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Greetings from the Institute for Medicine and Public Health!
As we begin the 2024-2025 academic year, I want to extend a warm welcome to all students in our education and training programs. This year holds exciting opportunities for learning, growth, and innovation, and I am delighted to have you on this journey with us.
I would like to take a moment to celebrate the outstanding achievements of our faculty, who continue to shape future healthcare leaders and advance our health care mission. Their work has earned notable recognition in education, veterans’ health innovation, groundbreaking research in rehabilitation, safe prescription drug use, and vaccines. Our global health research efforts are also making significant strides in Mozambique and Vietnam, addressing critical health challenges, and creating meaningful impact worldwide.
I would also like to recognize our distinguished alumni, who are making a difference by raising awareness, improving health care access for vulnerable populations, and even embarking on space exploration missions. Their accomplishments inspire us all.
As you embark on your own academic and professional paths, I encourage you to draw inspiration from these successes. Together, we can make this year one of excellence and discovery.
Thank you for your dedication, passion, and continued contributions to our mission
Russell
Russell Rothman, MD, MPP
Senior Vice President, Population and Public Health
Director, Institute for Medicine and Public Health
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Robert S. Dittus, MD, MPH has been awarded the 2024 David M. Worthen Career Achievement Award in Health Professions Education by the Veterans Health Administration. He is the first VUMC faculty member to receive this prestigious recognition, which honors individuals who have significantly advanced the VA’s health care education mission.
Dr. Dittus, the Albert and Bernard Werthan Professor of Medicine and Chief Innovation Officer at VUMC, has made substantial contributions to the education and training of healthcare professionals, particularly through his leadership as the founding director of the Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center (GRECC) and the Vanderbilt-VA Quality Scholars Fellowship Training Program. His dedication to improving veterans' health through education is a testament to his impactful career.
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 | Christianne Roumie, MD, MPH
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Christianne Roumie, MD, MPH, a research health scientist at the VA Tennessee Valley Healthcare System (TVHS) and professor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, has been named director of the newly established Health Systems Research Center of Innovation (COIN) for the Department of Veterans Affairs. The center, VETerans’ Wellbeing Through Innovation Systems Science and Experience in Learning Health Systems (VETWISE-LHS), is based at TVHS in Nashville.
VETWISE-LHS aims to prevent early-stage diseases, improve care for complex illnesses through research and innovation, and develop new methods for transforming data into knowledge to enhance veteran health. Roumie will be joined by associate directors Michael Matheny, MD, MS, MPH, and Lucy Spalluto, MD, MPH. The center's team includes 36 core and affiliate scientists.
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Carolyn Audet, PhD, associate professor of Health Policy and Annet Kirabo, DVM, PhD., associate professor of Medicine, were selected for the 2024 cohort of Chancellor Faculty Fellows. Each fellow holds the title for two years, receives $40,000 per year to support their work. Fellows also meet with their cohort to exchange ideas on teaching and research, build a broader intellectual community that advances collaborative scholarship and engage in academic leadership development to increase their leadership capacity.
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Honoring Drs. Jennifer Lewis and Lucy Spalluto with the Inaugural VAQS Alumni Team Award
The inaugural VAQS Alumni Team Award was presented to Drs. Jennifer Lewis and Lucy Spalluto.
Dr. Lewis, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt and the Nashville VA, and Dr. Spalluto, Professor of Radiology and Vice-Chair of Health Equity at Vanderbilt and the Nashville VA, met during their VAQS fellowship in 2017. Their shared passion for cancer screening led to the creation of the VA’s National Center for Lung Cancer Screening. Together, they’ve co-authored 14 publications, secured over $6 million in grant funding, and made significant contributions to education, mentoring, and leadership.
Congratulations to Drs. Lewis and Spalluto for this well-deserved recognition!
