Tech Transfer • Gadgets 4 Health
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mHealth Revolution • Big Data, Big Problem • Tech Transfer • Gadgets 4 Health nonprofit organization u.s. postage paid Bloomberg School of Public Health permit #1608 615 N. Wolfe Street, E2132 Baltimore, md Baltimore, MD 21205 Change Service Requested SPECIAL ISSUE THE MAGAZINE OF THE JOHNS HOPKINS BLOOMBERG SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH WWW.JHSPH.EDU 2012 WORTH AN EXTRA LOOK Nostalgic about calculating statistical probabilities on a slide rule. Eager to immerse an avatar surgeon in a virtual operating room. More than two dozen JHSPH alumni share their visions from the nexus of technology and public health in personal essays and photos. 50% Total Recycled Fiber magazine.jhsph.edu/techessays 20% Post-consumer Fiber NEXT ISSUE IT TAKES A NETWORK colwell david How do you protect the boys of Touba, Senegal and the rest of the country’s popu- lation from malaria? Defense may be the best offense against humanity’s perennial enemy. The Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs and its Net- Works project aim to cover every sleeping space in the country with a mosquito net. Don’t Blink Technology’s lightspeed transformation of public health Health International Advisory Board Honorary Committee Robert J. Abernethy** William Flumenbaum Roger C. Lipitz*+ Markus Altwegg President Senior Vice President Managing Member Chairman of the American Standard Capital Guardian Trust Company Ocean Assets, LLC Board of Directors Development Company Siegfried Holding AG Her mHealth is on the Line Howard E. Friedman Morris W. Offit** Ashok Agarwal Managing Partner Chairman Clateo Castellini Trustee Lanx Capital, LLC Offit Capital Advisors, LLC Former Chairman and CEO Indian Institute of Health BD (Becton, Dickinson and Management Research Douglass B. Given Karl P. Ronn Company) Partner Managing Director Lenox D. Baker, Jr.* Bay City Capital Innovation Portfolio Partners J.P. Garnier Mid-Atlantic Cardiothoracic Former CEO Surgeons, Ltd. Dean Goodermote Ira M. Rutkow GlaxoSmithKline Former Chairman and CEO Kenneth R. Banks Double-Take Software Beth Schnieders William H. Gates, Sr. President Huntington Sheldon** Co-Chairman Banks Contracting Company, Inc. Donald A. Henderson° Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Dean Emeritus Michael J. Silver Ernest A. Bates** Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Partner Raymond Gilmartin Chairman and CEO School of Public Health Hogan Lovells US LLP Former Chairman, President American Shared Hospital and CEO Services, Inc. Margaret Conn Himelfarb Alfred Sommer° Merck & Co., Inc. Dean Emeritus Joseph A. Boystak Frank Hurley* Barbara A. Mikulski Chief Scientific Officer Johns Hopkins Bloomberg President and CEO School of Public Health U.S. Senator Brightwaters Capital, LLC and Co-Founder Maryland RRD International, LLC Shale D. Stiller** Michael G. Bronfein HM Queen Noor Christopher I.M. Jones Partner Managing Partner DLA Piper of Jordan Sterling Partners Ambassador James A. Joseph Nafis Sadik Professor and Director, United Dwight S. Taylor C. Sylvia Brown President Special Advisor to the States-Southern Africa Center for United Nations Secretary-General George L. Bunting, Jr.** Leadership and Public Values COPT Development & President Duke University Construction, LLC Yohei Sasakawa Bunting Management Group Adena W. Testa* Chairman Michael J. Klag The Nippon Foundation Constance Caplan** Dean Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Feike Sijbesma Paul J. Diaz School of Public Health CEO President and CEO Royal DSM NV Kindred Healthcare, Inc. Harry M. Jansen Kraemer, Jr. Executive Partner HRH Princess Maha Catharine C. Dorrier Madison Dearborn Chakri Sirindhorn Senior Technical Advisor Clinical Professor of Manage- of Thailand RRD International, LLC ment and Strategy, Northwestern Manuel Dupkin II** University *University Trustee Kellogg School of Management **University Emeritus/a Trustee Manfred Eggersdorfer °Honorary Member Carolyn P. Langfitt Senior Vice President + Chair of the Health DSM Nutritional Products Advisory Board Connect with the Global mHealth Initiative: www.jhumHealth.org Everybody’s talking about Members of the Johns Hopkins University Global Magazine Team mHealth (mobile health), the mHealth Initiative (GmI) are advancing this new field Managing Editor Consulting Editor Associate Dean, External Affairs Johns Hopkins Bloomberg through early-stage technology innovation, rigorous Stacey dilorenzo Sue de Pasquale Joshua d. else School of Public Health Editor Staff Writer Director of Alumni Relations 615 N. wolfe Street, e2132 state-of-the-art strategy that’s research and the monitoring and evaluation of potential Baltimore, Md. 21205 high-impact health system solutions, while training the Brian w. Simpson Jackie Powder Philippa Moore revolutionizing public health by