Issue 13 ● Summer 2012http://prevention.stanford.edu/

Stanford Prevention Research CenterMonthly Newsletter

The BeWell @ Stanford Program Wellness ProfileWant to Maximize Your Incentive?

Would you like to put up to $480 in your pocket next year just for taking steps to enhance your health? To receive the $480 taxable incentive in 2013 ($20 in each paycheck), current benefits-eligible employees must do four things by November 30, 2012:

1. Complete the Stanford Health and Lifestyle Assessment (SHALA) — an online health risk assessment;2. Complete the Wellness Profile — which includes a health screening, wellness advising session and online wellness plan;3. Be enrolled in a Stanford-sponsored medical plan in 2013; and4. Agree to share your SHALA and health screening information with us.

Your spouse can benefit, too! Spouses of benefits-eligible university employees will receive a $240 taxable wellness incentive in 2013 ($10 added to the employee’s $20 payment per paycheck) if they meet the same criteria (listed above).

Benefits-eligible university employees who choose not to share information or are not enrolled in a Stanford-sponsored medical plan in 2013 will be eligible to receive $200 for completing the SHALA and Wellness Profile. Benefits-eligible employees will also be eligible to receive $100 for completing 5 BeWell Berries. Spouses/registered domestic partners of benefits-eligible university employees that do not agree to share or are not enrolled in a Stan-ford-sponsored medical plan will not receive a financial incentive in 2013.

Featured in this IssuePlease Welcome Our Newest SPRC members . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2August Service Annivsaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Healthy Recipe Of The Month. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Save-the-Date For These Upcoming SPRC Events!October 31, 2012Halloween Party at 1070 Arastradero, Room 109, 12:30 – 2:00 pm

November 29, 2012Research Symposium, Location TBA, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm

December 6, 2012SPRC Annual Holiday Party at 1070 Arastradero, Room 202, 4:00 – 7:00 pm

http://prevention.stanford.edu/

2

Continued on next page...

Please welcome our newest SPRC members

Dr. Sanjay Basu, Assistant Professor

It is a great pleasure to introduce Sanjay Basu to the SPRC family. Sanjay joined SPRC on September 1, 2012 as an Assistant Professor in the university tenure-track line. Sanjay is an extremely talented young physician-scientist. He has been a Rhodes scholar, and he has trained at top institutions, including MIT, Oxford, Yale, and UCSF, from where he received MSc, PhD, and MD degrees, also completing a three-year residence in medicine. He has already won nu-merous awards for his accomplishments in research and public health as well as for his excellence in medicine and his impeccable ethos. Sanjay already has an astounding publication record covering the wide domains of global health, public health, mathematical modeling, and the interface between public health and social and economic factors. His work has appeared repeatedly in the most competitive general medical journals, including Lancet, BMJ, PNAS, and PLoS Medicine, as well as the top specialty journals in the fields of AIDS, infectious diseases, and public health. He already has a very successful record of attracting funding from competitive sources as principal investigator or co-investigator, having secured grants from NIH, WHO, UNICEF, and other foundations. In addition, he contributed to several books, book chapters and reports on influ-ential public health matters and he has written several articles for the popular press, including the New York Times. Sanjay will be a major asset for SPRC as our Center aims to reinvigorate its excellence and expand into new horizons. Please join me in welcoming Sanjay to our team.

John Ioannidis, MD, DSc, Director, SPRC

Christina Bricca, Social Science Research Assistant

Christina Bricca was born and raised in the Bay Area but left to study psychol-ogy and humanities at the University of Colorado, Boulder. After graduating from college, she moved to Barcleona, Spain, earned a TEFOL certificate, and taught English for a year. She pursued various psychology research interests while in college and in Barcelona but found her calling in health psychology, substance abuse and behavior change. Currently she is completing her Certifi-cate in Drug and Alcohol Counseling from University of California Berkeley Extension. Christina is working full-time as a Research Assistant under Dr. Judith Prochaska examining different treatments of tobacco dependence in inpatient psychiatric populations at a hospital in Berkeley, CA. When she’s not working or studying, Christina enjoys cooking, reading for pleasure, volunteer-ing, hiking with her dog, practicing hot yoga, and spending time with family.

http://prevention.stanford.edu/

3

Continued on next page...

