Master's Degree Student Embraces Role as Public Health Advocate
When Smitha Arekapudi, master's degree student in the Department of Epidemiology, was a senior at the University of Chicago Laboratory High School in 1995, she became president of a struggling Amnesty International Club and part of a controversy when the club hosted at the school a forum on hate speech and freedom of speech issues.
During the forum, Arekapudi listened to her fellow students and guests exchange ideas about the boundaries between hate speech and freedom of expression. In the end, she thought the students enjoyed the exchange, but she learned that some administrators were unhappy that the guests presented and then heatedly debated provocative material about US human rights issues with the students. The school newspaper heavily criticized the club's leaders, she remembered, as did some of the administrators. But Arekapudi remained undaunted.
"Students should be able to defend their points of view with evidence and reasonable passion," said Arekapudi.
The forum confirmed for Arekapudi her nascent interest in the defense of discourse that she has since carefully cultivated. For some of her colleagues, science ideally remains a pursuit of objective findings. For Arekapudi, science admirably merges such findings with advocacy and action efforts.
In the fall of 1995, Arekapudi began classes at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, in part because she was offered a special scholarship that provided $10,000 to students to create service projects to serve specific communities.
Arekapudi was unsure about the focus of her project until she worked for a health care policy think tank during the summer before her junior year. There she met two people who became her mentors: Quentin Young, 1998 president of the American Public Health Association (APHA), and Margie Schaps, executive director of the Chicago-based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group. In her discussions with them, Arekapudi recognized the general dearth of knowledge about public health and its advocacy in the nation.
"If you go onto the streets and ask people what they think public health is, many probably wouldn't be able to give a clear answer," said Arekapudi.
So
as a junior in college, she founded a statewide organization called The
Illinois Public Health Advocate (TIPHA). The organization's efforts focus
on public education, resource referral, original policy analysis and development.
"In Chicago, like many other parts of the nation, there was a need to build local citizen coalitions to advocate a proactive approach to Chicago and Illinois' public health problems," said Arekapudi. The problems that Arekapudi identified ranged from contaminated swimming pools and increased asthma prevalence to preventing smoking by young people.
TIPHA proved to be such an attractive idea that a working group within APHA is considering using the organization as a model to create a similar group on a national level. The concept was discussed at the national meeting of the APHA in Boston last month, and Arekapudi currently serves on both the Illinois and national Public Health Advocate Steering Committees. She has also worked as a board member of the Public Health Student Caucus of the APHA for the past year.
For Arekapudi, the idea of a national public health advocacy group is tantalizing, but she is aware that some of her colleagues are conflicted about the role of public health professionals.
"Many researchers may perceive conflicts of interest when thinking about public health advocacy," said Arekapudi. "They may ask, 'Am I a scientist or a policymaker?' I would also ask if it is enough in certain situations to just report on what you find. It is important to think about how we can progress from understanding to action."
Her interest in research with policymaking implications led Arekapudi to HSPH in the fall of 1999. She said she had been interested in methodology and found that epidemiology and economics--her major in college--shared similar aspects. She chose cancer prevention as her focus because the program has a policymaking emphasis and stresses the importance of multidisciplinary groups.
She believes that collaboration among such groups is important to public health endeavors since science is advancing at a faster pace than ever before.
She has used her coursework to support her advocacy activities. Last spring in one of her classes, she created a public service announcement to air in Illinois that described that state's controversial decision to apply proceeds from the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement to tax rebates for homeowners instead of providing the funds for smoking prevention and cessation programs. The decision represents to Arekapudi an example of a missed opportunity that may have been well served by a powerful public health advocacy group.
"Some people think that the tobacco settlement was a major victory, but I don't think that it was the victory that it could have been if public health professionals and we as a public had more of an organized voice," said Arekapudi.
Arekapudi will graduate with a master's degree this spring. She remains firm that a cooperative effort among public health advocacy groups can make important differences in the quality of peoples' lives, even if the people themselves do not always recognize the work behind the improvement.
"When public health systems work as they should, great public health
achievements often go unnoticed as silent benefits of modern life,"
said Arekapudi.
