To Our Community Partners, 

Southern Illinois University School of Medicine is excited to announce the launch of the Office of Population Science and Policy, a new research and policy organization dedicated to working with you to improve the health of SIU's 66 county service region in central and southern Illinois. Our inaugural digital newsletter (below) will introduce you to the Office, describe our goals, discuss our employment opportunities, and ask for your partnership in improving the health of our communities.  

Please connect with us at opsp@siumed.edu . We look forward to partnering with you to make our residents in central and southern Illinois healthier.  

Best,  

Sameer Vohra, MD, JD, MA, FAAP
Executive Director, Office of Population Science and Policy
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Humanities
June 1, 2017
What is Population Science?

Understanding why certain individuals are healthier than others.

Why Policy?

To create the systemic change necessary to provide sustainable solutions for the residents of central and southern Illinois.
Our current research on baby brain development, children's asthma, and addressing cancer health disparities is providing information and improving health for the people of central and southern Illinois.
  Mission Area
 
Connect With Us
Office of Population Science & Policy
201 E. Madison Street
Springfield, IL 62702
(217) 545-7939
Improving the health of residents in central and southern Illinois through research, policy, and education.
Message From the Executive Director 
The Office of Population Science and Policy’s Bold Belief: Together, We Can Make a Difference 


55 miles straight east on Illinois Route 13! Those are the simple directions that take you from Carbondale to Junction, Illinois. Junction, a town of 129 people, lies 10 miles from the Kentucky border and 20 miles from the Indiana border – a place that my Chicago self could hardly imagine exists in our state. The morning drive displaying a beautiful vista of a rising sun over green pastures made me feel close to nature, a reminder of how different my childhood in Chicago was from the children currently growing up in this corridor. Such different lives and experiences in one Illinois. I was taking this trip to visit the Gallatin County Wellness Center and learn of all the great work happening at the Egyptian Health Department from Angie Hampton, its CEO.

The Egyptian Health Department covers three counties in southeastern Illinois (Saline, Gallatin, and White). The Wellness Center was located in a combined K-12 school, and the clinic had the luxury of a young nurse practitioner seeing patients. With Bob Wesley, our medical school’s Executive Director of Regional Medical Programs and Rural Health, I sat for nearly two hours learning from Ms. Hampton, Jamie Byrd, the Egyptian Director of Public Health, and Natalie Finnie, the Wellness Center’s nurse practitioner of their great impact but also their real challenges – no resources to deal with the health crises of cardiovascular disease, obesity, drugs, and the development and behavior of their children.

The trip to Junction was the capstone of a trip to southern Illinois where I met doctors, social workers, public health administrators, teachers, and community members who all conveyed to me the real challenges that their region and its people face. However, they knew the only way to make a difference was to roll up their sleeves, come together, and work on finding ways to make their lives better. I finished that trip with one simple, unifying emotion: motivation. Continue Reading

- Sameer Vohra, MD, JD, MA
Executive Director, Office of Population Science and Policy
Meet Our Team!
Sameer Vohra, MD, JD, MA
Executive Director

Wiley Jenkins, PhD, MPH
Science Director

Arden Caffrey, BS
Intern

Amanda Fogleman, MEng
Senior Research
Development Coordinator
Lauren Knepler
Office Support Associate

Anne Scheer, PhD
Post-Doctoral Fellow

Heather Westrick, MBA
Administrative Director

Carolyn Pointer, JD
Policy Director

David Crumly, BS
Population Science
Research Specialist
Emilie Lohman Irwin, MPH
Population Science
Research Specialist
Christofer Rodriguez, MPH
Population Science
Research Specialist
Whitney Zahnd, MS
Senior Research
Development Coordinator
About

The Office of Population Science and Policy (OPSP) at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine (SIU SOM) is a research and policy organization dedicated to improving health outcomes of the residents of central and southern Illinois. The Office seeks to understand the region SIU SOM serves and find optimal approaches to the prevention and treatment of disease.

The Office focuses on four major themes:
1)  data acquisition and analysis to identify disease risk,
2 )  clinical and community focused population health strategies that reduce health disparities,
3)  systems based policy formation that provides sustainable solutions, and
4)  the population health education of current and future health care professionals.

The Office uses its research, scholarship, and innovation to design, implement, evaluate,and model solutions to our region's health challenges. The Office connects and collaborates with businesses, agencies, philanthropies, and community members already working to improve the health of our communities.  Our multi-disciplinary team of doctors, lawyers, business professionals, anthropologists, and public health and public policy professionals works with these various sectors of society to bridge knowledge gaps, share expertise, and translate our findings in ways that improve the lives of our residents. As our research evolves, our Office will use our results to guide policy formation and change.