Danielle Pandika, Social Science Research Assistant

Danielle Pandika graduated from UC San Diego in 2009 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Psychology. Before joining the SPRC, she worked at the Veterans Medical Research Foundation in San Diego. While there, she assisted in re-search investigating the role of genes in alcohol use development within East Asian American populations. She joined Dr. Prochaska’s lab and SPRC this summer, where she continues to gain experience in addictions research as an SSRA on projects focused on smoking cessation for inpatient populations. Danielle looks forward to contributing to the field by conducting her own re-search on the role of gene-environment interactions in the etiology of substance use disorders. In her free time, she enjoys expanding her music repertoire by avidly watching YouTube/VeVo music videos, and developing her culinary skills through the classic trial-and-error method.

Rachel Schuck, Social Science Research Assistant

Before coming to SPRC, Rachel worked with Dr. Prochaska at UCSF. She helped run one of Dr. Prochaska’s large clinical trials studying smoking cessa-tion techniques in psychiatric inpatients. Rachel work off-site, at a psychiatric hospital in Berkeley, CA, administering psychology assessments and cognitive behavioral counseling with study participants. Before coming to Stanford, she also worked with two autistic children administering in-home applied behavior analysis therapy. During her time off, Rachel enjoys to travel, read, and play basketball!

Nicole Anzai, Social Science Research Assistant

Bio unavailable

Patty Purpur, Director, Stanford Health Promotion Network

Patty Purpur has been working with the Stanford Health Promotion Network (SHPN) since its creation in 2008. She began as a volunteer for several years before being hired as a member of the HIP team. SHPN has a membership of over 40 corporate and community organizations who come together for learn-ing, sharing best practices and paving the way for better corporate and commu-nity wellness. Patty brings over 15 years of entrepreneurial success in the health & wellness field where her clients included Cisco, Yahoo!, Google & Safeway. She lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains with her family and loves to hike, finish home projects and spend time in the outdoors.

http://prevention.stanford.edu/

4

Beth Ayres, BeWell Coordinator

Beth Ayres has been part of the BeWell team for the last year, serving in several capacities including biometric screening and assisting with the needs of the pro-gram. She recently joined the full-time staff as the BeWell Coordinator. Prior to coming to Stanford, Beth studied at the University of Arizona where she earned her degree in Education. Beth particularly appreciates the interpersonal aspects of BeWell, working directly with individuals in the Stanford commu-nity to promote wellness and preventative care. In her spare time, she practices kickboxing and jiu jitsu.

Flor Larios, Research Interventionist

Flor Larios graduated in 2012 from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY with a Bachelors of Science in Biology & Society and a double minor in Nutrition and Policy. While studying at Cornell she worked with the Collaboration for Health, Activity, and Nutrition in Children’s Environments, an initiative work-ing towards preventing childhood obesity, particularly in low-income families. Here she worked on developing a food behavior checklist in Spanish for nutri-tion education programs that would be both easy for participants to answer and accurately measure the desired data, a project which she is now writing for possible publication. Flor hopes to go back to school to receive her Master’s in Public Health and possibly a Ph.D in the field of maternal and child nutrition. Being new to the area (just one month!) she likes to explore the city on her free time and is looking to get back into playing soccer for fun.

Nancy Kurz, Lead Technology Manager

Nancy’s experience includes working for the University of California Extension, Santa Cruz for 10 years as the E-Commerce Manager handling all things to do with the internet- website design/user interface, programming, search engine optimization, web analysis, online marketing, bulk emails and Google Adwords campaigns. At Stanford, she is the Lead Technology Manager for Hip/BeWell program and she’s responsible for the management of all HIP related sites and the BeWell@ Stanford wellness initiative. Nancy has a BA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an ECE teaching credential from San Jose State, a Certificate in Multimedia and Web Design from the University of California Extension, Santa Cruz, and 40+ units in Art from a variety of universities. She’s also raised three very successful and talented daughters and enjoys all things related to fine art and design, traveling, gardening and cooking.

