JULY 17,
2003 | A new health survey research
specialist at the University of Arkansas
for Medical Sciences’ (UAMS) believes
Arkansas can move to the forefront in the
field of measuring communities’
readiness and capacity for health
improvement.
LeaVonne Pulley, Ph.D. started in her new
position of associate professor in the
COPH Department of Health Behavior and
Health Education of the
UAMS
College
of Public Health June 16.
Dr. Pulley
spent the last nine years at the
School
of
Public Health
at the
University
of
Alabama
at
Birmingham
, where she concentrated on measuring the
knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of
individuals. She conducted the state’s
Behavioral Risk Factor Survey and built a
telephone survey unit from the ground up.
But in her new job she’s interested in
going in a new direction, in collaboration
with the Arkansas Department of Health (ADH).
“There’s
been a move in public health a little bit
away from focusing on changing behavior at
the individual level,” Pulley explained.
“With the focus going more and more to
community partnership, there’s an area
of measurement that is just being
developed, and I’m interested in going
there. Some communities are more ready
than others to take steps to improve their
health, or to make policy sorts of
changes. And how to measure that is not a
developed science yet.”
The
national Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention
has made developing measures of community
capacity an area of special interest,
funding four Prevention Research Centers
to study the subject. The UAMS College of
Public Health conceivably could become the
fifth through Pulley’s work.
The college
operates on a portion of
Arkansas
’ share of funds from the nationwide
tobacco settlement. It offers a Master of
Public Health, and is seeking full
accreditation in order to offer doctoral
and joint professional degrees. Dr.
Pulley’s role is still developing, but
she envisions a close association with the
ADH Hometown
Health Improvement initiative,
which has 25 sites around the state.
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“There’s a
lot of terms people throw around –
community empowerment, community capacity,
social capital, community readiness to
change – a bunch of concepts that float
around, and how to measure them is not
clear,” she said. “It seems that all
the work that’s already going on could
be a natural laboratory to explore some of
these issues, and that would also then
inform the activities of the state Health
Department.”
Pulley is
interested in applying several research
questions to the somewhat nebulous
concepts:
Can they be measured? Do they work
the way they should? Can a community’s
capacity be changed? How can it be
changed? Once those questions are answered
the research specialist can compare data
and look for trends that can be used to
set up models for meeting health needs in
all sorts of communities.
“The
scientists take the theory and try to come
up with more concrete examples of what
they might look like in a community, and
then work with the community leaders to
get feedback on exactly how these things
play out in that community,” Pulley
said. “And then from that they try to
come up with objective, quantitative
questions that could then be asked of
community leaders across a variety of
communities and still make sense. And then
they look for patterns that play out in
diverse settings.”
Turning
interview responses from people of diverse
backgrounds and levels of education and
health understanding into quantifiably
scientific data may seem like fitting a
square peg in a round hole, but it’s
what Pulley does best. “They talk about
folks being in their ivory towers, where
we can’t possibly know the community and
its needs and strengths and desires,“
she said. “You need community input and
involvement.
“A big
part of it, of course, is respect. We need
to go into communities respecting them and
how they’ve done things. And we need to
earn the communities’ respect by being
honest with them and sharing resources and
information with them,” Pulley said.
And, she
says, public health professionals have to
be patient and “in it for the long
haul.” Health research is not accurately
measured overnight, and meeting needs once
they’re assessed is an ongoing process.
That’s a task she finds stimulating.
“If we come up with models that work,
the potential of it having statewide
impact is really great,” she said.
“You know, I got into this because I’m
kind of a do-gooder by heart. I want to
help.”
Links on This Page
UAMS College of Public Health: http://www.uams.edu/coph/default.htm
Arkansas Dept. of Health Hometown Health
Improvement:
http://www.healthyarkansas.com/hometown/hometown.html
Centers for Disease Control:
http://www.cdc.gov
Huge Biomedical Databases Require New Kind
of Scientist:
http://www.uams.edu/today/2003/032003/NewKindofScientist.htm
Public Health Experts Join New UAMS
College:
http://www.uams.edu/today/2003/010103/PHexperts.htm
“A Great Day for Arkansas”:
http://www.uams.edu/today/2002/070202/cphtopping.htm
Audio – Public Health Week:
http://www.uams.edu/htyh/2003/04-04/PublicHealthWeek.htm
© 2003 University of
Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). A single copy of these
materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only.
“UAMS,” “UAMS Online,” “UAMS Today,” “UAMS Update,” “uams.edu,”
and “Here’s to Your Health” are marks of UAMS. |
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