SIU Medicine's Office of Population Science and Policy looks forward to exploring partnerships and opportunities to achieve our ultimate goal - providing opportunities for healthier, happier, and more successful lives for the residents of central and southern Illinois.

Join Our Team!
Want to Make a Difference? Join Our Team!

I’m often contacted by interns, college graduates, masters level and postdoctoral scholars with a common themed question – “Are you hiring?”. The answer is, YES! Since our launch in October 2016, the Office of Population Science and Policy (OPSP) has grown to 12 faculty and staff. We’re currently recruiting for a health policy specialist (see links below).

During 2017, we are planning recruitments to include a population science research specialist, clinical epidemiologist and biostatistician. We’re seeking a diverse pool of applicants with varying skill sets to enhance existing and forthcoming grants and research projects.

For recruitment, applicants can view existing vacancies in a variety of ways:

The OPSP website - http://www.siumed.edu/popscipolicy/

The SIU Office of Human Resources page - http://www.siumed.edu/jobs/

Or contact us at opsp@siumed.edu for more information.

- Heather Westrick, MBA
Administrative Director, Office of Population Science and Policy

Population Science
The Office of Population Science and Policy is currently researching a variety of health disparities, with investigator-initiated studies, as well as externally funded local, state and federal research projects, grants and contracts.  The Office is focused on three major research priorities: Addressing Children’s Health Disparities; Addressing Cancer Health Disparities; and other Projects of Interest, including Respiratory Health and STI’s. With all projects, the Office seeks to understand the region SIU SOM serves, design and study optimal approaches to the prevention and treatment of disease, model and disseminate these programs, and educate future health care providers on the importance of population health to their patients.
What are Cancer Health Disparities?
Cancer health disparities are the disproportionate cancer burdens experienced by different population groups as defined by a group’s gender, geographic location, race/ethnicity, income, or other characteristics. These disparities include higher incidence rates, higher mortality rates, greater health complications related to cancer, poorer quality of life, lower screening rates, etc. These disparities can occur due to a myriad of overlapping factors including federal and local policies, poverty, limited access to health care services, environmental exposures, genetic factors, and many other factors.

- Whitney Zahnd, MS
Senior Research Development Coordinator, Office of Population Science and Policy


Infectious Diseases Associated with Injection Drug Use In Rural Communities
In December we were asked to partner with Mai Pho, MD, PhD at the University of Chicago on a proposal addressing infectious disease associated with injection drug use (IDU) in rural communities. The funding was available as a direct result of the HIV outbreak in Scott County, Indiana among injection drug users in 2015. Outbreaks of HIV and HCV in rural areas of the Midwest have been associated with syringe-sharing among partners injecting non-medical prescription opioids. Illinois had the third highest increase in death rates involving synthetic opiates in 2014-2015. Partnering with state and local public health organizations, other state agencies, community based programs, local coalitions and healthcare systems, we will take a mixed analytical approach using predictive modeling, GIS analysis, qualitative and survey analysis, network methods, and infectious disease epidemiology to understand geospatial and sociocultural factors impacting health outcomes in people who inject drugs in the IL Delta Region.

This data will inform evidence-based interventions to strengthen access to disease screening and linkage to care and treatment, expansion of needle exchange and naloxone overdose programs, screening and referral to substance use treatment, and telehealth capacity building for the provision of PrEP, HCV management, and medication-assisted treatment for substance use disorder.

- Wiley Jenkins, PhD, MPH
Science Director, Office of Population Science and Policy


Policy
The policy and advocacy division is currently investigating potential changes in federal health care law and its potential impact on the central and southern Illinois region. The division continues to collaborate with internal and external partners to identify health and health care policy reforms that are required to improve the health of the region.

By creating policy change in response to research, interventions become sustainable. We are currently tracking several state bills on population health topics. One is a new requirement to test water in schools for lead. We look forward to working with our regional partners as we develop our policy research agenda.

The policy and advocacy division is currently investigating potential changes in federal healthcare law and its potential impact on the central and southern Illinois region. The policy and advocacy division continues to collaborate with internal and external partners to identify health and healthcare policy reforms that are required to improve the health of the region.

Medical Legal Partnership and Social Determinants of Health - Carolyn Pointer, JD and Sameer Vohra, MD, JD, MA >


Connect With Us
Office of Population Science & Policy
201 E. Madison Street
Springfield, IL 62702
(217) 545-7939