APHA members in action

On Saturday, members of APHA's Community Health Planning and Policy Development Section participated in the group's third annual Community Action Day. This year, Section members partnered with Boston's Mattapan Community Health Center to organize HEY! Let's Eat and Dance for Good Health, a day of crafts, dance and health promotion.

Above, Mattapan community residents, health center staff and APHA members take part in fun and healthy activities, such as balloon arts and dancing. Also during the day of action, residents could get in-person help and advice in navigating the new Health Insurance Marketplace and finding affordable coverage.

Photos by Amy Carroll-Scott, courtesy APHA's Community Health Planning and Policy Development Section

The cartoon network

Good health is nothing to joke about, but there is certainly something funny about the twists and turns we take in our pursuit of it.

In the last year, two books have been released that rely on political cartoons to make the case about how we Americans relate to health and health care.

Marion Nestle, author of "Eat Drink Vote: An Illustrated Guide to Food Politics," takes a discerning look at everything from fad diets to the farm bill, all through the eye of political cartoons.

And APHA Executive Director Georges Benjamin is a co-author of "The Quest for Health Reform: A Satirical History," which follows efforts to enact meaningful change in the ways we deliver health over the years.

Both Nestle and Benjamin‚ along with "Quest for Health Reform" co-authors Theodore Brown, Susan Ladwig and Elyse Berkman, were on hand at the Public Health Expo on Sunday to sign their books and talk to fans.

"She's my hero," said Sarah Shimer, an APHA member who works on nutrition issues in Alaska, referring to Nestle, who is the Paulette Goddard professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies and Public Health at New York University. "I think she has a realistic approach to public health nutrition."

Nestle's book deals with the problems of the U.S. food system — everything from low-carb diets to funding for agriculture and farming, all of which she writes are fertile ground for cartoonists.

"Cartoonists do more than entertain," she writes. "They tap into the emotional core of complicated concepts and convey at a glance what might otherwise take pages to explain."

Mary Pittman agreed.

Pittman, who works at the Public Health Institute in Oakland, Calif., bought copies of both Nestle's and Benjamin's books, saying she likes the way the cartoons can show different sides of the story.

"They allow us through satire to look at these thorny issues and maybe see that there is not just a single truth," she said.

To check out the books for yourself, visit APHA Press in the center of the Expo hall.

— C.T.

Sunday's storyboard

Below are some of the best moments from the first day of the 141st Annual Meeting and Exposition, courtesy of APHA's Storify.

Monday's Have You Heard

Welcome to the lab: It's not what you think — there'll be no white coats, test tubes or Bunsen burners. This is APHA's new Social Media Lab, a chance to brainstorm just the right formula for using social media to reach your public health goals. The lab will offer one-on-one meetings with social media experts from APHA and AIDS.gov, so click here to sign up in advance or stop by to learn more. Or just swing by to pick up informational materials or join the social media discussion. The Social Media Lab is open to Annual Meeting registrants on Monday and Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Southwest Lobby of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Daily specials: Two APHA Special Sessions are scheduled for Monday's 8:30-10 a.m. slot. The first, session 3010 in Grand Ballroom A of the Westin Waterfront, focuses on "Prescription Drug Overdoses: Emerging Best Practices for Prevention" and will feature in-depth discussions about national and local strategies to curb the growing public health problem. The second, session 3012 in room 253A of the convention center, is titled "Shorter Lives, Poorer Health: A U.S. Global Perspective" and will explore how America's health stacks up to our global counterparts and why we seem to be lagging behind.

Stop the presses!: Tired of opening the newspaper to the latest health story and finding that the public health perspective is missing — AGAIN? Then make some time to attend session 3117, "Media Advocacy: Breaking Through the Crowded News Cycle," at 10:30 a.m. in convention center room 103. During the session, you'll hear from local health reporters on the best ways to pitch your public health stories to the media and get your message to the masses. Featured speakers include Kay Lazar of the Boston Globe and Michael Yudell of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Post it: In addition to the meeting's oral scientific sessions, hundreds of poster sessions will be taking place throughout the Annual Meeting inside the Public Health Expo, Halls A/B1 in the convention center. Take a few minutes to stretch your legs, browse the poster sessions and talk with presenters about their research. Check your Annual Meeting program for each day's poster session times as well as research topics.

Madam President: Meet APHA's incoming president at session 3429, "APHA President-Elect Session: Best Practices in Public Health Leadership Development Around the World," from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in Harbor Ballroom III of the Westin Waterfront. Discussions will take you from India to the Caribbean and back to the U.S. with a focus on what it takes to become a public health leader.

Place and time

Above, Annual Meeting attendees all the way from Hawaii place stars on their home state on the "Tell Us Where You're From" map in the convention center lobby. Another meeting attendee reads about APHA's first black woman president along the Public Health History Trail, which you'll find on the convention center's first floor.

