passed away in October 2003. The International Student Achievement Award Ceremony will be held on Tuesday, November 19th in the Rion Ballroom in the Reitz Union. Jessica is currently a senior in our Community Health Promotion specialization.
The James and Esther King Biomedical Research Award, for which Dr. Danielle Jake-Schoffman serves as Co-I, was given notice of award. She will be working with a team of epidemiologists from Moffit Cancer Center and will serve as the UF subaward PI for the grant. The project will use longitudinal data from the Nurse's Health Study to investigate potential early life predictors of ovarian cancer. Dr. Jake-Schoffman will be leading the analyses of self-reported physical activity data from middle school, high school, and early adulthood.
The American Society for Nutrition named Dr. Amy R. Mobley as the recipient of the Nutrition Education and Behavioral Science RIS Mid-Career Award supported by Abbott Nutrition. The award will be announced and she will be recognized at the Joint Forum and Mentoring Event: Nutrition Education and Behavioral Science RIS and Community and Public Health Nutrition RIS.
Jalie A. Tucker, Ph.D., M.P.H., Professor in the Department of Health Education and Behavior and Director of the Center for Behavioral Economic Health Research, gave an invited Master Lecture at the August 2019 meeting of American Psychological Association in Chicago. Up to five distinguished psychological scientists are selected each year by the APA Board of Scientific Affairs to lecture on rotating topics in psychological science at the annual convention. Dr. Tucker’s lecture titled “Contributions from Behavioral Economics to Understanding and Promoting Addictive Behavior Change” was in the area of applied psychology. The lecture covered the behavioral epidemiology and behavioral economics of help-seeking and recovery from substance-related problems, including her research program on natural recovery from alcohol use disorders and new directions for promoting positive change by applying choice architecture principles and findings.