/PRNewswire/ -- The AMERIGROUP Foundation announced today that it is honoring Kim Bearden, co-founder and executive director of Atlanta's Ron Clark Academy, by designating her a "Healthy Hero."
Ms. Bearden is both a senior administrator and classroom teacher at Ron Clark Academy, a nonprofit school that serves financially vulnerable children from Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton counties. Over the past two decades, she has won numerous educational honors, including the Disney American Teacher Awards Outstanding Middle School Humanities Teacher and Teacher of the Year in Cobb County, Georgia. The Ron Clark Academy encourages academic excellence in its students and trains teachers in innovative instructional methods. As part of its curriculum, the Academy teaches its students how to eat well and develop healthy lifestyles.
"Kim Bearden and the Ron Clark Academy are making an enormous difference in the lives of children in Atlanta," said John E. Littel, Chairman of the AMERIGROUP Foundation. "She and her colleagues have demonstrated that through hard work and innovative thinking they can get tremendous results. We at AMERIGROUP admire her passion, dedication and success."
"We are extremely grateful to AMERIGROUP for emphasizing the importance of healthy living and its effect on helping to build strong communities." Ms. Bearden said. "I am honored to be recognized by such a wonderful organization. Thank you for supporting us in our efforts to create healthy bodies and minds."
The AMERIGROUP Foundation periodically honors "Healthy Heroes" who have made a significant difference in the communities served by its corporate underwriter, AMERIGROUP Corporation, which administers publicly funded healthcare programs such as Medicaid and Medicare for state and federal governments. AMERIGROUP Community Care of Georgia brings healthcare services to about 201,000 people enrolled in Medicaid in Georgia.
To honor Ms. Bearden's service, the Foundation will present a $1,000 contribution to a nonprofit organization she has selected, the Ron Clark Academy.
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Friday, January 16, 2009
Atlanta Educator Kim Bearden Honored as 'Healthy Hero' by AMERIGROUP Foundation
Monday, October 13, 2008
Pandemic Flu Models Show How Illness Would Spread in Georgia
This simulation result shows where active cases of the flu would be located 40 days after the start of a pandemic if the initial infection location was Fulton County, Georgia – the county where the city of Atlanta is located. (Image: Pinar Keskinocak)
The 1918 flu pandemic killed more than 40 million people worldwide and affected persons of all age groups. While it is difficult to predict when the next influenza pandemic will occur or how severe it will be, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed models to help organizations like the American Red Cross and Georgia Department of Education prepare emergency response plans.
“The models are flexible so that multiple scenarios can be investigated to see which options meet a certain goal,” said Pinar Keskinocak, an associate professor in Georgia Tech’s H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISyE). “This goal can be different for various groups, such as serving the most people given the availability of limited resources or minimizing the number of people infected while not negatively affecting businesses.”
Details of the models, developed with ISyE associate professor Julie Swann and graduate student Ali Ekici, were presented on October 12 at the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Annual Meeting.
Knowing how many people will need food, how many food distribution facilities will be necessary, where the facilities should be located and how the resources should be allocated among the facilities is very important, according to Marilyn Self, who is the manager of disaster readiness for the Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter of the American Red Cross. Self has been collaborating with Georgia Tech researchers on this project.
“These models have provided solid food distribution data that has helped us formulate the questions we have to ask and the decisions that we have to make about food distribution during a pandemic on a local and statewide level,” said Self.
- Watch a video showing where active cases of the flu would be located during a pandemic if the initial infection location was Fulton County, Georgia – the county where the city of Atlanta is located - here (QuickTime-30 Megs). The video begins 10 days after the start of the pandemic and ends 180 days after the start of the pandemic.
- Watch a video showing where active cases of the flu would be located during a pandemic if the initial infection location was Atkinson County, Georgia – a rural county in southern Georgia - here (QuickTime-30Megs). The video begins 10 days after the start of the pandemic and ends 180 days after the start of the pandemic.
The Georgia Department of Education is using Georgia Tech’s models to investigate whether or not schools should be closed during a pandemic.
“Closing schools affects both families and businesses because parents will have to stay home and take care of children,” said Garry McGiboney, associate state superintendent at the Georgia Department of Education. “We have to worry about important emergency workers like hospital staff members and law enforcement officers not being able to work because they have to tend to their children because schools are closed.”
To estimate the number of meals required for a given area or determine if closing schools would be beneficial, the researchers first needed to determine how many people and/or households would be infected. To do this, they constructed a generic disease spread model, which described how the influenza disease would spread among individuals.
