News from SUNY Cortland

For more information contact: Peter Koryzno, 607-753-2232

Robert S. Gold, Health Education Technology Expert, to Deliver 2008 Poskanzer Lecture on Sept. 25

CORTLAND, NY (09/19/2008; 1401)(readMedia)-- Robert S. Gold will deliver the 2008 Charles N. Poskanzer Lecture, titled "Emerging Trends on the Future of Technology in Public Health," on Thursday, Sept. 25, at 7 p.m. in Brockway Hall Jacobus Lounge.

The talk is free and open to the public.

A nationally recognized expert in the application of advanced communications technologies to health education, Gold is a professor in the Department of Public and Community Health and co-director of the Public Health Informatics Research Laboratory at the University of Maryland at College Park.

Gold is a pioneer in the area of public health informatics, the application of information, computer science, and technology to public health. His talk will focus on his work with applying technological tools to assist public health practitioners in engaging individuals and communities in making behavioral and environmental changes to enhance and support health.

Among his many current projects are: the United States Department of Agriculture-funded Maryland Food Stamp Nutrition Education Program-Digital Inclusion Project; the further revision and update of Dr. Healthenstein's Body Fun, a children's program that teaches healthy lifestyle habits, for Web application and a children's online health community; and the creation and maintenance of an online Web portal for the National Task Force on Child Survival and Development that will serve as a gateway to current science on child growth and development and online conferencing for communications and data collection.

Gold earned an associate's degree from Orange County Community College, both a bachelor's degree in biology and a master's degree in health education from SUNY Brockport, a doctorate in health education from the University of Oregon and a DrPH with a specialization in community health practice from the University of Texas School of Public Health at Houston.

In his more than 30 years of experience in public, community, and school health education, Gold has served in both the public and private sectors with planning, directing, and evaluating programs on the local, state, regional, national and international levels.

He has worked for such organizations as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Health and Human Services-Office of Disease Prevention/Health Promotion, Macro International, Inc., and the World Health Organization.

The American School Health Association presented Gold with its John P. McGovern Medal for Distinguished Contributions to Health Education. He has also received the American Association for Health Education's Presidential Citation of Merit, and the Eta Sigma Gamma Honor Award, the highest award given by this national health science honorary society. In 2002 he was elected to the Health Education Hall of Fame.

The lecture is made possible with donations to the Charles N. Poskanzer Fund, named in honor of SUNY Cortland's distinguished service professor emeritus who taught in the Health Department for nearly 41 years. In the 1950s, Poskanzer, who specialized in health care administration and policy, conducted groundbreaking research that led to the passage of the national Medicare legislation a decade later. At SUNY Cortland, he pioneered a health science program that became a national model for other colleges and universities.

For more information, contact Bonni Hodges, chair of the Health Department, at (607) 753-4225.

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