The winning submission (below) was entered by Saeed Khan, with a total of 288 votes. His entry was captioned, “Helping Flood Victims: Helping the Ones In Need — Providing Rations & Supplies To Flood Survivors.”

The second place entry (below) was submitted by Eunice Cacatian. Her photo was captioned, “Filariasis Campaign: These pictures were taken at Antipuluan Elementary in Narra, Palawan, Philippines during my work assignment at Narra Rural Health Unit. During the Information Campaign Drive, we shared some facts about Filariasis and how it can be prevented—afterwards they were given DEC tablets.”

Khan won an iPad 2 and Cacatian won an iPod touch.

Every entry showcased the dedicated volunteer work that the Global Health in Action fans perform, as well as the various plights they have witnessed around the world. The remaining entries can be viewed in the slideshow below.

Congratulations again to Saeed and Eunice!

Click to view slideshow.

As you begin to ponder New Year’s resolutions for 2012, think about what you can do to improve your health—get in shape, exercise, cut down on unhealthy foods or drinks, or quit harmful habits such as smoking. I realize that I need a new health strategy. Simply wanting to lose 10 pounds is not enough. Fred and I have had an ongoing bet that one of us could lose more weight than the other. After 5 years, we both lost about 50 pounds—and we both gained about 50 pounds—for a net loss of zero!

I’m trying to figure out my next goal, such as a 10K race or maybe a sprint triathlon. I’m a decent swimmer, love to bike, and can run a pretty good 5K. I may be slow for a competition, but I might give that a try. Nikki Lovell and Sarah Preston ran and finished the Marine Corps Marathon last month—that was inspiring! Stacy Dietzler in Atlanta is a regular marathon runner, and she told me about an interesting and helpful website called www.active.com, which provides information about all types of sports and competitive events.

There are also some events we could do together as a company, such as the Bright Beginnings 5K in DC in the spring and the AIDS Walk in Atlanta in the fall. We have had several participants in both of these events over the past few years, but we could step it up and present a larger Danya showing—what do you think? If you have health problems and can’t take on something as challenging as a long-distance run or a mountain climb, you might be able to work toward a walking goal or set your sights on another low-impact fitness routine.

Another great exercise is to dance—so I hope to see you all out on the dance floor at our high-energy Danya holiday parties coming up over the next couple of weeks! Give it some thought, but most importantly, just get out there and move!

Please share your ideas and suggestions in the comments. I wish you all the best with your families and friends during this holiday season.

Sincerely,

Jeff

Danya has been awarded the Corporate Social Responsibility Award by the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce (MCCC). The award, sponsored by Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Mid-Atlantic States, Inc., will be presented at MCCC’s annual Business Awards Dinner on October 26, 2011, at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center.

“Danya’s mission is devoted to services in the crucial health and education sectors,” said Trevor Garner, Administrative Vice President for M&T Bank and Chair of the 2011 Business Awards Dinner. “When we reviewed Danya’s impressive accomplishments, we knew it was a perfect fit for this particular award.”

According to the MCCC website, the award is “presented to an individual or company that has demonstrated exemplary business practices and dedicated involvement and unyielding commitment to community service and volunteer programs that enrich the lives of residents of Montgomery County.” Over the years, Danya has been deeply involved with volunteer work and support for Families Foremost Center, Hearts and Homes for Youth, and Bright Beginnings Child Development Center for Homeless Children, as well as several other local organizations and programs.

I think it is extremely important to do our part, as youth, to increase the global health of the world. I’ve been volunteering for the past 5 years with a great local group that supports sustainable development projects and friendship by exchanging visitors between my local community in Massachusetts and a local community in Kenya. We raise funds for our friends in Kenya and have done many great projects there. We have bought mattresses for a whole orphanage and also have developed a reliable source of clean water, a project that began before I started volunteering and ended in 2007. I continue to support my local group and do whatever I can to raise funds. This is my small part in increasing the global health of the world.

Butler won an iPad 2 and the runner-up, with 475 votes, Brittany Hayes, received a gift certificate.  Thank you to Butler and Hayes, as well as everyone else who submitted stories and voted!

Through health communications and social media, we are trying to influence people’s behavior to discontinue unhealthy behaviors and to adopt healthier behaviors. We are trying to prevent infections, addictions, and other disorders. Through T/TA, we are educating and assisting professionals to adopt best practices in prevention and treatment programs. Through M&E, we are helping programs to improve their performance so that they can better serve children and families, resulting in healthier outcomes.

When I founded Danya International 15 years ago, our first contract was a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project for $100,000 to develop an online drug and alcohol screening assessment that we called DAPA. Although we were not able to commercialize the product, we still maintain it online at www.dapaonline.com, and it is a model for online assessment (we were ahead of our time…). This past month, 15 years later, we were awarded the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Behavioral Health Services, Information, Referral, Public Engagement and Communications Platform contract for the next 5 years. This major national contract builds on our experience with SBIRs, National Prevention Information Network (NPIN), Clinical Preceptorship Program, and many of our other projects, and it will give us the opportunity to have a real social impact on reducing drug use and addiction, as well as promoting mental health education across the country. This contract will allow us to shape healthy futures in a major way.

