TODAY news - Oct 10, 2002 - School of Public Health news

Thursday, October 10, 2002 TODAY

School of Public Health news

LLU researcher receives $1 million grant

LLU researcher receives $1 million grant

Linda Hyder Ferry, MD, MPH

Loma Linda University School of Public Health and School of Medicine faculty member Linda Hyder Ferry, MD, MPH, has received a $1 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland.

Dr. Ferry received the $1 million grant to be disbursed throughout a five-year period to combat the growing incidence of tobacco-caused illnesses and death in the developing world.

The Pacific Rim nations of Cambodia and the Lao People's Democratic Republic (PDR) will be the direct recipients of the grant to be planned and initiated by Dr. Ferry and her colleagues from the School of Public Health.

Dr. Ferry was one of 11 successful principal investigators selected for the first International Tobacco and Health Research Capacity Building Program awards by the Fogarty International Center and eight partners of the National Institutes of Health.

"Our research team will make contacts with the government leaders in neighboring Southeast Asian nations like Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand through networking, training, and research efforts to assist in strengthening effective tobacco control policies in the whole region," Dr. Ferry says.

The Loma Linda University faculty will conduct a five-year, trans-disciplinary, competency-based Global Tobacco Control Methods training program in Phnom Phen, Cambodia, with classroom sessions every six months.

"Our goal is to develop tobacco-control leadership skills in health professionals who work in positions of influence within the government," Dr. Ferry continues, 'such as physicians in the ministry of health or economists in the ministry of finance of the two countries.

"We estimate that only three-to-five individuals now possess such skills. We expect this project will increase that number by at least 10 fold."

With the support of this grant, Dr. Ferry and her team will design and conduct a five-year Global Tobacco Control Methods graduate level certificate program which includes 220 didactic hours and 200 field practicum hours for health professionals to be taught in Cambodia.

"In this collaborative effort, the Schools of Public Health and Medicine will build on their informal relationships with the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), and the ministries of health in Cambodia and the Lao (PDR)," Dr. Ferry states. "ADRA is an international non-governmental organization that has worked closely on tobacco control research projects with the ministries of health in these and other countries in the Southeast Asia region."

The project is being planned in three stages, according to Dr. Ferry. Phase one (the first year of the grant) will monitor the baseline prevalence of tobacco use among Cambodian medical students and then follow it during their final four years of medical school training, and assess the changes in their attitudes regarding health prevention counseling for tobacco use, as compared to counseling for other health behaviors.

In phase two (years two and three), researchers will design and conduct a population survey to determine the prevalence of tobacco use among adults over the age of 21 in Cambodia. The final phase (years four and five), the team will plan policy or interventional research projects, in cooperation with government officials of the two countries, based on their local needs, and will assist in preparing a comprehensive tobacco control five year research plan for the years 2007 to 2011 for each participating country.

"Currently, a high proportion of Asian men smoke, but very few women have adopted smoking," Dr. Ferry states. "The tobacco industry is aggressively marketing in these countries and offering free promotions to try to allure more women to use cigarettes.

"The time to make a difference is now," says Dr. Ferry. "If we wait another five years, the opportunity to unmask the tactics of the tobacco industry will be lost, along with thousands of lives of people who would not choose to smoke if they knew the truth."

Dr. Ferry says that the goals of the NIH grant program are to reduce the burden of tobacco consumption in low-income nations by conducting observational, interventional, and policy research of local relevance.

Tobacco control is a low priority in these Southeast Asian countries at the present.
"The training of government leaders who will remain in positions of influence can increase taxes on tobacco, allocate money for public anti-tobacco media messages, and prevent tobacco advertising and promotions to children and teens," Dr. Ferry states.

"This project is possible because of the partnership of the ADRA staff located in Cambodia and Lao PDR," Dr. Ferry continues, "who already have experience working on tobacco control issues.

"They have already begun projects with Buddhist monks who have declared the temple grounds as tobacco-free zones, refuse to accept tobacco as gifts in the temple, and make the schools in their compounds tobacco free."

In making the new awards, NIH will establish a global network of researchers who will develop data, train the next generation of tobacco-control scientists, and share state-of-the-art findings with each other about best practices, opportunities, and obstacles in tobacco-control research.

Tommy Thompson, director of the nation's Health and Human Services Department, says that 'smoking represents one of the greatest challenges to health, both in the United States and worldwide."

Dr. Ferry plans a trip to Cambodia in November to meet with key officials in Cambodia, Lao, and Thailand to obtain their full cooperation with the project.

The first training session will begin in the spring of 2003 after recruiting and preparing the health professionals for the rigorous graduate-level courses.

Several faculty members from the School of Public Health, including Dr. Ferry, will travel to Cambodia where they will begin the first of several field-based courses. The Loma Linda team will continue to keep in contact with their Southeast Asian students through the use of distance learning programs and web-based methods to facilitate communication and mentoring.

"It is a privilege to share what we have learned about the effects of tobacco control in California in the last decade," Dr. Ferry says, "with our colleagues in Southeast Asia. California has one of the most effective anti-tobacco programs in the world. If we act now, lung cancer epidemics can be prevented in Asian women. It is possible to slow down the rate of smoking of Asian women and children by changing public opinion through effective public health messages and increasing the price of tobacco before they get addicted," Dr. Ferry says.

"That is why we are going so far from home. We want to help improve the health and economic profile of the people of Southeast Asia who don't want to die from tobacco-related diseases, if they only know the whole story."

In addition, Dr. Ferry received a three-year, $150,000 grant to develop an innovative, transdisciplinary, competency-based certificate program to address tobacco problems in the United States. This program will be initially offered to students at Loma Linda University School of Public Health, and then eventually (2004–2005) to any interested individual worldwide by using Internet online teaching technology.

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Thursday, October 10, 2002 TODAY | School of Public Health