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Author interviews > Rebecca Donatelle Interview
Keeping current in a changing field.
Rebecca Donatelle speaks out about health issues facing students today.
Rebecca J. Donatelle, Ph.D. received her bachelors degree in Health
and Physical Education and English and her masters in Health Education
from the University of Wisconsin, Lacrosse. She went on to earn
her Ph.D. in Community Health/Health Education from the University
of Oregon. In 1997, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation awarded Rebecca
with the Presidential Award for Promising New Research in the Smoke-Free
Families National Initiative. In 1998, Dr. Donatelle won the Leadership
Award from the College of Health and Human Performance at the Oregon
State University, where she continues to teach. She is the author
of Access
to Health, Eighth Edition and Health:
The Basics, Sixth Edition.
BC |
What inspired you to get into the field of health education?
RD | Actually a couple of things inspired me. First, as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse, I ended up taking a couple of introductory health courses. I was fascinated by the variety of course content and the instructor was excellent. I wanted tolearn more and kept on taking courses.
Secondly, I became increasingly frustrated with the emphasis on medical treatment that was so pervasive in the late 60's and 70's. I wanted to do something to prevent premature disease and to give people the knowledge, skills, and opportunities to avoid chronic and infectious diseases and live healthier lives. From my perspective, health education was and continues to be the foundation for getting people started on the right track toward health and wellness.
BC |
What do you think is the most important health challenge facing college students today? How do you address this challenge in your books?
RD | Boy, that's a tough one. There are so many challenges and most of them are complex and require more than a little effort to address. However, if you were to narrow it down to one or two, number one, and perhaps the greatest challenge, is to be a responsible and smart health consumer. With the myriad of resources available today, it has become increasingly difficult to make decisions about even the simplest things. Should you take Vitamin E or other anti-oxidants? Should you buy cutting boards that say they are antibacterial? Should you have that Hepatitis B shot offered through your student health center? While courses and texts such as the one I've written certainly don't answer all of the questions, they do tend to help students become critical thinkers about health topics.
If you give students the tools, give them basic information upon which to make good decisions, and get them to think reflectively about their own situations and/or behaviors, most of them will make the best decisions that they can, given the resources at their disposal.
Number two on my list of challenges relates more to our global society. I feel strongly that the next greatest threat on the list to us as humans will come from the breakdown/degradation of the environment. As our immune systems become increasingly weakened by biohazards and pollutant exposure, and as microbes/insects and other disease-causing agents proliferate and mutate, humans will have a great war to fight. We are only seeing the beginnings of this today with strange maladies for which doctors can only guess about causes, from chronic diseases that seem to defy conventional treatment and have uncertain etiology, to the infectious diseases that pose significant challenges for treatment. How will we develop the programs, policies and services to effectively deal with problems such as these? Will we be willing to pay the price/support the burden of care necessary to treat people with these diseases? What can we do to prevent these problems? I feel strongly that we must act now to protect the environment and preserve long-term health of the population. These challenges are seemingly overwhelming. However, I believe that we can all make a difference and that we should each take it seriously enough and care enough to energize a population that is largely sleeping on these issues.
BC |
We know that you're very active in a few different research areas, can you tell us about your most current study?
RD |
Over the last few years, I've taught many classes in the Health Promotion/Disease Prevention area, particularly in the health behaviors, stress and health, and human disease areas. I've been most interested in working with special populations, particularly women and the elderly, in finding effective behavioral interventions to deal with very difficult health problems such as the addictions. Most recently, we've received several large grants, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to examine the roles that education, social support, biomarker indicators and incentives play in getting people to change or modify their behaviors.
One of our randomized, controlled trials utilizes financial rewards to motivate young, pregnant women to quit smoking. We've utilized buddy systems, educational methods, and biomarkers; like showing them their high levels of circulating tobacco by-products in their blood streams and indicating how this might effect their fetus at a given point in pregnancy; as additional adjuncts to get them to quit or reduce smoking. Many of the principles applied in this research area are applicable to weight loss, other addictions, and specific health problems that may be remedied through behavior change. We've been very pleased with our success rates to date.
BC |
Over your years of research, how have you seen the field of health changing?
RD | I think the biggest change that I've seen is one of underlying philosophy. In the 1950's and 60's, much of the emphasis was on tertiary prevention or treatment. In the 70's and 80's, much of the emphasis was on individuals and what individuals could do through sheer will power and perseverance to change their own behaviors. The underlying belief was that if you were fat, did drugs, had mental health problems, didn't exercise, etc., you were weak willed.
However, in the 90's, with thinking turning towards the idea that "it takes a village" to make noteworthy inroads with our youth or to make lasting reductions in substance abuse, teenage pregnancy, and reductions in STDs in society. Real changes began to emerge. Rather than just blaming the individual, public leaders and policy makers began to realize that only by providing people with opportunities for change by having community services, programs, and supports, could people really make those changes and sustain those changes.
Today, more and more people, community groups, organizations, and governmental groups recognize that the way to change health is through systems changes and systems supports. We need to help those who come to the realization that they want to change. We need to provide supports for change. We need to remove barriers and provide options for individuals. We've evolved in our thinking, even though we still have a long way to go in terms of making the systems work together to make viable change happen.
BC |
Who has been the biggest influence on your career and why?
RD | This is a tough one, too. I come from a Wisconsin farming family and I'm the only one in my family who completed college. I'd say that a couple of key high school teachers motivated me to love learning, particularly writing and literature and health related areas. I guess it was my mom who motivated me to have a strong work ethic through her own sacrifices. She wanted me to have a better life and she pushed me to get an education.
Once I got to college, I was fortunate enough to have many wonderful instructors; people who genuinely cared about students, worked above and beyond the call of duty to help me be a better professional people who served as mentors and examples. There are so many critics of higher education today, but I see so many dedicated professionals, working long hours in teaching, service and research.
Likewise, I work with many outstanding young people students at all ages and stages of their professional careers, undergraduate through Ph.D. When I see them growing and developing as professionals and as adults, it is one of the most rewarding things that I could ever imagine doing. It makes me want to do the absolute best job that I can while I have the opportunity to work with them.
No one thing has influenced me in my professional career. It's a combination of working with great people that got me here and working with great students that keeps me here!
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