(Press-News.org) Dr. Alva O. Ferdinand, head of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health, has been named to the Health Resources and Services Administration’s National Advisory Committee on Rural Health by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra. She will serve a four-year term on the committee, which is comprised of nationally recognized rural health experts tasked with providing recommendations on rural health issues.
Since 2019, Ferdinand has served as director of the Southwest Rural Health Research Center, whose research has impacted federal policies nationwide for more than two decades. Most recently, she led the center’s efforts in completing Rural Healthy People 2030, a companion piece to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Healthy People 2030. This is the third companion piece in this decadal series for the center.
Ferdinand’s research has influenced life-saving health policies, particularly Texas’ texting while driving ban, and has been recognized in national media outlets, including CNN, US News and World Report, the Associated Press and The Washington Post. She has also won numerous awards for her research including the Journal of Rural Health Article of the Year in 2021.
Ferdinand received both her Doctor of Public Health and Master of Public Health in health care organization and policy from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2013 and 2008, respectively. She received her Juris Doctor from the Michigan State University College of Law in 2006.
By Rae Lynn Mitchell, Texas A&M University School of Public Health
###
END
Texas A&M professor named to Committee on Rural Health by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services
Dr. Alva O. Ferdinand is a nationally recognized rural health expert whose research has impacted federal policies for more than two decades
2024-08-01
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Drug developed for pancreatic cancer shows promise against most aggressive form of medulloblastoma
2024-08-01
A drug that was developed to treat pancreatic cancer has now been shown to increase symptom-free survival in preclinical medulloblastoma models – all without showing signs of toxicity.
Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in children. Survival rates vary according to which one of the four subtypes a patient has, but the worst survival rates, historically at about 40%, are for Group 3, which this research focused on.
Jezabel Rodriguez Blanco, Ph.D., an assistant professor who holds dual appointments at MUSC Hollings Cancer Center and the Darby Children’s ...
Retreat of tropical glaciers foreshadows changing climate's effect on the global ice
2024-08-01
MADISON — As they are in many places around the globe, glaciers perched high in the Andes Mountains are shrinking. Now, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and their collaborators have uncovered evidence that the high-altitude tropical ice fields are likely smaller than they've been at any time since the last ice age ended 11,700 years ago.
That would make the tropical Andes the first region in the world known to pass that threshold as a result of the steadily warming global climate. It also makes them possible harbingers of what's to come for glaciers globally.
"We think these are the canary ...
St. Jude gene panel for pediatric cancers increases access to high-quality testing
2024-08-01
Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have created a panel that is able to provide a diagnosis for >90% of pediatric cancer patients by sequencing 0.15% of the human genome. The panel is a cost-effective way to test and classify childhood malignancies and to help guide patient treatment. The panel’s performance and validation were published this week in Clinical Cancer Research.
Finding the mutations in a child’s cancer with powerful sequencing technology can lead to better outcomes. Physicians use that knowledge to tailor targeted treatments to the specific cancer-causing mutations affecting each patient. However, current ...
Health insurers have required prior authorization for services for decades—but have they treated patients equitably?
2024-08-01
Prior authorization—the process by which a health insurance company denies or approves coverage for a health care service before the service is performed—became standard practice beginning with Medicare and Medicaid legislation in the 1960s.
Although research has uncovered disparities in prior coverage for cancer patients based on race, little has been known to date on the role of prior authorization in increasing or decreasing these disparities.
To learn more about the issue, Benjamin Ukert, PhD, an assistant professor of health policy and management in the Texas A&M ...
Trying to limit calories? Skip the dip, researchers advise
2024-08-01
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Snacks provide, on average, about one-fourth of most people’s daily calories. With nearly one in three adults in the United States overweight and more than two in five with obesity, according to the National Institutes of Health, researchers in the Penn State Sensory Evaluation Center are investigating how Americans can snack smarter.
The latest study conducted in the center, housed in the College of Agricultural Sciences, investigated how eating behavior changes when consumers are served a dip with a salty snack. The findings, available online now and to be published in the November issue ...
Innovation Crossroads welcomes seven entrepreneurs for Cohort 2024
2024-08-01
Seven entrepreneurs comprise the next cohort of Innovation Crossroads, a Department of Energy Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program node based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The program provides energy-related startup founders from across the nation with access to ORNL’s unique scientific resources and capabilities, as well as connect them with experts, mentors and networks to accelerate their efforts to take their world-changing ideas to the marketplace.
“Supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs is part of ORNL’s ...
