Allison Hales Espeseth and Roberat Riportella give an overview of CKF (Covering Kids & Families) and the CHILD (Connecting Health Insurance with Lunch Data) projects while Danielle Berman shares how these programs effect enrollment in BadgerCare.

Sheryl Magzamen, PhD, gives an overview of air pollution and asthma and discusses marginal structural models and how they are used for causal inference problems.

The Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene (WSLH) has been Wisconsin's public health and environmental laboratory since 1903. The citizens of Wisconsin have depended on the WSLH to reach and maintain the high quality of life that we now enjoy. As part of the University of Wisconsin-Madison the WSLH offers an array of quality clinical and environmental services. The main laboratory focus includes clinical bacteriology, cytogenetics, cytology, environmental sciences, immunology, industrial hygiene, newborn screening, proficiency testing, forensic toxicology and virology. The staff at the WSLH participates in a multitude of collaborative research projects, educational activities and service to the university and the community.

Nelson Sewankambo, speaks on Adult Male Circumcision: An Intervention Measure for Control of Heterosexual HIV Transmission: Lessons from Rakai Health Sciences Program.

Large-scale media campaigns are associated with reductions in a variety of unhealthy behaviors, including cigarette smoking. The prevalence of smoking among US adults has steadily declined over the past 40 years. Despite the overall reductions in adult smoking, disparities in smoking rates by socioeconomic status (SES) have increased dramatically over this time period. This presentation proposes a conceptual model to describe how media campaigns might lead to differences in smoking cessation between groups, reviews literature on the effectiveness of media interventions to promote smoking cessation among low SES populations, and presents data from a longitudinal study of smoking cessation media campaign effects on smoking cessation in Wisconsin. There is considerable evidence that media interventions to promote smoking cessation are often less effective, sometimes equally effective, and rarely more effective among disadvantaged populations relative to more advantaged populations. Disparities in the effectiveness of media interventions between SES groups may occur at any of three stages: differences in meaningful exposure, differences in motivational response, or differences in opportunity to sustain long-term cessation. I conclude with thoughts on how communication theory could be used to reduce health disparities through policy changes that address social and structural determinants of health.

Michael Rothschild, PhD, an emeritus professor for the School of Business at the University of Wisconsin, speaks on "Social Marketing" at the Health Sciences Learning Center on May 7, 2007.

Robert Peterson, founder and executive director of ABC for Health spoke on, A New Health Benefits Counseling Approach, at the Health Sciences Learning Center on April 9, 2007.

Dr. Lawrence a professor of Environmental Health Sciences and of Health Policy and Management from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health spoke on “The Public Health Effects of Industrialized Agriculture” at the Health Sciences Learning Center on March 12, 2007.

Dr. Fisher is a professor of Medicine and Community and Family Medicine at the Dartmouth Medical School. He is also Director of Health Policy Research at Dartmouth's Center for the Evaluative Clinical Sciences. He spoke on Spending Quality and the Paradox of Plenty at the Health Sciences Learning Center on Febrary 26, 2007.

When assessing health-related quality of life (HRQL), proxy assessments are sometimes necessary. A conceptual framework has been developed that delineates between 2 proxy perspectives: elicitation from the patient perspective (proxy-patient), or from the proxy’s perspective (proxy-proxy). There is limited appreciation for this difference in the literature, and extent to which these perspectives differ systematically is unclear. The aim of this study was to determine if proxy assessment of HRQL differs according to perspective in prostate cancer, and to identify any factors that explain differences. In this presentation A. Simon Pickard will speak about this study. This event was sponsored by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Department of Population Health Sciences.

Rachel Kimbro, PhD, RWJ Health and Society Scholar, Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, speaks on “Together Forever? Fragile Families,Relationship Dynamics, and Maternal Prenatal Health Investments”.

David Kindig, MD, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, speaks on "What Was the Clinton Health Plan? What Was Wrong With It?".

Bruce Hermann, PhD, Professor of Neurology and Director of the Charles Matthews Laboratory of Neuropsychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison speaks on, “The Epilepsies and their Consequences in Children and Adults” at the Health Sciences Learning Center on November 13, 2006.

Philip M. Farrell, MD, PhD, Professor of Pediatrics and Population Health Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison speaks on, “Process Improvement in Nationwide Newborn Screening”.

Ellen Daley, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor, Community and Family Health, University of South Florida College of Public Health "Psycho-Social Impact of an HPV Diagnosis."