All posts by Dr. Michael Forster

We all know that obesity is the health scourge of America – and especially Mississippi.  We also know that reducing obesity rates is an essential key to improving health outcomes generally (not to mention reducing the enormous costs associated with addressing chronic diseases).  And that an essential key to reducing obesity is increasing physical activity.  What we don’t seem to know is how to get people to move, and to keep them moving.

Public health researchers at UCLA seem to have come up with one damn good answer – dance!  Focusing on youth in minority neighborhoods and communities, researchers found that kids will almost universally embrace one kind of dancing or another, depending on culture, custom, and local leadership.  African-American kids tend to dig hip-hop; Latino kids gravitate to salsa; Appalachian youngsters go for “talking dance” (sorry, I have no idea what that is!).  They’ll not only try it, they’ll stick with it if there’s a program, and program leadership, around to offer it and support it.

UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health is pursuing obesity prevention and reduction in a very big way – to the tune of a $20 million federal grant aimed at urban areas across the country with the complementary weapons of physical activty and better nutrition. 

This is great.  UCLA is to be applauded, and their programs, no doubt, emulated.  But guess what?  You don’t need a $20 million dollar grant (nice as that would be) to attack obesity in Mississippi or any place else.  You just have to get up and dance!  And not just kids, but everybody with two feet (even two left ones).  As the saying goes, “If you can walk, you can dance.”

Friday was a good day, dominated by two “big” events – a half-day morning meeting with my Dean’s Council, and an extended observation of the Faculty Senate in the afternoon, highlighed by new-president Rodney Bennett’s first address to senators.

Dean’s Council – a group of engaged and influential supporters and contributors to the college – meets but twice per year, so its every gathering is inherently special.  Many thanks to Tommy Thorton and Hattiesburg Clinic for hosting this round, when a more-or-less last-minute change of venue was required.

As for the Senate -  It was heartening to hear a good-news tone (however tentative and restrained) to the president’s remarks.  On the money side – broad faculty/staff raises in the mix, a possible improvement in the IHL funding formula situation (no decision yet, questions raised and under review), larger faculty promotion increments.  More generally – a commitment to evidence-based decision-making, thorough transparency (warm remarks for Ed Kemp of the Hattiesburg American, no less!), and shared governance beaucoup.

What’s not to like?  It’s the “honeymoon” phase, to be sure, but a good start for the new top administrator nonetheless.

The college recognized the achievements of eighty of its top students last night at an awards ceremony held at the Thad Cochran Center.  Though a highlight of the academic year for the college itself, press releases on such events rarely crack into the news (especially in today’s page-deprived newspapers!).  So here’s the text of the university release on the event, in its entirety:

Outstanding students in all of the academic areas of The University of Southern Mississippi’s College of Health were recognized at an awards event on Tuesday, April 2, in the Thad Cochran Center.

Jennifer E. Parker, president of the College of Health Ambassadors recognized Crystal C. Johnson for her service as past president. Parker presented awards to Janet L. Davie-Cramer and Adam C. Whipple for exceptional service to the Ambassador program.  Other senior Ambassadors recognized were Karen T. Johnson, P. Reghan Johnson, Ta’Rena L. Jones, Mercedes Le, Edward J. Olack, Jennifer E. Parker, Michelle L. Pontiff, Paige L. Powell, Imogene S. Valentine, Adam C. Whipple, Kristen B. Windecker and Sabrina M. Young.

Dr. Michael Forster, dean of the college, presented the Dean’s Council Awards for Community Service to Karen L. Bell and Karen T. Johnson and the Dean’s Council Awards for Campus Leadership to Traci L. Breland and Alanna L. Fopiano.

Students receiving recognition from the Department of Medical Laboratory Science included Hannah Renee Rice for Excellence in Junior Bacteriology, Excellence in Junior Hematology and Excellence in Research, Ann Morgan Eugene-Wilks for Excellence in Junior Clinical Chemistry. William Adam Shirley for Excellence in Senior Clinical Chemistry, Erica Lynn Salim for Excellence in Senior Hematology, Melissa Miller Keenan for Excellence in Senior Immuno-Hematology, Crystal Machele Thompson for Excellence in Junior Immunology, and Chelsa Nichole Williams for Excellence in Senior Microbiology.

In the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences, the Peggy Revels Elward Outstanding Senior Award went to Hannah Brooks Martin, the Sertoma Outstanding Graduate Student awards went to Megan Noelle Dunbar in audiology, Sasha Regalado in early oral intervention and Katelyn Rae Voss in speech language pathology.  Adam Craig Whipple was recognized as the department’s outstanding graduate student.

The School of Social  Work recognized students for academic achievement.  Academic Excellence Certificates were presented to undergraduates Lindsey Casabella, Christel Holliman, Lori Marie King, Randy King, and Katherine Royer and to graduate student Elizabeth Wittman Casey.  Awards of Merit were presented to undergraduates Alma Jeannette Burrell, Madeline Olivia Deshotel Carter, Jacqueline Lee Coffman, Angela Crenshaw Cruz, Ashley Dixon, Rebecca Ann Greene, Leanna Howard, Saralyn Dee Williamson Lee, Jeanne Louise Levesque, Tina JoAnn Meaker, Jasmine Michelle Naylor, Chasity Nicholson, Charles Mark Osborne, Jennifer E. Parker, Marie Sheppard, Elizabeth Ann Fleming Skipper, Gregory Stark, Imogene Savell Valentine, Monica Janneth Walker and Leslie Stuart Williams.