Phone: 410-955-5194 public health leaders of tomorrow. Associate Editor Design and Production Maryalice Yakutchik Konrad crispino Fax: 410-614-2405 making a difference in resource- email: [email protected] Senior Art Director Online Magazine Team limited settings where disease JHU GmI’s success depends on collaborations between Robert ollinger david croft web: jhsph.edu faculty across the University as well as on support from Michael a. Smith magazine.jhsph.edu burden and mortality are high. you. We welcome you to explore the many exciting Spencer Greer Free Subscription activities in mHealth going on across the University and magazine.jhsph.edu/subscribe learn about opportunities to support students engaged Get connected: The Johns Hopkins University does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, gender, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, dis- PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT NO. 41452530 in global mHealth research. www.jhumHealth.org ability, marital status or veteran status in any student program or activity administered by the University, or with regard to admission or employment. RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO Defense Department policies regarding sexual orientation in roTc programs conflict with this university policy. The University continues its ROTC PO BOX 503 program, but encourages a change in the Defense Department Policy. RPO WEST BEAVER CREEK Questions regarding Title VI, Title iX, and section 504 should be referred to the office of institutional equity, Garland Hall 130, Telephone: (410) 516- RICHMOND HILL ON L4B 4R6 8075, (TTY): (410) 516-6225. OpenMike Smart Technology Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH In early January, I attended a function at the Peabody Such technology is a huge benefit, but only Library, a beautiful building given to the people successful if it is socially and culturally appropriate. of Baltimore by philanthropist George Peabody. Let me give you an example. A longtime staple When the library building opened in 1878, access of malaria diagnosis is the blood smear. You draw to information was difficult. Peabody knew that by blood from a febrile person and examine the blood collecting books in one place, he would be promoting under the microscope for malaria parasites. It’s the educational, economic and social development straightforward, but in some African cultures people of the city that had helped him build his financial resist a blood draw, worrying their blood could be used empire. in witchcraft. Thus, a simple technology may not be When I was a medical resident in the early 1980s, culturally appropriate. (Two of our investigators at the information accumulation and sharing wasn’t much Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Sungano different from Peabody’s day. I went to the library, Mharakurwa and David Sullivan, are working to solve Technology photocopied journal articles and organized them to this problem with saliva- or urine-based alternatives.) create ready access to the latest information. Similarly, you also see lots of devices that are used offers incredible Since then, of course, the digital revolution has in wealthy countries without a second thought, but changed everything. Better technology has flooded they’re not appropriate in many places because they opportunities to us with data. We have oceans of data from genomic, require sustained electrical power. epigenetic and proteomic analyses. We have second- Technology also has permeated our educational improve health, by-second data on how the brain functions during mission. Thanks to the Web, we now can bring the sleep. And we gather libraries worth of data from School’s storehouse of knowledge to thousands of imaging studies, laboratory analyses and other sources. students, working professionals and others worldwide. but we must Of course, extracting knowledge from the In our MPH program, 250 students learn face-to-face profusion of data represents a huge challenge. here in Baltimore, while more than 400 have joined apply it wisely. That’s why we depend on biostatisticians to develop our Internet-based, part-time program. Over the past new methods of analysis—data are useless until we 15 years, our School has pioneered innovative ways separate signal from noise. With the right statistical to teach public health, allowing us to reach people methodologies, we can better understand the in ways never before possible. Distance Education architecture of sleep, uncover the links between air courses offer flexibility and are of such quality that pollution and mortality, and discover disease-gene more than 40 percent of the enrollment in online associations that heretofore went undetected. courses is by full-time students. As the demand for The pervasiveness of technology hits me in public health education grows, distance education the face whenever