APA, CDC and the public health

By Henry Tomes, PhD
Executive Director for the Public Interest

Serendipity strikes again! Maybe? A couple of years ago Dr. Ray Fowler, several staff persons representing APA directorates, and I visited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in response to an invitation from Dr. David Satcher, then CDC director. Satcher, now U.S. Surgeon General, saw a need for increased participation of psychologists and other behavioral scientists in the CDC?s work and, by extension, in public health. He thought APA could bring about that increased level of participation. Ray Fowler thought there was an opportunity for CDC leadership to communicate ideas about how psychology and other behavioral and social sciences contribute and what some future opportunities might be.

CDC responded by submitting a set of papers on past, present and future contributions by social and behavioral scientists to public health issues and to CDC. Those papers were published in the American Psychologist in February 1997.

APA and CDC agreed that a conference would be an excellent way to demonstrate how behavioral and social scientists could enhance CDC prevention and intervention programs. CDC indicated a need to partner with us to develop such a conference, on the condition that APA would take the lead and involve other behavioral and social science organizations.

Conference planning

The Public Interest Directorate spearheaded the planning effort with cooperation from APA?s Education, Science and Practice directorates. APA?s Jackie Gentry, PhD, accepted the responsibility for this complex undertaking. Her task, a mission possible, was to reach out to the behavioral and social science community for its collaboration, develop a cooperative agreement with CDC, and preside over an ever-changing cast of internal and external participants. Over the planning period she would be assisted by Drs. Denise Daugherty (now at ACHPR), Heidi Hsai (now at DOJ) and Julia Silva (still here) who performed admirably as conference planning and implementation took place.

Almost every organization invited recognized the importance of the conference and agreed to participate.

Most agreed to help with planning, which included nominating and encouraging their most respected scientist members to serve as presenters. The 13 collaborating organizations did those things and then some. Dr. Marjorie Speers was designated as project officer by CDC and coordinated the input of its staff. APA?s conference planning got a big boost when Dr. Neil Schneiderman, of behavioral health research fame, agreed to serve as overall conference chair. He along with Drs. Ray Lorion, Carole Sparks, Abe Wandersman, with capable assistance from Joyce Barham, served as advisers and in addition to other duties, provided important quality control functions.

The planning meetings were designed to facilitate the involvement and participation of all partners. However, one can imagine how complex it was to develop a participatory matrix which consisted of 14 partners, three themes (risk factors, interventions, evaluation), while simultaneously attending to diversity concerns and cost factors. From time to time, but in a collegial manner, concerns were raised about the apparent preponderance of psychologists; an accurate perception arising from the fact that psychologists held memberships in more than one collaborating organization. These matters were addressed, adjustments made and conference planning proceeded.

The conference

On May 7, 'Public health in the 21st century: behavioral and social science contributions' got under way with over 300 registrant/participants in attendance. Dr. Arthur Bienenstock, of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, keynoted the conference. Two days later Dr. Marty Seligman, APA president, and Dr. Kenneth Shine, president, Institute of Medicine, brought the activities to a successful close.

The conferees, representing a multitude of disciplines, addressed the risk factor, interventions and evaluation themes in plenary, symposia and dialogue sessions. (Dialogues were devised as small group exercises to generate give and take among participants by having session leaders present them with challenging research or methodological concerns, emerging issues in their disciplines or matters in research and theory.) Using these presentation models, relevant research findings and models were presented which highlighted the ways in which behavioral and social sciences could be further integrated into public health. For CDC staff, the conference reinforced the importance of other sciences in helping them to address certain public health concerns.

However, it was the informal interactions and networking opportunities afforded the participants, as well as the CDC staff interactions with them, that could prove to be the most serendipitous happening of all.