Mala Brings Native American Students to NIH
June 15-23, 2002
Washington, DC

Council of Public Representatives (COPR) member Ted Mala, M.D., brought 50 outstanding Native American high school students to the NIH campus through the 5th Annual National Native American Youth Initiative (NNAYI) in Health, Biomedical Research, and Policy Development program. The initiative is sponsored by the Association of American Indian Physicians and is designed to expose young Native Americans with interests in the health professions to health and biomedical research opportunities. During their stay in DC, the youth visited with John Ruffin, Ph.D., director of the National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities; Sanford Garfield, Ph.D., Senior Advisor to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; and Ron King, Ph.D., director of the Office of Technology Transfer in the National Human Genome Research Institute; as well as many other distinguished representatives from NIH, George Washington University, and other government agencies. As part of their visit to the NIH campus the students visited the National Library of Medicine and toured the NIH Research Laboratories. In addition, Dr. Mala and NNAYI staff along with two of the NNAYI students presented to the NIH Public Liaison Officers at the monthly Office of Public Liaison meeting held on Monday, June 17.

Yee Presents "NIH 101" at the Windward Rotary Club
May 3, 2002
Oahu, HI

COPR member Doug Yee presented an NIH 101 talk to the Rotary Club of Windward Oahu. The NIH 101 is a newly developed tool for the COPR members to present to interested groups as an overview of the NIH. The PowerPoint presentation provides information on NIH's goals, mission, and structure to help increase public understanding of the NIH. Mr. Yee adapted the presentation to make it particularly relevant to Hawaii by adding examples of Hawaiian research institutions that currently receive NIH funding and including NIH-funded research topics being studied in Hawaii. The presentation was described as a great success by members of the Windward Oahu Rotary Club in the Club's most recent newsletter.

Muñoz, Lappin, and Quigley Present on Informed Consent
May 18-23, 2002
Philadelphia, PA

COPR members Rodrigo Muñoz, M.D., Debra Lappin, J.D., and Rosemary Quigley, J.D., served as presenters at a symposium, "Global Psychiatry and Patient's Rights: Informed Consent," as part of the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The symposium centered on principles of human research protections as discussed by COPR. In an introductory presentation, Ms. Lappin reviewed the role of informed consent in research protections, the purpose and meaning of informed consent, the necessary elements of informed consent, and how things can go wrong. Ms. Quigley discussed human research protections and informed consent as they relate to persons with mental illness; she focused particularly on the regulatory environment for protections in mental health research. Dr. Muñoz played an instrumental role in proposing and organizing the symposium. Harold Eist, M.D., chair of the APA Commission on Global Psychiatry, and Norman Sartorius, M.D., president of the European Psychiatric Association, discussed the national and international applications of regulations guiding human research protections.

Ted Mala to Present at the NLM Board of Regents Meeting
September 10-11, 2002
Bethesda, MD

COPR member Ted Mala has been invited to present an one-hour presentation at the National Library of Medicine (NLM) Board of Regents Meeting in September. Dr. Ted Mala, Immediate Past President of the American Association of Indian Physicians (AAIP), will brief the Board on the results of the recently concluded annual meeting of the AAIP held in Anchorage, Alaska. Dr. Mala will share his perspectives on the health challenges facing Native Americans, and Alaska Natives in particular, and the role that health information can play in improving Native health conditions. NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhounis is also expected to attend and make brief remarks at the meeting. Over the last four years, NLM has sponsored a variety of health information outreach activities to Native American Communities motivated in part by the understanding that American Indian and Alaska Native communities experience significant health disparities. NLM's varied effort, both directly and through the National Network of Libraries of Medicine, have focused on improving tribal awareness of, access to, and use of web-based health information-including but not limited to NLM's health information resources.

Lappin to Participate in NIH Conflict of Interest Workshop
NIH Campus

COPR Member Debra Lappin has been invited to participate in the upcoming NIH Conflicts of Interest Workshop on September 30, 2002. She along with the top 100 people in the field will be gathering at NIH to discuss this important research conduct issue.

Montoya Working with NIDCD to Improve Diagnosis and Intervention Services
Houston, TX

Isaac Montoya, Ph.D., a member of the COPR, arranged a series of "connecting" meetings for the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) in Houston with Memorial Hermann Children's Hospital, Affiliated Systems research staff, and two community clinics with model programs. Dr. Montoya is working with NIDCD to improve follow-through for diagnosis and intervention services by families when infants are identified at birth as deaf or hard-of-hearing. This early identification and intervention is critical for the best educational, economic, and social outcomes for these children. Among audiences who need focused messages are Hispanic/Latino/Latina and African American parents who do not have easy access to services. Dr. Montoya is helping NIDCD identify the right places to help in the development of those strategies and messages. NIDCD is grateful to Dr. Montoya, in addition, for his expert advice about outreach to Hispanic/Latino/Latina workers with messages about preventing noise-induced hearing loss. For more information, contact Marin P. Allen, Ph.D., at (301) 496-7243 or via e-mail at marin_allen @nih.gov.