The researchers used U.S. Census Bureau tract data – including household statistics, work flow data, classroom sizes and age statistics – to test the model. Crowded areas, including Atlanta and its suburbs, were always affected around the same time regardless of where the disease initiated. However, the time required for the disease to spread to rural areas depended on where the disease started.
With this information, the Georgia Tech researchers used the disease spread model as a forecasting tool to calculate the number of meals that would be required in metropolitan Atlanta during a flu pandemic. They tested three major scenarios: feeding every household with an infected individual (someone symptomatic or hospitalized), every household with an infected adult, or every household with all adults infected.
The simulations showed that the 15 counties surrounding Atlanta would require approximately 2.2 million, 1.4 million or 150,000 meals per day for the respective scenarios during the peak infection period. For the entire pandemic, the number of meals would reach 62, 38 or 3.8 million for the three scenarios respectively.
The researchers also determined the number of meals that would be necessary if only those households that fell below a certain income level were fed. The results showed that 200,000; 120,000 or 14,000 meals per day would be required for the respective scenarios during the peak infection period in that case.
Interventions such as voluntary quarantine or school closures could also affect food distribution by changing the number of infected individuals.
“Voluntary quarantine means that if an individual is sick in a household, everyone in that household should stay home,” explained Keskinocak. “However, we realize that not everyone will follow this rule, so the model assumes that only a certain percentage of infected individuals will stay home.”
The researchers investigated the effects of voluntary quarantine on disease spread, as well as the best time to begin the quarantine and how long it should last.
The results showed that the number of people infected at the peak time and the total number of individuals infected decreased as the length of the quarantine was extended, but there was a diminishing rate of return. The researchers determined that an eight-week quarantine was the most effective in terms of reducing the number of individuals infected during the peak time if it was implemented at the beginning of the fourth week.
“These results are important because during a pandemic, communities have limited resources, including food and volunteers to distribute the food,” noted Swann. “If fewer people require the resources, especially during the peak time period, organizations like the American Red Cross can meet the needs of more people.”
The researchers also compared the two interventions – quarantine and school closure. The results showed that closing schools reduced the number of people infected with the virus. However, a four-week voluntary quarantine was found to be at least as effective as a six-week school closure for reducing the percentage of the population infected with the virus and the number of people infected at the peak time.
The Georgia Department of Education and the Metropolitan Atlanta Chapter of the American Red Cross have used the models to gain insight into the best ways for their organizations to respond to a flu pandemic.
“Running all of these different scenarios has helped us realize that we will have a lot more people to feed in metropolitan Atlanta during a pandemic flu than we imagined. The models have provided us with a realistic idea of where we’ll need to locate community food distribution facilities and how many we might need to have given certain assumptions and decisions,” said Self.
The researchers plan to conduct future work in two areas – developing models for other states and extending the model to also include vaccine distribution. The model may also be useful for other purposes such as estimating hospital capacity needs, according to Keskinocak.
“While we hope that a pandemic never occurs, our models will help Georgia and other states across the United States prepare response plans for the potential,” added Keskinocak.
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Monday, October 6, 2008
Emory Awarded $28.5 Million for Child Health Study
A consortium headed by Emory University today was awarded $28.5 million as part of a second wave of federal funding for the landmark National Children's Study.
Emory will partner with the Morehouse School of Medicine, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga College of Medicine (UTCOMC) and Battelle Memorial Institute to initiate this phase of research. Emory and its partners are one of only 36 U.S. study centers selected to take part in the National Children's Study (NCS), a multi-year study examining the impact of environmental and genetic factors on the health of children in the U.S.
In 2007, Emory was awarded $25.5 million during the first round of federal research funding to initiate the National Children’s Study in DeKalb and Fayette Counties in Georgia. The current award will be used to recruit study volunteers in Baldwin County, Ga., and Bradley County, Tenn.
“We are very pleased that rural Georgia and rural Tennessee will be represented in the National Children’s Study," says Carol J. Hogue, PhD, MPH, professor of epidemiology and maternal and child health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. Hogue is also principal investigator for the Emory consortium. "Environmental problems for rural infants and children may be quite different from those of our urban centers, like Atlanta, but we wouldn’t know that without including them in the study."
Emory and its partner research teams will collect genetic, biological, and environmental samples from study volunteers in rural Georgia and Tennessee, and compile statistical information for analyses.
