Emily Alford with ETSU faculty members Dr. Nathan Hale and Dr. Paula Masters
As a Collaborative Project Field Placement Scholar, East Tennessee State University (ETSU) MPH student Emily Alford spent the summer of 2017 working with the Sullivan County Regional Health Department and ETSU to conduct a needs assessment on opioid dependence in the Northeast Tennessee region. Since 1999, there has been a nearly 11-fold increase in the rate of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS) in Tennessee. Emily’s needs assessment will be used by the Health Department to inform best practices to address the high rates of opioid abuse and NAS.
Emily also examined the predictors of e-cigarette use among high school students in rural Appalachia. Emily and her team found that students’ were more likely to smoke e-cigarettes if they perceived them to be less harmful than conventional cigarettes, if their friends or family smoked e-cigarettes, or if they already smoked conventional cigarettes. These findings were summarized in a poster presented at 2017 APHA Annual Meeting.
These experiences left Emily with a clear sense of purpose for her next career steps. Emily explains, “I feel certain that upon graduation I would like to work in local public health practice, preferably in rural Appalachia.” Dr. Paula Masters, Director of LIFEPATH Public Health Training Center at ETSU, commended Emily’s work: “Emily’s contribution to this project was invaluable. She was able to import relevant public health methods she learned in the classroom and employ them in a real-time project.”