School Notes: School of Public Health
January/February 2012

Downs Fellows present findings

Back from international research assignments in countries as diverse as Colombia and Malaysia, the 2011 Downs Fellows presented their findings at an annual symposium and poster session in late October. Fourteen Yale students from the schools of Public Health, Medicine, Nursing, and the physician associate program worked in countries around the world on health and medical issues such as diabetes control, maternal health, urban slum diseases, and AIDS. The Downs International Health Student Travel Fellowship was created to honor Wilbur G. Downs (1913–1991), professor of epidemiology and public health at Yale, and a renowned physician/scientist in the fields of tropical medicine and infectious diseases. The fellowship supports graduate and professional students who undertake health-related research primarily in low- and middle-income countries.

Novel anti-smoking effort to be launched in Connecticut

An unorthodox anti-smoking effort that offers at-risk people financial incentives if they successfully quit tobacco—and smaller rewards for progress toward doing so—has been designed by researchers at the YSPH and will be implemented statewide in coming months. The iQuit program will encourage both smokers and medical providers to participate in counseling and training sessions, peer coaching, and other smoking-cessation techniques. Financial incentives—up to a maximum of $350 per year—will be used to encourage smokers to attend these sessions and to achieve objective, verifiable goals in reducing and eliminating tobacco use.

A new tick-borne disease rises

Yale School of Public Health researchers, in collaboration with Russian scientists, have discovered a new tick-borne disease that they believe may occur in the United States. This new disease is caused by spirochete bacteria called Borrelia miyamotoi, which is distantly related to Borrelia burgdorferi,the spirochete that causes Lyme disease. Professor Durland Fish and colleagues found this new spirochete, previously known only from ticks in Japan, in deer ticks in Connecticut in 2001, but did not know then if it causes disease in humans. The bacteria have since been found in all ticks species that transmit Lyme disease throughout the United States and Europe.