Big Blue Public Health Illumination enters second year with focus on research, data and collaboration
After a first year exploring Kentucky's public health history, landscape and collaborative approaches to our state's health challenges, the UK College of Public Health's Big Blue Public Health Illumination Seminar Series is continuing that work by bringing in leaders and ideas that support public health across the Commonwealth.
The series, launched last academic year, was created as a forum for students, faculty, public health professionals and community members to come together around emerging issues, innovative research and evidence-based solutions.
“Public health is constantly evolving, and we want this series to be a place where our community can come together to learn, ask questions and think differently about the challenges we face,” said College of Public Health Dean Heather Bush, Ph.D. “The goal is not simply to highlight important work, but to create opportunities for connection and collaboration that can ultimately make a difference for Kentuckians.”
The second year of the series builds on a broad range of conversations from the inaugural series. Year 1 began with a look at Kentucky’s current public health landscape and history before moving into topics including opioid response, violence prevention, the health impacts of COVID-19 policies, injury prevention, emergency preparedness and statewide public health partnerships.
Across those discussions, a common theme emerged: addressing Kentucky’s most complex health challenges requires more than individual programs or disciplines. It requires research, data, prevention strategies and partnerships.
That same theme carries into Year 2.
“Each seminar gives us a different lens through which to understand public health, but they all reinforce how connected our work is,” Bush said. “Whether we are talking about research methods, data systems or community partnerships, we are looking for ways to better understand problems and turn that knowledge into action.”
The series begins Sept. 2 with “Rethinking Research Processes: Introduction to Demographic Conscious Analysis,” featuring Felicity Enders, Ph.D., a professor of biostatistics and clinical and translational science at Mayo Clinic.
The seminar examines how researchers use demographic information in health research and decision-making and introduces “demographic conscious analysis” — an evaluation method that takes into consideration elements such as age, geographic location, household income and education levels — as an approach for identifying factors that may better explain differences in health outcomes.
Enders also will explore how chronic stress and accelerated aging can provide researchers with additional ways to understand differences among populations, while discussing how demographic conscious analysis can be applied more broadly when certain characteristics serve as proxies for other underlying factors.
The second fall seminar, “Building Systems Through Partnerships and Community-Driven Analytics,” takes place Oct. 14 and focuses on how partnerships can turn data into meaningful public health action.
The session will bring together leaders from state government, the University of Kentucky and other partners to examine how relationships, data infrastructure and analytic capacity can help communities identify needs, inform decisions and connect residents with services.
The session features Jilnar El Masri, executive director of the Office of Data Analytics for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services; Savannah Sublette-Federico, executive advisor with the Office of Data Analytics; Pamela Wright, State University Partnership Program manager for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services; and Connor Ferguson, associate director of Biomedical Data Science at UK.
“I'm especially excited about this session,” said Anna Hallahan, MPH, director of external affairs for the college. “It came about because we asked our college's leadership to tell us who's currently doing innovative and successful collaborative work across Kentucky, and Dr. Svetla Slavova didn't miss a beat. She connected us with Jilnar El Masri.”
The discussion explores state university partnerships, data sharing and governance, research and analytics capacity building and a referral platform designed to connect residents with needed services and track whether they received those services.
The college will continue the Big Blue Public Health Illumination series with additional seminars in the spring.
The series is open to the public and offered in a hybrid format, allowing participants to attend in person or virtually. The approach is intended to make the conversations accessible to students, faculty, public health professionals, community members and others interested in the health of Kentucky.
