Interview Notes -Dr. Susannah Anderson PDF

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Summary of the interview video with Dr. Susannah Anderson...

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Interview: Dr. Susannah Anderson Intro: ●

One of leading health psychology professors - Intro to public health, health psych, maternal and child health, program planning

Questions: ● Do you think that underserved populations are affecting outcomes? ○ No, I don’t think so ○ Disparities and risk factors - a particular race does not place you at risk for a disease that is not genetic - it places you at risk for being treated a certain way and having different opportunities such as education or access to health care, etc. ○ Outcomes may be affected - but not always susceptible to disease because of race alone ○ Treatment of and interventions for these issues - marginalized people might be affected ■ Not having access to (quality) care leads to poor outcomes ● Opioid Crisis - where do you think we’re going to be in 5 years, are we prepared? ○ I don’t think we’re going to have a handle on it - hope that it will be improved and patients will not go to the doctor asking for a prescription expecting to be completely pain free ○ Pain management is part of the process - not to eliminate pain but to continue healing ○ Illegal economy of opioid crisis is going to take a long time to address ○ Addiction requires a lot of services that are not adequately funded as of right now ○ There is a move to prescribe less - but still a problem and automatic to prescribe after surgery ● Parkland shooting - celebrity suicides - becomes a big issue in the news - are we prepared? Do we have the services/infrastructure available? ○ Needs to be better - need more emergency services, need better connection to care - institutions like colleges need to do better at providing mental health services to students - expensive but should be a choice of investment ● Research #1: Qualitative study which explores the relationship between health insurance status and the health and health-related behaviors of persons living with HIV in rural and urban regions ○ Looking for qualitative descriptive information about what services people with HIV are able to access - where they weren’t getting care they needed differences between urban vs rural areas ○ People in rural areas were not using the internet as much ■ Navigating insurance is difficult ■ Prescription drug coverage is constantly changing ○ Particularly difficult for people with other types of health conditions such as heart problems, etc.

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■ Managing all health needs was difficult and complicated to get good care Research #2: Plan4Health project supporting local coalitions in efforts to reduce chronic disease in communities across the US ○ Urban planners and public health associations ○ Planning change or project that would also impact public health (healthy foods + urban planning, bike paths improving walkability, etc.) Research #3: Recruiting older African-American women for a cancer screening message trial: Theory, GIS maps, and church entree ○ Why recruiting older african americans? ■ Rates of cancer screening and disease outcomes are lower and worse for AA women in Virginia - related to access of care ○ Why church entree? ■ If you’re trying to recruit anyone for a community based intervention, you go to places where people spend a lot of time and have social networks demographic they were looking for, church was a big part of their social life ■ A lot of big churches will have public health officers or nurses on staff who are looking to find ways to bring health related programs to their congregations ○ GIS? ■ Allows you to map anything (churches, disease outbreaks, etc.) and allows you to perform a spatial analysis to see if there’s clusters of disease or calculating distances to liquor stores, distances to grocery stores, hospitals, etc. ■ Wouldn’t be able to do the same type of thing with SAS ■ Picture/map gives understanding of where problems rise and where access might be needed Research #4: Mental health symptoms and health risk behaviors associated with childhood abuse in HIV positive young women ○ Worked with young women with HIV who had experienced childhood abuse ○ Saw a connection between risk behaviors and mental health symptoms that were associated with childhood abuse ○ Need for prevention services for children and families early on ○ People with HIV, or children and families of someone with HIV, have an increased risk and require extra attention Research #5: A case study for improving LGBTQ Cultural competency at a higher redudcation institutions ○ What got you interested in this particular area? ■ Tulane did not have a queer student union - so helped found student organization as a PhD student - did a lot of research ■ Worked on school wide survey of cultural competency in the school of public health

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How prepared students believed them to be for treating patients/clients with LGBTQ needs, how prepared teachers thought their students would, where it shows up in coursework ■ Students thought themselves more prepared than professors thought the students were ○ All schools should be explicitly addressing cultural competency and teach students to be understanding and help treat a diverse number of patients Research #6: Debate and academic success among high-risk students - Evidence from the Chicago Debate League ○ Looking at outcomes for student debaters in Chicago - 10 years of data ○ Students who participated had better outcomes (graduation rates, standardized test rates, college matriculation, etc.) ○ Limitations: will have better outcomes for students participating in a program vs students who aren’t participating ■ Matched students on a number of different characteristics ○ Students who came in with low standardized test scores - who were considered at risk - were getting just as much benefit from the program as students who were not considered at risk ■ Gave students something structured to do after school ○ Connectedness and social capital - ways to reach people that are not traditional! ○ Tons of programs are trying to improve educational outcomes for students - often new and expensive - rather use something that’s built into the school structure that’s not explicitly used to improve graduation rates - can be really helpful Journal Recommendation ○ American journal of public health ○ American journal of pediatrics One person who had an influence on your career ○ Masters advisor Riahana Mezick? / mentor If you could change one aspect if your position - what is something you would like to spend more time on? ○ Research! Mostly working with students now...