2 November 2005
Zula Mae Baber Bice Memorial Lecture
Making the Case for Prevention:
Shifting the Focus from Screening
to Lifestyle Change
Janet D. Allan, Ph.D., R.N., CS, FAAN
Dean and Professor, University of Maryland School of Nursing
Health care in the U.S. focuses chiefly on diagnosis and management, not on prevention of health problems. Is prevention a healthier, more cost-effective approach? How might practitioners, health-care systems, and patients shift attention to prevention and, especially, to lifestyle change, and what would it take for this shift to succeed?
Lifestyle related behaviors are a leading cause of preventable disease and death in the U.S., yet interventions addressing such behaviors are underutilized in most healthcare settings. Prevention activities targeting changing health behaviors offer the greatest potential for decreasing mortality and morbidity and improving quality of life. This Medical Center Hour will make the case for increasing prevention interventions that use evidence-based research to change health behaviors. It will also critique the over-emphasis and limitations of an excessive focus on screening and identify ways to reduce the barriers to implementing prevention interventions in practice.
Janet D. Allan, Ph.D., R.N., C.S., FAAN is currently dean and professor at the University of Maryland School of Nursing. She received her bachelor of science degree from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY; h er master’s degree and certification as an adult nurse practitioner from UC San Francisco; and her PhD in Medical Anthropology from UC Berkeley and San Francisco. Prior to her tenure at the University of Maryland, Dr. Allan was dean of the School of Nursing at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio and, prior to that, professor of nursing. A nationally recognized scholar in the area of women’s health, specifically weight management among multi-ethnic populations of women, she conducted one of the first studies in the nation on the comparison of different ethnic groups’ attitudes toward women’s weight and how to manage it. She has published more than 100 articles, book chapters and abstracts and currently serves of various editorial boards and panels. Dr. Allan nationally represents on multiple advisory boards and committees.
This event is made possible by the foresight of Raymond C. Bice and generous contributions of friends and alumni, in memory of his wife and School of Nursing faculty member and interim dean, Zula Mae Baber Bice. The Bice endowed lectureship was established in 1968 and is the School of Nursing ’s most popular lecture event.