The Alton B. Cobb Oustanding Master of Public Health Award was presented to James M. Turner.  Also receiving awards from the Department of Community Health Sciences were Leah Parks, Outstanding Master of Public Health Research Award, Valerie Short, Master of Public Health Professional Development Award, Danielle M. Anderson, Lynn Cook Hartwig Outstanding Undergraduate, Kayla Stanley and Linda Walker, Outstanding Undergraduate Scholarship Awards, Janet L. Davie-Cramer and Mary Margaret Lang, Undergraduate Service Awards.

The School of Human Performance and Recreation presented awards for outstanding scholarship and outstanding leadership in each of their academic areas. In exercise science, Outstanding Scholarship Award to Dalton A. Newell and Distinguished Leadership Award to Benjamin C. Lyman.

In kinesiotherapy, Outstanding Scholarship Award to Shawn C. Chambliss and Distinguished Leadership Award to Kayla S. Rogers.

In physical education, Outstanding Scholarship Award to John S. Hii, Distinguished Leadership Award to Justin C. Williamson.

In recreation, Outstanding Scholarship Award to  Zachary A. Crosby, Distinguished Leadership Award to Marissa F. Mendiola.

In sport coaching education, Outstanding Scholarship Award to  Nicholas A. Deal, Distinguished Leadership Award to Jazz B. Carmichael.

In sport management, Outstanding Scholarship Award to Michelle L. Pontiff, Distinguished Leadership Award to Ethan L. Rich.

Overall awards in the School of Human Performance and Recreation were presented for Outstanding Undergraduate Scholarship to Caitlin E. Leumas, Distinguished Undergraduate Leadership to Edward J. Olack, Outstanding Master’s Students to Sonia R. Curvelo and Kyle S. Smith and Outstanding Doctoral Student to David E. Krzeminski.

Students recognized in the Department of Nutrition and Food Systems were SaVanna Beth Sims as the Mississippi Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics Nominee for Outstanding Dietetic Intern, Ashley Nicole Bryant as the Mississippi Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics Nominee for Outstanding Didactic Student, Rebecca Kent Bishop as the Southern Miss Outstanding Dietetic Intern, Hope Renee Foster as the Outstanding Junior in Nutrition and Food Systems, Kaela S. Perissutti as the Outstanding Senior in Nutrition and Food Systems, Katie Danielle Newton as the Outstanding Master’s Student in Nutrition and Food Systems and Kevin Daniel Haubrick as the Outstanding Doctoral Student in Nutrition and Food Systems.

Both historical evidence and everyday experience strongly suggest that human beings are simply not very good at replacing short-term interest with concern for long-term well-being.  How else to explain that we continue to ignore mounting evidence that continued reliance on fossil fuels is already making us sick and very likely will destroy the very underpinnings of planetary life as we know it?

Each new study of the real and likely impacts of climate change – not some distant possibility, but very much here-and-now reality – is more grim than the last.  Already in 2011, Scientific American chronicled the direct annual U.S. health impacts of fossil fuel burning: 10,000 hospital admissions due to cardiovascular ills, 600,000 athma attacks, over 30,000 premature deaths, more than five million working days lost to fossil fuel related pollutants.

Those statistics barely hint at the health impact of of what will come with fossil fuel-indudced, climate change-related ecosystemic breakdown – crop failure, ocean acidification, rising sea levels and storm intensification, lost habitat and massive species death, newly virulent disease outbreaks. Yet fossil fuel dependence forges on untrammeled, indeed picking up steam, it seems, the nearer we approach the precipice of our own destruction.

Are homo sapiens really so incapable of behaving in their own long-term self-interest? Are we really so mad?

The battle over Medicaid expansion in Mississippi has moved into high gear.  Legislative and ideological battle lines largely follow party lines, with Democrats favoring expansion and Republicans opposing it.  All parties to the struggle are passionate.

Nobody denies that Mississippi is distressingly poor and unhealthy, with far too many poor and near-poor citizens left without any form of health care short of the emergency room.  But there the agreement ends.  For every “pro” – expansion means more coverage, more prevention and earlier intervention, and lots more federal money (money the hospitals say they desperately need) rippling through the Mississippi economy – there seems a “con” – expansion will only foster greater dependency; costs are initially low but will rise rapidly to budget-breaking levels; expansion will overtax the state’s already sputtering health care workforce pipeline. 

As a health care professional educator and advocate for the poor and marginalized, I come down squarely in favor of Medicaid expansion.  Mississippi’s Republican leadership should take a leaf from former Republican opponents in other states who now embrace expansion as a deal “too good to pass up,” whatever the risks.  But I do acknowledge that the issue is complex and hardly one-sided.  There are risks, there will be costs, and most assuredly there will be unintended consequences, as there are with every major policy change.