1997 Annual Report

Board of Trustees Report to the Constituencies 1997

Center for Health Research

golden tree nut

The Golden Tree Nut, an elegant sculpted solid gold twig with leaves and a nut—which is the highest award of the nut industry—was awarded to Gary Fraser, MD, PhD, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics.

Mission
The Center for Health Research is an institution of the School of Public Health and exists for the following purposes:

to promote high-quality research among faculty members;
to review and award seed money research funds to faculty; and
to provide a study design and statistical analysis service to LLU.

1997–98 academic year highlights
The statistical and epidemiologic consulting group worked on 35 different projects, expending 3,640 hours.

Linda Hyder Ferry, MD, MPH, associate professor, preventive medicine and family practice, spoke at the Partnership for Prevention Symposium in Washington, D.C., on the status of smoking cessation support within the U.S. health-care industry.

On April 30, Project imPACT (Susanne Montgomery, PhD, associate professor, health promotion and education, principal investigator) received the 1998 National Campaign for Teen Pregnancy Award for work on “Building Common Ground” through community dialogue on the issue of teen pregnancy.

Gary Fraser, MD, PhD, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, was awarded the highest award of the nut industry, the Golden Tree Nut. Dr. Fraser and co-workers published the first data suggesting nut consumption will reduce risk of coronary heart disease.

Joan Sabaté, MD, DrPH, chair of nutrition, initiated and chaired a successful whole day session on “Nuts and Health” at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology meeting.

Dr. Sabaté also received funding for two feeding studies, one of almonds, and the other of pecans.

The grant application was submitted to the National Institutes of Health to establish a new epidemiologic cohort of 200,000 Adventists (45,000 Black Adventists).

Dr. Fraser has collaborated with faculty from universities such as Cambridge, Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford. This has usually involved research on Seventh-day Adventists, and in each case publications and/or manuscripts for publications have resulted.