Photos by Michele Late, courtesy The Nation's Health

Roe v. Wade crusader stays overtime to hear personal stories

“Here is a woman doing something ahead of her time, standing up for what she believes in.” That’s what Mythili Ramakrishna thought when she first studied the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade in a human rights class two years ago.

Today, Ramakrishna met that woman, Sarah Weddington, who was only 26 when she successfully argued the case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court more than 40 years ago.

Ramakrishna said it was very important for her to meet Weddington because as a young woman from India, Ramakrishna recognizes that “women leaders in India — a very paternalistic society — have a very, very tough time.”

Sarah Weddington signs her book for Mythili Ramakrishna, who was inspired by Weddington’s successful fight to make abortion legal in the U.S. 40 years ago. 

After giving a rousing keynote speech at Sunday’s opening session, Weddington rushed to the Public Health Expo, where she stayed for several hours signing copies of her book, “A Question of Choice.” She vowed to stay until every person waiting in the long line had a conversation with her.

“Some of them have talked to me about their desire to have a choice available to their daughters, so I signed [my book] to them and their daughters,” Weddington said. “I’d much rather sign the book in a meaningful way.”

This meant she continued to hear dozens of personal stories about the landmark abortion case.

Kristina Pettingill, with the Maine Public Health Association, was having a book signed for her mother, a nurse practitioner who worked at Planned Parenthood when her daughter was young.

“She was an advocate for reproductive rights all while I was growing up,” Pettingill said.

At age 43, Pettingill has known what it’s like to have reproductive choice most of her life because “the way had already been paved before me.”

But, she said, “it upsets me now to see my mother’s work and Sarah’s work being eroded….I’m worried we’re going to have to do this work all over again.”

Dianne Samarin also worries about the erosion of abortion access. The director of public health for Apache County in Arizona, Samarin was doing her prerequisites for nursing when Roe v. Wade was before the Supreme Court, adding that the case was "all the discussion” while she was in college.

“I’m a person of choice," she said. "I like to have control over my body.”

— M.P.

Photo by Melanie Padgett Powers

A little birdie told me so: Tweet of the day

With this year's Annual Meeting officially in full swing, today's tweet of the day goes to @candrews, who wrote: Why I love #APHA13: At opening session, we're talking: Racism. Poverty. Abortion rights. LGBT rights. Because these are ALL health issues.

Public Health Expo: Where you can talk with a hippo about public health

A giant hippo dancing certainly gets your attention. OK, so she was a woman in a hippo costume and I’m not sure that was really dancing, but it caused me to stop by her booth.

You may not associate George Washington University with a hippo, but the creature is the school’s unofficial mascot, as I learned on an exhilarating tour of the Public Health Expo, which features more than 700 booths.

The story goes that a former GWU president’s wife bought him a bronze statue of a hippo, which now sits on the Washington, D.C., campus. Students rub the hippo’s head for good luck before exams. Which helps explain why Mallory Boyd, executive director of student affairs at the GWU School of Public Health and Human Services, was tagged to dress up as a hippo to attract people to the GWU exhibit. But the real excitement is the school’s new building, which will open in March. At her booth, Boyd is telling prospective students, alumni and faculty members about the new building. And sometimes she has the opportunity to connect a prospective student with a faculty member who has stopped by.

Another public health school is also celebrating a milestone. Georgia State University is exhibiting at the Annual Meeting for the first time, a celebration of its public health program just becoming a School of Public Health. GSU’s first MPH students enrolled in 2004, and the first JD/MPH students enrolled this year.

“We now have 200 students and 30 faculty, and our first study abroad program was just approved for next summer to the Dominican Republic,” said Frances Marine, communications director of the GSU School of Public Health. “There’s a lot of excitement at the school right now, both among our students and our faculty.”

Stop by the booth for GSU pedometers, compact shopping bags, mouse pads, pens, and magnets.

And be sure to snag a personal memento showing off APHA’s new logo at the APHA photo and video-sharing booth, located next to Everything APHA. Grab a few friends and pose for a printed photo — which can also be emailed to you to share on social media — or choose the video option and answer a few questions specific to public health.

Get questions answered about the Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Marketplace at the APHA Public Health Policy Center booth, #1283. You will be able to sit down with an official ACA navigator, who can help you find your way through the new marketplace.

At the United Nations Foundation booth, you can not only learn about the many programs, you can advocate for more global health funding by immediately signing letters to Congress on the exhibitors’ iPads. And while you’re there, spin the wheel to win a rubber bracelet, desk note holder, pen or water bottle.

So, put on your comfy shoes and take a stroll through the Expo. Whether you are collecting magnets, resources or knowledge — or just want to dance with a hippo — you’ll find it all here.

— M.P.

(Photos by Melanie Padgett Powers)