Lappin and Montoya Asked to Serve on NIH Pediatric Review Panel
NIH Campus

COPR members Isaac Montoya, Ph.D., and Debra Lappin, J.D., have been asked to serve on an ad hoc review panel to advise NIH director, Elias Zerhouni, M.D., on an important aspect of the new NIH Pediatric Research Initiative. The Children's Health Act of 2002 required the NIH to establish a Pediatric Research Initiative in the Office of the Director of the NIH. NIH has committed $5 million from the NIH Director's Discretionary Fund for FY 2002 to fund new or to expand existing pediatric research projects. Institutes and Centers are submitting research projects that they have already reviewed and evaluated. The ad hoc review panel will be asked to advise Dr. Zerhouni on priorities among the applications and to suggest factors he should consider when making his final choice.

Quigley Involved in Various NIH Activities
NIH Campus

COPR Member Rosemary Quigley has been invited to attend the upcoming NIH Conflicts of Interest Workshop on September 30th, 2002. She along with the top 100 people in the field will be gathering at NIH to discuss this important research conduct issue. In addition, Ms. Quigley has also been invited to attend the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) Workshop on Ethical Challenges of End-of-Life Research. Ms. Quigley was invited to respond to scientific presentations from the perspective of medical educator, public representative and research participant. The workshop will be held on the NIH Campus on September 12th and 13th and will deal with challenges involving subjects with genetic disorders.

Montoya Establishes Fellowship Program
Houston, TX

COPR member Isaac Montoya, Ph.D., CEO of Affiliated Systems in Houston, TX, has established the Alan I. Leshner Post-Doctorate Fellowship program. The fellowship is available to junior faculty from universities around the country with the purpose of helping them improve upon their research skills and to better understand the NIH process of grantsmanship. Under the program, six faculty members from New Mexico State University will be sent to Houston for the summer of 2002 to learn how to prepare grant applications. Affiliated Systems chose to honor Alan I. Leshner, Ph.D., who was the Director of the National Institute of Drug Abuse from 1994 to 2001, by naming this fellows program after him.

Mala Invited to Join NEI Working Group
June 28, 2002
NIH Campus

COPR member Ted Mala, M.D., was asked to join or send a representative to join the National Eye Institute's (NEI's) National Eye Health Education Program work group meeting on American Indian and Alaska Native Outreach. Dr. Mala was unable to attend, but did send a representative. The work group meeting was the first step in the development of an outreach program for American Indian and Alaska Natives with diabetic eye disease. The 15-member work group met to identify communication channels and help to identify resources and communication channels for increasing awareness about diabetic eye disease among American Indians and Alaska Natives.

Offices of Public Liaison-COPR Activities

NIAMS
Rachel Moore, Senior Writer/Editor in the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) Office of Communications and Public Liaison, attended the Association of American Indian Physicians meeting in Alaska to provide recruitment information and to disseminate materials at the invitation of COPR member Ted Mala, M.D. Ms. Moore has also provided Dr. Mala with NIAMS materials and helped the media locate a physician resource for a story on health care in Alaska.

NIAID
James Hadley, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Public Liaison Officer, worked with COPR members Rodrigo Muñoz, M.D., and Doug Yee to host activities related to World Asthma Day on May 7 in San Diego, CA, and Hawaii. Both COPR members partnered with the American Lung Association to further expand the outreach for this event. Mr. Hadley provided manuals and other information as well as encouragement and support.

NIDDK
COPR member Rodrigo Muñoz, M.D., received educational materials on diabetes from Betsy Singer, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) Director of the Office of Communications and Public Liaison. This information has been shared with a San Diego research and community action center, the Whittier Institute, which is now communicating with Ms. Singer directly.

In addition, Ms. Singer has invited COPR member Ted Mala, M.D., to participate in an NIDDK conference entitled Diabetes and American Indians: Hope through Research, which will take place in December.

Ms. Singer also shared information with COPR member Kimberley Hinton on NIDDK's Sisters Together: Move More, Eat Better, a national media-based program designed to encourage Black women 18 and older to maintain a healthy weight by becoming more physically active and eating healthier foods.

NIAAA
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Public Liaison Officer Kelly Green Kahn and Institute director Raynard Kington, M.D., Ph.D., recommended a speaker to address issues related to barriers to care for people of color at a conference for health care providers in response to a request from COPR member Kimberley Hinton.

Ms. Green Kahn is working with COPR member Zelda Tetenbaum, who is providing feedback on the NIAAA publication A Call to Action: Changing the Culture of Drinking at U.S. Colleges and has agreed to distribute some of the reports when they are reprinted.

NIDCD
Marin Allen, Ph.D., Chief, Office of Health Communication and Public Liaison, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), and COPR member Rodrigo Muñoz, M.D., are currently exploring the concept of a "virtual visit" by NIH that could serve as a model for other Office of Public Liaison-COPR community collaborations. The virtual visit would consist of a Web-based Webcast from the NIH.