Join the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Nov. 9 Public Health Forum

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Published on Monday, 07 November 2011 16:28

The Department of Community Health Sciences is sponsoring the November Public Health Forum on Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2011. The forum will be presented in two parts from 12:30 – 1:50 PM in Room L–112, BUMC Main Instructional Building

The first part will run from 12:30 to 1:15 pm and will be delivered by:

Felton Earls, MD
Professor of Human Behavior and Development
Harvard School of Public Health
Topic: "Identifying and Generating Community Efficacy"

Felton EarlsFelton Earls is professor of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Human Behavior and Development at Harvard School of Public Health. He joined the Harvard Medical School faculty in 1974, became the Blanche F. Ittleson Professor of Child Psychiatry and director of the Division of Child Psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis in 1981, and returned to Harvard in 1989. Dr. Earls is a member of the Committee for Human Rights at the National Academy of Sciences and a member of the Institute of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

From 1990 to 2005, Dr. Earls was Principal Investigator of a large-scale epidemiological project examining the causes and consequences of children's exposure to community and family violence. This project was situated in the city of Chicago, where a team of researchers studied the physical health, educational and occupational achievement, and social relationships of children from birth to adulthood. Detailed attention was given to the social and physical characteristics of the neighborhoods in which they lived. The project represents one of the largest and most comprehensive studies of child and youth development ever undertaken. Dr. Earls and his colleagues have now turned their attention to the psychosocial impacts of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on children. Using methods developed for the Chicago study, an analysis of the role of community attitudes and perceptions about the disease and its impact on children is underway in Tanzania. The work is aimed at helping to devise more effective community-based interventions to support the well-being of children. All of his research is conceived from the perspectives of child rights and health promotion.

The second part will be delivered from 1:15 to 1:45 p.m. by

Jennifer Green, PhD
BU School of Education
and Renee Johnson, PhD, MPH
BU School of Public Health
Topic:"Access to Mental Health Services: The School's Role"

Jennifer GreenDr. Jennifer Greif Green is an Assistant Professor in Special Education. Her research and clinical work focus on prevention, assessment, and interventions for children with emotional and behavioral disorders in schools. Dr. Green is currently developing a line of research that addresses how schools can most effectively assess social and emotional problems to inform school-wide interventions and improve the identification of students most in need of mental health services. Dr. Green's research interests also include studies of school bullying/ school violence, the diagnosis of psychiatric disorders in adolescents, and the effectiveness of neuropsychological evaluations for improving outcomes and services for children with learning disabilities. A clinical psychologist by training, Dr. Green completed her doctorate at the University of California, Santa Barbara, trained at Yale School of Medicine, and in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School.

Renee JohnsonDr. Johnson completed master's and doctoral degrees in the Department of Health Behavior & Health Education at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. As a recipient of the Alonzo Smythe Yerby Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, she worked with Dr. David Hemenway at the Harvard School of Public Health on firearm injury prevention among children and youth.

Her current research centers on the prevention and etiology of suicide, firearm injury, youth violence, and adolescent substance use. Dr. Johnson is a core faculty member with the CDC-funded Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center. She has received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study youth violence and substance abuse.