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Wesley Ely, MD, MPH, the Grant W. Liddle Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and co-director of the Center for Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship, has been awarded the Paul B. Magnuson Award for Outstanding Achievement in Rehabilitation Research and Development by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
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Natasha Halasa, MD, MPH, the Craig Weaver Professor in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University, is advancing research to reduce the burden of diarrheal and respiratory illnesses in young children and specialized populations. Dr. Halasa, who has been involved in vaccine trials since 2002, leads the Vanderbilt site of the CDC's New Vaccine Surveillance Network, which conducts active population-based surveillance to predict the impact of potential new vaccines and prepare for future pediatric illnesses globally.
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Michael R. DeBaun, MD, MPH
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In light of the Prison Policy Initiative’s 2023 report revealing that over 47,000 children under 18 are incarcerated, with 1 in 16 in adult prisons or jails, Dr. DeBaun, Director for Vanderbilt-Meharry Center for Excellence in Sickle Cell Disease and Professor of Pediatrcis and Medicine, discusses the critical need to raise awareness and improve health care access for these vulnerable youths.
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A new study from Vanderbilt University, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, introduces innovative methods for determining safe and unsafe opioid dosages. Led by Dr. Andrew Spieker, Associate Professor in the Department of Biostatistics, and a team from the Department of Health Policy, the research utilized simulation studies and real-world insurance claims data to create flexible modeling approaches that address inaccuracies in existing methods.The Vanderbilt team of investigators aincluded Andrew Wiese, PhD, Margaret Adgent, PhD, MSPH, Sarah Osmundson, MD, MS, Sharon Phillips, MSPH, Ed Mitchel, Jr., MS, Ashley Leech, PhD, and Carlos Grijalva, MD, MPH.
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Study shows individuals from very low-income households have higher risk of early death. A new study illustrates the extent to which poverty impacts health: individuals in households with annual incomes below $15,000 are at three times the risk for early death compared to those in average-income families.
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Vanderbilt researchers establish biomedical informatics training program in Mozambique
Building sustainable biomedical informatics training and research capacity to address gaps in Mozambique’s national HIV response will help the country leverage newer data-driven and genetics-based approaches for personalized HIV care and molecular epidemiology of the disease. The core leadership team of Martin Were, MD, MS, professor of Biomedical Informatics and Medicine at VUMC; C. William Wester, MD, MPH, professor of Medicine in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at VUMC; Baltazar Chilundo, PhD, associate professor in Public Health at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM) and an affiliate professor at the University of Washington Department of Global Health; and Emilio Mosse, PhD, MS, assistant professor of Information Systems in the Faculty of Science at UEM, will serve as co-principal investigators.
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| NIH grant supports effort to build expertise in genetic epidemiology research in Vietnam V2-GENE, the Vanderbilt-Vietnam Genetic Epidemiology Training Program, will develop a team of researchers and educators to lead genetic epidemiology research of noncommunicable diseases across the lifespan in Vietnam. The multi-investigator team leading V2-GENE includes Digna Velez Edwards, PhD, MS, a human geneticist; Xiao-Ou Shu, MD, PhD, MPH who is also associate director of Global Health and co-leader of the cancer epidemiology program at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center; Huong Thi Thanh Tran, MD, PhD, associate professor and chair of the Department of Ethics and Medical Psychology at Hanoi Medical University (HMU) and director of Vietnam National Cancer Institute (VNCI); and Giang Minh Le, MD, PhD, associate professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology and the Graduate Training Management Department at HMU.
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 | Vanderbilt Master of Public Health (MPH) program’s Class of 2027 with program leadership.
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|  | Vanderbilt Master of Public Health (MPH) program’s Class of 2027 at orientation on August 19, 2024.
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| MPH Program Welcomes 26 New Students
The MPH Program is excited to welcome 26 new students to the community! This diverse cohort includes VUMC residents, fellows, and faculty from various specialties, such as Rheumatology, Infectious Diseases (adult and pediatric), General Surgery, Geriatrics, and Neonatal-Perinatal Medicine. Additionally, the new students bring a wealth of academic backgrounds, with graduates from institutions like UT-Knoxville, Xavier University of Louisiana, Cal Poly, MTSU, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, and Cornell, among others. We look forward to the unique perspectives and contributions they will bring to the program!