Our latest venture in shaping healthy futures in East Africa, expanding on our work in HIV and other infection prevention, is in promoting food security through both communications and M&E. This work involves assisting farmers to improve their productivity and business capabilities to provide stable and healthy food resources for the people in their countries, as well as develop viable healthy economic futures for themselves and their families.

So, what does “shaping healthy futures” mean to you? I encourage you to share your thoughts, stories, and ideas there on the blog and to have an exchange of ideas.

Sincerely,

Jeff
Chief Executive Officer

Danya has been deeply involved with CCA’s U.S.-Africa Summits for years, participating in planning committee meetings, sponsorships, and promotions. This year, Danya is co-sponsoring the eHealth: Connecting Policy, Information and People workshop on Thursday, October 6, with RTI International, Inc. Danya’s CEO, Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman, will deliver the welcoming remarks at the workshop.

The Summit includes more than 30 comprehensive plenary and workshop sessions, during which participants will obtain the latest information on trade and investment opportunities across Africa. With sessions led by U.S. and African leaders with successful ventures in Africa, the Summit focuses on Africa’s most promising sectors: health, infrastructure, energy, security, agribusiness, and power.

To learn more about the Summit, click here.

Click here to read Part 1.

M&E Connects Students to School Practices

At the level of school practice, Danya’s M&E system can play an instrumental role. In the Glenwood Leadership Academy, a turnaround school in Evansville, Indiana, Danya partners with the school district and the Academy leadership to use real-time, online student surveys for tracking student engagement. Because Danya’s online surveys are deposited into a database, individual teachers, the school leadership team, and the district leadership can use the data on student engagement for planning, instructional improvement, and resource allocation. The design of Danya’s dashboard system is solely for formative support and not for summative accountability.

Danya’s M&E Integrated Data System

Danya’s M&E system at the instructional and school levels provides much-needed support for several school improvement functions. Among the issues that the M&E survey system address are the following:

• What do students tell us about their engagement and perception of instructional quality and rigor?
• Does the level of student engagement remain the same or different across different core subject areas (math, ELA, science, and arts), as well as across different grade levels (fourth through eighth grades)?
• Does the level of student engagement increase as the academic year progresses?
• Given the district’s investment in professional development, what do teachers tell us about their engagement and perception of the quality and relevance of specific professional training activities? Does the level of teacher engagement increase over the course of the academic year?

Clearly, these issues constitute common concerns for educators and school leaders across the nation. There is a growing body of literature that identifies more systematic ways in gathering data on student perception and engagement. Positive student attitudes in learning contribute to student performance. For example, the Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Project, which is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, examined instructional effectiveness of over 3,000 teachers in seven large urban districts during 2009 through 2011. A key part of the study was a survey of about 100,000 students on their perception of instructional practices. Drawing on surveys used by the Tripod Project, MET identifies seven aspects of student perception. Often referred to as the Seven Cs, student perception includes Caring (e.g., “The teacher in this class encourages me to do my best.”), Captivating (e.g., “This class keeps my attention—I don’t get bored.”), Conferring (e.g., “My teacher gives us time to explain our ideas.”), Controlling (e.g., “Our class stays busy and doesn’t waste time.”), Clarifying (e.g., “When I am confused, my teacher knows how to help me understand.”), Challenging (e.g., “My teacher wants us to use our thinking skills, not just memorize things.”), and Consolidating (e.g., “My teacher takes the time to summarize what we learn each day.”). These and other studies provide a knowledge base upon which Danya develops its student engagement and perception survey that is now being used in the Glenwood Leadership Academy. Among the key survey items are students’ assessments on instructional rigor, critical thinking development, and connectedness to the classroom.

Danya’s M&E Key Factors

Much of the current work in this area does not monitor and evaluate student response over the course of the academic year. Danya’s M&E system at Glenwood is among the very few that uses the survey data to generate a dashboard system in an ongoing fashion. Furthermore, Danya’s dashboard system is designed to address multiple stakeholders simultaneously, including individual subject-matter teachers, school leadership, and district leadership. In other words, the M&E system at Glenwood offers an innovative solution to a key challenge in school improvement—the need to monitor and evaluate the student perspective on instructional practices. Clearly, this M&E system is adaptable to other school and district settings.

The following presentations can be seen in 2011:

1. Building Meaningful Collaborative Relationships for HIV Prevention through Social Media at the annual conferences for the National Association of County & City Health Officials on July 22, 2011, in Hartford, Conn.; National HIV Prevention on August 16, 2011, in Atlanta, Georgia; and the American Public Health Association (APHA) on November 2, 2011, in Washington, D.C. (Click here for APHA description.)
2. Utilizing All Types of Organized Twitter Communications, From TwitterViews to Twitter Town Halls: Community Engagement Tools for Every Level of Twiphistication at the National Conference on Health Communications, Marketing, and Media on August 9– 11, 2011, in Atlanta, Georgia.
3. Commemorating 30 Years of HIV/AIDS through Creation of an Online Social Community at the National Conference on Health Communications, Marketing, and Media on August 9– 11, 2011, in Atlanta, Georgia.
4. Training Intervention for the Engagement of Families in Mental Health Services at the American Public Health Association conference on October 31, 2011, in Washington, D.C.
5. Science to Service: Training Designed to Optimize Knowledge Transfer at the American Public Health Association conference on October 31, 2011, in Washington, D.C.
6. Enhancing Addiction Treatment Program Accountability and Improvement: The Public Health Benefits of the Services Accountability and Improvement System at the American Public Health Association conference on November 1, 2011, in Washington, D.C.
7. Tobacco Cessation Among Smokers in Recovery from Opioid Addiction: The Challenge of Program Development at the American Public Health Association conference on November 1, 2011, in Washington, D.C.
8. Using Media and Social Networking Effectively in Public Health Settings at the American Public Health Association conference on November 2, 2011, in Washington, D.C.

Thirty years ago in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, researchers first reported cases of a new illness that would later become known as AIDS. Look around the workplace—how many people, now in the midst of their professional careers, were born after that first reported case? Today’s school-age children, college students, and yes, several of our own staff at Danya, have grown up never knowing a time without AIDS. The generations since 1981 have not seen the toll that the epidemic has had on friends and family. The AIDS epidemic they know is post-drug cocktails, a time when, thankfully, more people with HIV infection—the virus that causes AIDS—can live longer, healthier lives. They see Magic Johnson and others who are infected but who still look healthy. The success of treatments has led to people living longer and to HIV becoming, for some, a more chronic but manageable illness.

But people are still being infected. CDC estimates there are 50,000 new HIV infections happening every year. Now that AIDS is 30, prevention and awareness are more important than ever. People of all ages need to know that HIV transmission can be prevented. Teenagers need to know that no sex is still the only safe sex—for HIV and lots of other sexually transmitted diseases. But adults and older people also need to get prevention messages. HIV transmission is still an issue for middle-age and older people, and the statistics show that.

For the first time, we have a National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS). The strategy, released by the White House Office of National AIDS Policy in July of last year, lays out three primary goals: reduce the number of people who become infected with HIV, increase access to care and improve health outcomes for people living with HIV, and reduce HIV-related health disparities. As part of our CDC National Prevention Information Network (NPIN) contract, we help increase awareness of the HIV/AIDS Strategy among CDC’s prevention partners and do our small part to help CDC carry out some of its NHAS tasks.

We encourage you to use this milestone in the HIV epidemic to begin conversations with those you care about. Talk with your partner, spouse, significant other, children, family, and neighbors. If you haven’t been tested or need to get tested again, visit www.hivtest.org to find a location near you. If you’d like to reflect on the 30 years of HIV/AIDS, visit www.cdcnpin.org/communities/hivstory and join the online community that’s been developed for anyone who has been personally or professionally affected by HIV. Together we can make a difference in the future of the epidemic.

Melissa Beaupierre, Senior Director, CDC NPIN

As public education strengthens its accountability at the institutional level, policy leaders are expected to lead with results, address challenges of resource allocation, and communicate decisions with various stakeholders in a timely manner. At the instructional level, educators are expected to use data to improve their practice, challenge learners with more rigorous standards, and develop a keen understanding of accountability. In each of these levels, in other words, there is a need for using timely data to plan, decide, communicate, and evaluate. Using the most advanced technology to organize data collected from multiple sources, Danya’s M&E system offers unique features that support stakeholders at various policy levels in achieving their goals.

M&E Shapes Leadership and Administrative Culture

Leaders in public education at the federal, state, and local levels face performance-based accountability. Leaders must maintain the data analytic capacity to address multiple functions simultaneously, including a persistent focus on student achievement, application of both rewards and sanctions, and a strategic deployment of resources. Danya’s M&E system is designed not only to fill the data analytic need of administrative agencies but also to generate greater transparency that helps sustain publicly accountable, high-performing organizations.

At the federal level, the M&E system can strengthen the capacity of administrative agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Education and the Office of Head Start in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to monitor the quality of local service delivery throughout the country. Data collected from local sites and from national data sources can be organized into usable, timely dashboard indicators. Using the dashboard and/or an integrated data system, federal program administrators can address key policy issues. Among these are:

• What is the current status of federally funded services? An example of how the M&E system addresses this issue is the trend-line mapping on program quality. Indicators on the dashboard can report on specific federal standards and aggregated measures.
• Are there disparities in federally funded services? Danya’s integrated database allows for detailed analysis on the distribution of services among various population subgroups, geographic areas, and jurisdictions, among other characteristics.
• What do we know about policy implementation? In an intergovernmental system, policy implementation can be complicated. State and local use of federal program funds, for example, can be tracked as part of the M&E system. Staffing recruitment, retention, turnover, and compensation can be analyzed in a timely manner.
• Can data serve to change the organizational culture of an agency? Danya’s M&E system can create the conditions for organizational learning. When federal administrators start using the dashboard for policy discussion, a new incentive is created for state and local program personnel to begin focusing on the indicators of interest. The M&E system, in other words, can generate a process of data collaboration and exchange across different levels of the policy system.