American College of Rheumatology opens press registration for ACR Convergence 2024
2024-08-01
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Aug. 1, 2024
Media Contact:
Monica McDonald
(404) 365-2162
mmcdonald@rheumatology.org
American College of Rheumatology Opens Press Registration for ACR Convergence 2024
ATLANTA – Complimentary press registration is now open for journalists to cover research presented at ACR Convergence 2024, taking place Nov. 14-19 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. A listing of sessions for the meeting can be found in the online program.
Approved ...
Half a billion-year-old spiny slug reveals the origins of mollusks
2024-08-01
UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 19:00 BST / 14:00 ET THURSDAY 1 AUGUST 2024
Images available via link in the notes section
Exceptional fossils with preserved soft parts reveal that the earliest molluscs were flat, armoured slugs without shells.
The new species, Shishania aculeata was covered with hollow, organic, cone-shaped spines.
The fossils preserve exceptionally rare detailed features which reveal that these spines were produced using a sophisticated secretion system that is shared with annelids (earthworms and relatives).
A team of researchers including scientists from the University of Oxford have made an astonishing discovery of ...
Award-winning research maps the body’s internal sensory communication highway
2024-08-01
When the question is “how are you feeling on the inside?,” it’s our vagus nerve that offers the answer.
But how does the body’s longest cranial nerve, running from brain to large intestine, encodes sensory information from the visceral organs? For his work investigating and mapping this internal information highway, Qiancheng Zhao is the 2024 grand prize winner of the Science & PINS Prize for Neuromodulation.
Interoception—the body’s ability to sense its internal state in a timely and precise manner—facilitated by the vagus plays a key role in respiratory, gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, endocrine and immune ...
Current Andean glacier loss is unprecedented in the Holocene
2024-08-01
Andean tropical glaciers are experiencing unprecedented retreat, according to a new study that reveals their current sizes are the smallest in over 11,700 years. “Our finding … identifies this region as a hot spot in our understanding of the changing state of the cryosphere,” say the authors. Glaciers act as important indicators of climate change, with their global retreat accelerating over recent decades. Examining this retreat in the context of the previous 11,700 years of the Holocene interglacial highlights the impact of modern global warming. Although many glaciers worldwide are smaller today compared to ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Why some brains switch gears more efficiently than others
UVA’s Jundong Li wins ICDM’S 2025 Tao Li Award for data mining, machine learning
UVA’s low-power, high-performance computer power player Mircea Stan earns National Academy of Inventors fellowship
Not playing by the rules: USU researcher explores filamentous algae dynamics in rivers
Do our body clocks influence our risk of dementia?
Anthropologists offer new evidence of bipedalism in long-debated fossil discovery
Safer receipt paper from wood
Dosage-sensitive genes suggest no whole-genome duplications in ancestral angiosperm
First ancient human herpesvirus genomes document their deep history with humans
Why Some Bacteria Survive Antibiotics and How to Stop Them - New study reveals that bacteria can survive antibiotic treatment through two fundamentally different “shutdown modes”
UCLA study links scar healing to dangerous placenta condition
CHANGE-seq-BE finds off-target changes in the genome from base editors
The Journal of Nuclear Medicine Ahead-of-Print Tip Sheet: January 2, 2026
Delayed or absent first dose of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination
Trends in US preterm birth rates by household income and race and ethnicity
Study identifies potential biomarker linked to progression and brain inflammation in multiple sclerosis
Many mothers in Norway do not show up for postnatal check-ups
Researchers want to find out why quick clay is so unstable
Superradiant spins show teamwork at the quantum scale
Cleveland Clinic Research links tumor bacteria to immunotherapy resistance in head and neck cancer
First Editorial of 2026: Resisting AI slop
Joint ground- and space-based observations reveal Saturn-mass rogue planet
Inheritable genetic variant offers protection against blood cancer risk and progression
Pigs settled Pacific islands alongside early human voyagers
A Coral reef’s daily pulse reshapes microbes in surrounding waters
EAST Tokamak experiments exceed plasma density limit, offering new approach to fusion ignition
Groundbreaking discovery reveals Africa’s oldest cremation pyre and complex ritual practices
First breathing ‘lung-on-chip’ developed using genetically identical cells
How people moved pigs across the Pacific
Interaction of climate change and human activity and its impact on plant diversity in Qinghai-Tibet plateau
[Press-News.org] Texas A&M professor named to Committee on Rural Health by U.S. Secretary of Health and Human ServicesDr. Alva O. Ferdinand is a nationally recognized rural health expert whose research has impacted federal policies for more than two decades