"Baldwin County in middle Georgia and Bradley County at the Tennessee/ Georgia border each have unique features that will determine how we will be engaged with the community throughout the course of the study," says Frances J. Dunston, MD, MPH, professor and chair of the Morehouse School of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics. "We look forward to working with community-based organizations and agencies who serve the children and families that will be a part of this major undertaking. Our goal is assure all of the benefits of the NCS to these communities."
"I am very excited about the opportunities the National Children's Study will bring to Bradley County," says Marvin Hall, MD, UTCOMC clinical assistant professor of pediatrics. "Bradley County's citizenry has long been known for working together to benefit the health of all. I am sure that once again, our residents will work hard to help with study efforts. We will all benefit in learning more about the environmental issues associated with the health of local children."
The National Children's Study will follow a representative national sample of 100,000 children from before birth to age 21, seeking information to prevent and treat some of the nation's most pressing health problems, including autism, birth defects, diabetes, heart disease and obesity.
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Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Safety Officials Highlight State-of-the-Art Electrical Fire Prevention Technology on Eve of Important Safety Code Hearing
PRNewswire/ -- Fire chiefs from Atlanta and Fulton County, along with representatives from the Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFi), today issued a call to action to the Georgia Department of Community Affairs (DCA) to expand the use of an innovative home safety device designed to help prevent deadly home electrical fires -- a move that would help make new homes built in Georgia among the safest in the U.S. In a news conference held this morning at Fulton County Fire Station #23, Chief Larry Few from the Fulton County Fire Department and Chief Kelvin Cochran from the City of Atlanta Fire Department stressed the importance of equipping new homes with advanced electronic circuit breakers called arc fault circuit interrupters (AFCI).
The DCA is holding a public hearing on Wednesday to hear testimony from fire and electrical safety officials in favor of expanding the use of AFCI circuit breakers.
"As firefighters, we advocate for smoke detectors, fire extinguishers and other vital safety devices. Now we have another tool to aid in the fight against home fires -- one that could help prevent fires from starting in the first place," said Chief Few.
Tragically, electrical problems account for more than 28,000 home fires each year throughout the United States, resulting in 360 deaths, more than 1,000 injuries and close to $1 billion in property damage, according to the U.S. Fire Administration.
"I've seen first-hand the devastating result of electrical fires and the devastating impact they have on homeowners and their loved ones. It's especially upsetting when the cause of the blaze was an electrical condition that AFCIs could have possibly prevented," said Chief Cochran. "Instead, homes are destroyed, families are displaced, memories are lost and lives are put at risk."
AFCIs are proven safety devices that detect and prevent arc faults -- a leading cause of electrical fires in the home and a condition that standard circuit breakers do NOT detect. Upon detection, an AFCI will shut down the circuit before a fire has a chance to ignite.
Earlier this year, a state-appointed panel of electrical and fire safety experts recommended that the state of Georgia adopt the 2008 National Electrical Code (NEC), which calls for the increased use of AFCIs in the home. However, the panel's expertise was disregarded when Georgia's State Codes Advisory Committee voted to push back the adoption of the 2008 NEC, thereby keeping Georgia home builders and electricians operating under outdated electrical safety standards.
The decision over home electrical safety now rests with the DCA. In a public hearing scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 24, fire and electrical safety advocates from several prominent regional and national safety organizations will offer further testimony encouraging the DCA to update Georgia's electrical safety requirements to the nationally recognized 2008 standards and bring increased AFCI protection to Georgia homeowners. The public hearing is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. at the office of the Department of Community Affairs (60 Executive Park South, NE, Atlanta).
"Fire and electrical safety advocates are strong supporters of AFCIs. We believe once DCA officials review the facts presented by experts with actual experience in the dangers associated with electricity, they will realize that expanding the use of these devices in Georgia is in the best interest of Georgia homeowners and their loved ones," said Christopher Lindsay, director of programs for the ESFi.
Currently, Georgia's electrical code requires that the bedrooms of all new homes built in the state be equipped with AFCI protection. Under the 2008 NEC, AFCI use will expand to other areas of the home, including living rooms and dining rooms, significantly increasing the level of protection to the home's electrical system, and decreasing the risk of an electrical fire.
In addition to the DCA's own independent panel of fire and electrical experts, the expanded use of AFCIs is supported by the National Fire Protection Association, the National Association of State Fire Marshals and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). In fact, the CPSC believes that AFCIs, if installed in all homes, could prevent more than 50 percent of electrical fires from occurring annually.
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