SPH mini-case statement Think

OPPORTUNITIES FOR DONORS AND CORPORATE PARTNERS

COVID-19: This changes everything Now is the time for real public health leadership.

To create new, cross-disciplinary knowledge—to think—is the first step in improving health on a global scale. Without knowledge, there can be no meaningful action.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the critical need for new scholarship, and the Boston University School of Public Health is at the forefront in generating it. Just two examples: SPH researchers revealed the importance of behavioral medicine experts in addressing misinformation that can lead to risky behaviors, and they discredited the assumption that Africa had “dodged” the pandemic, encouraging residents to take precautions and governments to ramp up testing.

We can do all of this—and much more—because we start from a position of strength: Boston University is one of the world’s leading research universities, and SPH ranks as the eighth leading public health school in the country, according to U.S. News & World Report. But we must and will raise our sights. Donor support for research is very important, particularly as sustained federal support for research is far from guaranteed.

Your investment can help in many ways. Current-use (or “spendable” gifts) go to work right away, seeding new projects and helping recruit new faculty. Endowed funds, which are permanent resources, can secure positions for faculty in perpetuity and permanently underwrite the most successful long-term research efforts.

THINK.

Faculty research and development.

Opportunities to support faculty research and development include:

SPH leads with its ideas. Its faculty generate knowledge that informs policy, shapes behavior, and saves lives—most recently in the coronavirus pandemic, during which faculty have advised governments and institutions, spoken frequently in the media, and provided the general public with useful guidance and data.

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$5 million to endow a new professorship

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$3 million to convert an existing faculty position to a named, endowed chair

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$1 million to endow a visiting professorship

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$125,000 to create a named fund toward an innovative project in any department

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$100,000 to create one fellowship or lectureship fund in any department

This is not new for our faculty; their insights and research have been driving cutting-edge progress for decades. Their work has laid the intellectual foundation for patient rights and applied bioethics around the world. It has formed the research base for drunk-driving laws. SPH plays a key role in the Framingham Heart Study, responsible for much of what is known about the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease.

It also leads the Black Women’s Health Study, the largest longitudinal study of Black women, which aims to identify risk factors for breast cancer, lupus, and other diseases that disproportionately affect Black women.

Continuing our tradition of cutting-edge progress.

Research with influence requires resources. Our faculty must meticulously gather data, in Boston and beyond. Our best ideas are time-tested; our most valuable data is that which has been accumulated over years and even decades.

And, as a Top 10 public health school, SPH competes for faculty at the highest level.

Philanthropy improves and accelerates SPH research by:

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Providing start-up funds and recruitment packages for new faculty

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Endowing faculty positions, which are the most effective way to honor and retain our outstanding faculty

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Funding specific, time-bound research projects that have real-world impact

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Supporting junior faculty while they undertake innovative research and build their portfolios

idea hub.

The mission of idea hub at SPH is to initiate new projects with transformative potential, incubate novel solutions that improve population health, and integrate those solutions around the globe.

By encouraging our researchers to adapt agile methods to accelerate population health improvements—to take risks, and to envision how their ideas might “scale up”—idea hub positions SPH’s best minds to make a real difference. And by forming partnerships with government and industry, idea hub facilitates the translation of these ideas into products and services. idea hub was launched in early 2020 and has already supported several successful initiatives. They include:

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COVID-19 POLICY TRACKING. COVID-19 policies are rapidly changing as we learn more about the disease. Faculty and students collaborated with Starbucks Coffee Company to track COVID policies affecting retail businesses and restaurants in the United States and Canada to reference as they facilitated store reopenings and implemented safety protocols.

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EFFECTS OF COVID-19 SOCIAL-DISTANCING POLICIES. For much of 2020, there was little data on the effectiveness of social distancing in reducing the

spread of coronavirus infections. Research faculty, in collaboration with Google, provided insight into how government mandates on social distancing impacted the spread of COVID-19.

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PREVENTING YOUTH INCARCERATION THROUGH PROGRAM EVALUATION. The Mental Health Advocacy Program for Kids, sponsored

by Health Law Advocates, aims to break down barriers families face when seeking mental health services. SPH faculty found that working with a staff attorney stabilized family functioning, reduced emergency crisis service use, and improved school engagement.

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SOCIAL DETERMINANTS OF HEALTH (SDOH) IN CASE MANAGEMENT. Emerging evidence suggests that collecting patientlevel SDOH information can help predict risk of future hospitalization. With Renova Health, faculty are exploring how case management data may be used to capture and share SDOH data with providers for integration into their population health efforts and individual patient care.

have a proposal to collaborate with local community organizations to identify critical factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy and enact policy changes to increase vaccine participation.

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HEALTH EFFECTS OF AIR POLLUTION FROM WILDFIRES. Climate change has led to an explosive growth in the number and size of wildfires across the western United States. However, the health effects of air pollution from these fires are still not well understood. Environmental Health faculty are ready to launch the first large-scale US study to quantify the impacts of fire smoke on the health of individuals across the lifespan.

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DOCTORAL STUDENT LEADERSHIP AND MENTORSHIP PROGRAM. Designed for women, this program would be available to all who wish to become public health practitioners and/ or academics and researchers.

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MASK SAFETY. There is a lot we still don’t know about the use, comfort, and efficacy of face masks. An Environmental Health faculty member has proposed testing different maskuse scenarios to help companies and consumers make informed purchases and improve product safety.

An innovative approach. idea hub turns ideas into action by facilitating faculty pilot funding. Such funding enables faculty to demonstrate proof of concept or to collect preliminary data, and it provides the equipment or research assistance necessary to strengthen a larger grant application. For junior faculty, pilots frequently assist in launching an independent research career.

2021 pilot program highlights

Opportunities to support idea hub include:

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$3 million to endow a professorship for a faculty member to direct idea hub

25:1 return on funds invested

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SPH faculty have 178 publications and presentations from pilot projects or their subsequent grants

$1 million to name and endow idea hub fund to support creating projects

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$250,000 to support one year of idea hub’s operations

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$100,000 to fund an entrepreneurial public health innovation project

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$25,000 to support one pilot project

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61 pilots funded

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Today, idea hub is seeking support for emerging projects, including:

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Donors can help advance these projects, along with idea hub’s mission to accelerate improvements in population health, by sponsoring faculty or student pilot funding for novel research ideas.

VACCINE HESITANCY. Many essential workers are people of color and/or from low-income communities. These populations have a historic mistrust of vaccines. SPH faculty

The mission of SPH is to improve the health and well-being of populations worldwide, particularly the underserved, through excellence and innovation in education, research, and practice.

To ensure that we engage in the issues that advance the public’s health and have an impact on the most compelling public health challenges of our time, we have committed to three imperatives: generating new cross-disciplinary knowledge (think), educating exceptional professionals from diverse backgrounds (teach), and translating our research into cutting-edge practice (do). Critical to our success is the ability to recruit world-class faculty and students; launch innovative programs that respond to global health needs; and embrace all sectors that have a role in shaping the health of the public. Philanthropic support from alumni, friends, and corporations and foundations enables us to do this—and much more.

We encourage you to learn more about our work and ways to support SPH by contacting: Jacoba van Heugten Assistant Dean of Development jjvh@bu.edu O 617-358-3321