The 2003 Jay S. Drotman Memorial Award was presented to Denys Tsz-Wai Lau, Ph.D., in November 2003, at the 131st Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA) in San Francisco. The award recognizes a young health worker or student who has demonstrated potential in the health field by challenging traditional public health policy or practice in a creative and positive manner. Denys Lau was a program analyst with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality from 2000 to 2002. While at the Agency, he worked with other AHRQ researchers on the 1996 Nursing Home Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS).
Denys Lau is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan and Pfizer Global Outcomes Research Group. He earned his doctoral degree in Health Services Research from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health last year. Dr. Lau used the 1996 MEPS Nursing Home Survey in his dissertation work investigating potentially inappropriate medication use among nursing home residents. His dissertation received the AcademyHealth 2002 Outstanding Dissertation Award in Health Services Research.