The University of California has teamed with Health Net, a California HMO, to offer six new lectures in the nationally acclaimed Wellness Lecture Series.
Delivered by distinguished University faculty selected by a Universitywide Steering Committee, the following lectures will be presented at the six University of California health sciences campuses:
"Adolescent Sexuality and Health Care Reform" - Adele Dellenbaugh Hofmann, M.D., Adjunct Professor and Director of Adolescent Medicine, UC Irvine
"The Role of Advertising in Promoting Adolescents to Start Smoking" - John P. Pierce, Ph.D., Associate Professor, UC San Diego
"Disease Prevention versus Health Promotion: Pitfalls of Preventive Care in the Geriatric Population" - Andrew Duxbury, M.D., Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine, UC Davis
"Ethical Challenges for Health Promotion in the 1990s" - Meredith A. Minkler, Dr.P.H., Professor of Community Health Education, UC Berkeley
"Linking the Public into the Emergency Public Health Care System: A University-Community Partnership" - Odelia Braun, M.D., Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine, UC San Francisco
"Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Programs in Community Dwelling Elderly -- The Challenge of the 21st Century" - John C. Beck, M.D., Professor of Medicine, UC Los Angeles
Each lecture is videotaped and available for purchase in VHS format. Highly viewable and relevant to today's evolving health care field, the videotapes are designed for broadcast within a one-hour time slot for presentation in educational seminars or for personal use.
Rich with innovative approaches and insights based on research on current topics in health and wellness, the series is a must for health professionals, health sciences professors, hospital staffs dedicated to promoting continuing education, and students interested in pursuing health sciences careers.
Sorry, the program materials for the 1993 Wellness Lecture Series are no longer available.
Brief abstracts of the six 1993 wellness lectures, edited from excerpts of the original papers, follow.
Adele Dellenbaugh Hofmann, M.D.
Adjunct Professor and Director of Adolescent Medicine,
Department of Pediatrics, UC Irvine
Adolescent sex is increasing. Among 15-year-olds today, 25% of all girls and 33% of all boys are sexually active. More than two-thirds of all high school seniors have had sex at least once, while teen pregnancy continues at an unacceptable rate, in part due to low usage of contraception. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are most prevalent among sexually active 15- to 19-year-olds; the incidence of HIV among adolescents doubles every 14 months.
We have created a sexually permissive environment for adolescents that promotes youthful sexual experimentation. At the same time, we have failed to educate youth adequately or provide appropriate preventive and early interventive health care to protect them. Our current social policy addresses the problem only after the fact of a pregnancy or an STD.
This lecture argues for a fundamental change in our educational and health care systems, one that recognizes the problem and provides appropriate sex education and affordable adolescent-oriented health care.
Dr. Hofmann has worked in academic adolescent medicine since the early 1960s. She has extensive experience with the comprehensive health needs of young people from many different ethnic and sociocultural backgrounds.
John P. Pierce, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Head, Cancer Prevention
and Control, UC San Diego
In the 40 years since the consequences of smoking have been known, the public health movement has had success in convincing adults not to start smoking, but has had little impact on adolescents. Many smokers become addicted when they are minors; overcoming this addiction is a lifelong struggle for many smokers.
Health advocates argue that tobacco advertising promotes teenage smoking, a claim hotly disputed by the tobacco industry. The argument for banning advertising depends on evidence that adolescent smoking would decline in the absence of the advertising. Providing such evidence, however, has not been easy.
This lecture presents a new approach to the problem, focusing on changes in tobacco industry advertising that have accompanied the introduction of new brands or the revitalization of existing brands. By tracing the impact of such campaigns, we can learn more about the effect of advertising on young adults and make informed policy decisions.
Dr. Pierce is well-recognized for his work on smoking behavior and tobacco control. Prior to assuming his current position at UC San Diego, he served as chief of epidemiology of the Office of Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control.
Andrew Duxbury, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine,
UC Davis
As the geriatric population increases and medicine's success at treating acute diseases of the elderly improves, many questions remain about the allocation of scant resources to older people, particularly those with chronic illness or cognitive impairment. Aware of the importance of health maintenance in the older patient, clinicians are often tempted to use any new screening test in an attempt to promote geriatric wellness. In so doing, they are focusing on " disease prevention" rather than "health promotion."
This lecture examines the utility of three common preventive screening tests in pointing out how easy it is for preventive measures to stray from the goals of health promotion. The lecture suggests that easily followed health promotion recommendations can be made to physicians that, when tempered with sound clinical judgment, will lead to more cost-effective health maintenance in older patients.
Dr. Duxbury is active in many health care services research projects, including the Cardiovascular Health Study and the Alzheimer's Disease Center's programs. He is medical director of Sacramento County's Multipurpose Senior Services Program.
Meredith A. Minkler, Dr.P.H.
Professor of Community Health Education, School
of Public Health, UC Berkeley
Although suggesting some promising steps forward, the health care reform debate has largely ignored several major ethical challenges for health promotion in the 1990s.
This lecture presents two alternate visions of health promotion and the ethical principles that underlie them. The lecture explores several key ethical challenges, including the need to (1) move beyond " individual responsibility for health" to address the role of social inequities in influencing health status; (2) take seriously the rhetoric of empowerment and community participation; (3) recognize and address unanticipated consequences of our health promotion efforts; (4) step up policy changes in combating the tobacco industry; and (5) reframe the debate between individual autonomy and "public good."
The lecture also presents the recent Canadian approach to health promotion as an example of how a broader and ethically sound approach to health promotion in the U.S. might look.
Dr. Minkler's research interests include social support and health of the elderly and the political economy of aging. She was founding director of the UC Berkeley Center on Aging and cofounder of the Tenderloin Senior Outreach Project.
Odelia Braun, M.D.
Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine, Center
for Prehospital Research and Training, UC San Francisco
Attempts to reduce mortality from cardiac arrest have been limited by a lack of public participation in the emergency health care system. "911" Emergency Medical Services (EMS) systems are limited in the patient care they can deliver, because the public is unaware that the public itself is the critical first link in the emergency health system.
Recent studies show that without public intervention at the moment of collapse, chances of survival from a heart attack are halved. However, the rate of delivery of such intervention, especially CPR, is very low.
This lecture presents the results of a University-community partnership to educate the public in its role as the first-line provider in the emergency public health care system. Creative programs promoting CPR instruction have proved effective and can serve as models for other communities seeking to improve their emergency public health care system.
Dr. Braun is the founder and medical director of the Center for Prehospital Research and Training at UC San Francisco. She is also EMS medical director of the San Francisco Fire Department and a renowned lecturer on prehospital cardiac arrest.
John C. Beck, M.D
Professor of Medicine, UC Los Angeles
Preventing or slowing the onset of functional decline in the elderly presents a major challenge to the maintenance of wellness in older Americans.
Comprehensive geriatric assessment (CGA) is an emerging strategy that aims to maximize functional independence. CGA has proved effective in decreasing mortality and improving functional status among older patients in the inpatient setting.
This lecture presents findings from a study aimed at determining whether CGA, combined with a preventive health care and health promotion program, would lower mortality and lead to better health and function for elderly individuals living in the community.
Preliminary findings suggest that such intervention leads to lower risk of nursing home admission, less decline in function, and less depression. This suggests that CGA, combined with prevention and health promotion, can be effective in the home setting.
Dr. Beck has been a leader in the development of medical education, research, and service programs throughout the world. He served as the first director of the Multicampus Program of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology.