What's Happening

By Lanz Lowen, MS, MA and Blake Spears, MBA | November 2, 2016
Senior Consultant, The Mandana Group and Independent Healthcare Consultant

What are the relationships of young gay men like today? It can be surprisingly difficult to answer this question with confidence. Little research is being done on gay male couples—how they build and sustain their relationships, what they think about monogamy and marriage, what they believe about the attitudes of their peers.

This year, we completed our Choices study, which focused on gay men ages 18-40 and explored attitudes and practices about monogamy and marriage.

ETR | October 27, 2016
 

Summed up in a word? Awesome.

The annual meetings of the American Public Health Association are one of the nation’s premiere professional events. This year, more than 12,000 attendees will be showing up in Denver October 29-November 2. They’ll present research, work on policy recommendations, learn new skills and network with colleagues from across the nation and around the world.

By Marcia Quackenbush, MS, MFT, MCHES | October 25, 2016
Senior Editor, ETR

The tragedy of opioid addiction is not new. When I was a teen, my sisters and I lost two friends to heroin overdoses.

And I still remember the time one of my closest friends told me about the night she tried some drugs with her boyfriend, a heroin addict, and almost died. When she stopped breathing, he didn’t want to call for help because he was afraid he’d be arrested.

No, opioids and heroin are not new. But today’s epidemic is different, and it’s become much worse.

By Cody Sigel, MPH, CHES and Tracy Wright, MAED | October 20, 2016
Professional Development Consultant and Project Director, ETR

Originally published here on Beth Kanter's blog.

The first time you facilitate a training, you start developing your own personal list of tips for great facilitation. You try out some things that work, and they go on your list (“I can’t wait to try that again!”). Chances are you also try out some things that don’t work, and they go somewhere else.

Some go into the trash (“I am never again going to ask people to take off their shoes as a way to break into small groups!”). And some go onto a wait-and-see list (“How come that worked so well when I watched Deb do it, and it was such a flop when I tried it?”).

By Jill Denner, PhD | October 17, 2016
Senior Research Scientist, ETR

Computer science for all? If you’ve been reading the headlines, you have seen the explosion of articles. Proponents argue we must offer computer science (CS) education to all students, in a combination of school and afterschool programs. At first glance, making CS available to all sounds like a great idea. But there have been concerns about what this looks like in practice.

By ETR | October 13, 2016

We hear regularly from customers about our health education materials. Sometimes they share praise and compliments for a product they’ve found helpful. Sometimes they ask for a new title or resource they need. And sometimes they offer constructive feedback about something that doesn’t quite work in their situation.

We’ve also gotten some really vitriolic criticism from vapers, who tend to dislike our public health messages about e-cigarettes.

By Jim Pickett | October 11, 2016
Director of Prevention Advocacy and Gay Men's Health, AIDS Foundation of Chicago

PrEP has altered the landscape in HIV prevention in extraordinary and profound ways. It’s changing the lives of vulnerable individuals. It’s also bringing about big changes for the HIV workforce—health care providers, prevention specialists, outreach workers, social workers, educators and more. In fact, I believe we’ve entered the most dynamic period in our fight against HIV since 1996, when the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy revolutionized treatment and saved countless lives.

By Jennifer Salerno, DNP | October 6, 2016
Founder, Possibilities for Change

Whether you’re a parent or an individual who works with youth, you are placed in an influential role to help keep teens safe and healthy. But that’s no easy task!

Risky behaviors account for the majority of teen injury and premature death. In the face of these challenges, educators, providers and parents need concrete strategies to support teens in smart decision making.

By Eloy Ortiz, MURP | October 4, 2016
Research Associate, ETR

Our nation has a vital interest in building a better pipeline to careers in STEM. However, females, Blacks and Latinos are substantially underrepresented in tech professions. ETR has had a longstanding commitment to exploring ways to boost the presence of women and underrepresented minorities in the tech world. A number of our research projects explore strategies to support a more diverse presence in the field.

By Elidia Moctezuma | September 29, 2016
Research Assistant, ETR

I love research! That’s not something I knew, or even imagined, when I started my college career. Thanks to the guidance of some outstanding teachers and mentors, I’m now ready to make research the focus of my career.

By John Henry Ledwith |  September 27, 2016
Senior Sales Manager, ETR

What’s the true value of a comprehensive school health program? I have a surprisingly simple answer: it’s a matter of life.

This came home to me starkly the other day as I sat with a group of people who had been an integral part of my sons’ childhood and teen years. Here were some of their coaches, many of their friends, the parents of their friends. And my boys, too, now young men in their 20’s.

We had come to honor and remember a friend and former teammate who had taken his own life the previous week. We sat baffled and heartsick as we listened to this young man’s father, reaching out to the people in the room, appealing to us: “Please, do not focus on this one bad decision, this momentary impulse, of my son’s life. Do not let that define who he was and the memories you carry onward. He was so much more than this!”

By Pamela Jakwerth Drake, PhD, & Marcia Quackenbush, MS, MFT, MCHES | September 22, 2016
Senior Research Scientist & Senior Editor, ETR

First published on the EdSurge blog on July 20, 2016.

Students hold a lot of useful information that you can use to find out all kinds of things. Assess school climate or student engagement. Identify teaching strategies kids like best. Measure health behaviors and attitudes. Learn more about student interests. If you can gather this information, it can help you make better decisions about students.

Do you want to find out whether students feel their teachers are doing a good job of teaching? Whether students feel safe at school? Would you like to know students’ level of engagement and sense of belonging at the school? Do you want to gain a better understanding of student health risk behaviors so you can focus your health education programming in an efficient way?

A survey may be your answer. 

By Jill Glassman, PhD | September 20, 2016
Senior Research Associate, ETR

The field of teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) has experienced some impressive achievements over the past decades. By examining the evidence from evaluation studies, we’ve been able to identify programs showing effectiveness in reducing sexual risk taking among broadly defined populations of at-risk youth. ETR scientist Dr. Douglas Kirby was instrumental in developing and disseminating a list of effective characteristics for sexual health education programs, and in disseminating information about risk and protective factors that are key to our understanding of how these programs work.

The majority of these TPP programs originally were developed for high-school-age youth. More recently, however, there has been a shift to earlier pregnancy prevention efforts focusing on younger adolescents (10-14 year olds). Fewer of these youth are already engaging in the targeted sexual risk behaviors.

By Erica Marsh | September 15, 2016
Project Coordinator, ETR

Extra Innings is a new project which will be building a mobile video game to teach math and science. It’s a collaboration between ETR, dfusion and Science of Sport.

What’s new and different about it? We’re using a curriculum called Science of Baseball as the foundation, and we’ll be doing a formal evaluation of its efficacy.

By Kymm Ballard, EdD | September 13, 2016
Previous Executive Director, SPARK

Ask an educator, “What do you most want for your students?” Chances are the answer will be, “Success.”

The math teacher wants students to master the concepts in the semester’s curriculum. The health education teacher wants students to learn how to establish healthy habits and make good choices about risks. The PE teacher might focus on building sports skills and encouraging a commitment to lifelong physical activity. The principal might address a combination of academic learning and positive social connection.

By Cody Sigel, MPH, CHES | September 9, 2016
Professional Development Consultant, ETR

Have you ever been to a truly extraordinary training event? The kind where you actually look forward to completing the feedback form at the end because you’ve learned so much and had such a great experience?

Those are the kinds of trainings I love to attend, and also the kind I love to deliver. Here at ETR, we strive to make every training event we deliver the kind that makes our participants feel equipped, confident and inspired to do their best work and have the most impact. As a training team we never stop working on continuous improvement efforts that make this a reality. 

By Marcia Quackenbush, MS, MFT, MCHES | September 6, 2016
Senior Editor, ETR

In 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved oral Truvada for pre-exposure prophylaxis of HIV (PrEP). In a very short period of time, PrEP has substantially changed the HIV prevention landscape. It’s effective (when taken) and has an excellent safety profile.

How well is it working in different populations? I took a quick dive into some recent reports to get an update.

By BA Laris, MPH | September 2, 2016
Research Associate, ETR

The other day I was part of a group text that made me want to laugh, cry, celebrate and scream all at the same time. My 19-year-old son had shared a photo of his first day in his biology lecture hall. He included an estranged family member. I had once told him I wished this person was more integrated into “normal” family exchanges.

Once again, I found that my son has the uncanny ability to push me to grow and accept, challenge myself, and live my principles—more than any other person I have ever met personally or professionally.

And that brings me right to the point of this post: situational leadership.