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|  | Class of 2027 students in the Vanderbilt Master of Public Health (MPH) program’s Global Health track with track directors Marie Martin, PhD, MEd and Elizabeth Rose, EdD, MPH, MEd.
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|  | Class of 2027 students in the Vanderbilt Master of Public Health (MPH) program’s Epidemiology track with track directors Muktar Aliyu, MD, DrPH, MPH and Bill Heerman, MD.
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|  | Class of 2027 students in the Vanderbilt Master of Public Health (MPH) program’s Health Policy track.
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Sophie Katz, MD, MPH and her colleagues from Vanderbilt University Medical Center, urge healthcare practitioners to reduce antibiotic durations for acute otitis media (AOM) and other common respiratory tract infections. In a study published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, they highlight that while U.S. prescribers often recommend 10 days of antibiotics, international guidelines suggest 5 to 7 days is sufficient when antibiotics are needed. Katz and her team stress the importance of overcoming “academic imprinting” and adopting international trends to prevent excessive antibiotic use.
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Kelsey Gastineau, MD, MPH
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Kelsey Gastineau, MD, MPH, assistant professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, emphasizes the significant impact of gun violence on children, noting that approximately 3 million children in the U.S. witness a shooting each year. Hospitalization rates for youth with nonfatal gun injuries are five times higher than for their uninjured peers, according to a recent study in Pediatrics. The study also reveals that health care costs for children suffering from firearm wounds remain elevated long after their initial hospitalization.
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Photo by Dr. Eiman Jahangir (@DrEJahangir), posted on September 2, 2024, via Twitter/X.
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| The Health Policy & Health Services PhD Program is excited to welcome four new students to our academic community this year. Please join us in extending a warm welcome to Glory Dhanaraj, Chen Liu, Payton Robinette, Yang Zhang.
We are eager to see the contributions they will make to the field and the fresh perspectives they will bring to our program. Their diverse backgrounds and research interests promise to enrich our academic discussions and further the mission of advancing health policy and services.
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Dennis Lee Defends Dissertation on Buprenorphine Access
Dennis Lee, a doctoral student in Health Policy & Health Services Research, successfully defended his dissertation titled “Mechanisms to Increase Buprenorphine Access,” under the mentorship of Dr. John Graves. His research focuses on strategies to improve access to buprenorphine, a key treatment for opioid use disorder. Dennis is now a postdoctoral fellow at UCLA, where he continues his work in health policy.
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The Epidemiology PhD Program warmly welcomed six new students this year: Huy Le Duc, Ha Nguyen, Christopher Otieno, Samuel Pierre, Zicheng Wang, and Usman Wudil. The second-year cohort celebrated their arrival with an evening of conversation and fun at Topgolf, marking the start of an exciting journey in Nashville.
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Epidemiology Doctoral Students Enjoy a Day of Friendly Competition at K1 Speed
Nashville
This summer, our epidemiology doctoral students took a well-deserved break from their rigorous academic schedules to engage in some friendly competition on the race tracks at K1 Speed Nashville. The students spent a memorable afternoon racing go-karts, where their competitive spirits were on full display as they navigated the twists and turns of the track. With the thrill of speed and the excitement of the race, the students were able to unwind and recharge, fostering a sense of teamwork and community that will carry into their studies.
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On October 19, the Public Health Student Association will participate in the Nashville AIDS Walk in Shelby Park. All are invited to join the team!
Participation is free and all funds raised will benefit Nashville CARES.
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Join Us for the Population and Public Health Colloquium on November 8, 2024
All are invited to attend the upcoming Population and Public Health Colloquium on Friday, November 8, 2024, where students will share their latest research and experiences in the field of public health. Oral presentations will begin at 4 p.m., followed by a poster presentation reception at 5 p.m. The event is sponsored by the Institute for Medicine and Public Health, the Vanderbilt Medical Alumni Association, and the Vanderbilt MPH Program.
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from and support our emerging public health leaders! Click here to RSVP
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| Vanderbilt Institute for Medicine and Public Health
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
2525 West End Ave | Suite 1200 | Nashville, TN 37203
imph@vumc.org
www.vumc.org/medicine-public-health
@VUMC_IMPH
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