Continued on next page...

http://prevention.stanford.edu/

5

Christin New, Data Collector

Christin New joins SPRC/Youth Group as a Data Collector. She graduated in 2011 from Mills College with a BA in Psychology and a minor in History. Before joining Stanford, she interned at Palo Alto Medical Foundation Research Institute, investigating links between obesity and acculturation in Latinos. Her interested include childhood obesity prevention and comprehensive treatment, including culturally sensitive interventions and programs available to low-income families. She hopes to continue her education in medical school to go into general practice as a family doctor. In her spare time, she likes hiking, road cycling, competitive running cooking, and knitting.

Nikki Downing, Health Promotion Program Associate

Nikki has worked as a group fitness instructor and personal trainer, specializing in land and water bootcamps since 1999. She has taught bootcamps at Google, YMCA, Siemens, Electronic Arts, Advanced Micro Devices, Marvell, and Stan-ford. Nikki has a passion for exercise and motivating people to exercise to their physical limits while having fun. She has also worked as a healthcare actuarial consultant and has a BA in Mathematics from UC Berkeley. Nikki is a certified personal trainer, American Council on Exercise (ACE), and a certified fitness instructor, Aquatic Exercise Association (AEA).

Trent Johnson, Social Science Research Assistant

Trent recently received his MPH from the University of North Carolina at Cha-pel Hill from the Gillings School of Global Public Health, in the Department of Health Behavior. His research background includes three years in health promo-tion and communications in the private sector, and four years as a public health counselor at a community clinic. He has experience in both quantitative and qualitative research including health impact assessments of policy and built-en-vironment projects, implementation of cancer screening education in primarily African American barbershops, and evaluating the health benefits of commu-nity gardens. He enjoys competing in triathlons, making movies, and going on adventures with his wife and two dogs.

Carson Benowitz-Fredericks, Social Science Research Assistant

Carson Benowitz-Fredericks is pursuing Masters of Science in Public Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in the Health Education and Health Communication program. He is currently refining his thesis project in support of Dr. Judith Prochaska’s work in tobacco cessation and behavior change among high-risk populations. He has previous experience in medical research at the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic, as well as the Columbia-affiliated Cardiovascular Research Center, and has provided medical editing and report-ing for a number of outlets. He has volunteered in community arts development and literary publishing. He lives in San Francisco, and enjoys thinking about what he will do whenever he once again has spare time.

http://prevention.stanford.edu/

6

Healthy Recipe Of The MonthSpinach and Cheese Lasagna

This recipe easily serves more than four. Perfect for leftovers the next day, it’s sure to become a family favorite.

Ingredients:

2 cups ricotta cheese1 cup grated mozzarella cheese, divided1 cup grated 3-cheese blend, divided1 egg, lightly beaten1 (16-ounce) bag frozen spinach, thawed, chopped and drained well Salt and pepper to taste2 teaspoons dried oregano1 (25-ounce) jar pasta sauce9 to 12 no-boil uncooked lasagna noodles

Method:

Preheat oven to 350°F. In a large bowl mix ricotta, 1/2 cup of the mozzarella, 1/2 cup of the 3-cheese blend, egg, spinach, salt, pepper and oregano. In another bowl, combine the remaining 1/2 cup mozzarella and 1/2 cup 3-cheese blend. Set both bowls aside. In a 9- x13-inch non-reactive baking pan, layer 1 cup of the sauce, then a layer of noodles and a layer of the ricotta-spinach mixture; repeat. Top with sauce then sprinkle with remaining cheeses. Pour 1 cup water around the edges of pan, and then cover with parchment paper, then very tightly with foil. Bake 1 1/4 hours, then set aside to let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

August Service Annivsaries Congratulations and thank you for your service to SPRC and the University!

Name Start Date Years of Service

Elidia Contreras 8/29/11 1

Rosa Gill 8/1/99 13

John Ioannidis 8/1/10 2

Joel Killen 8/16/83 29

Judith Ned 8/1/01 11

Marci Palacios 8/13/01 11

Lisa Rosas 8/9/10 2

Anita Salter 8/8/11 1

Jose Soto 8/24/10 2

Selene Virgen 8/26/10 2

Connie Watanabe 8/21/95 17