Forensic Science: Bodies of Evidence
Studying Disease Effects in Underserved Youths
Quality Management in Health-Care Settings
Changing the Cancer Treatment Paradigm
Unwrapping Secrets of the Ancient World
KEEP US INFORMED:
Please send us your comments on this issue, ideas for future issues, and news about your professional interests and accomplishments.
Al Dorof, Editor
adorof@brynmawr.edu
info@brynmawr.edu
©2008
Studying Disease Effects in Underserved Youths
 |
Jerilynn Radcliffe '70 |
As a Bryn Mawr College undergraduate, Jerilynn Radcliffe '70 majored in English because "I enjoyed studying character development; I've always loved people," she says. After graduation, she taught in a Montessori school, where she was delighted by the children.
"I loved seeing how they played and learned and dealt with problems as they came up," she says. In 1974, she entered the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, where she earned a master's degree in psychological services in education in 1975 and a Ph.D. in school psychology in 1981. Her doctoral training included a practicum at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). "That was the first time I had thought about children's adjustment to disease," she says, "and it really intrigued me."
Today, as an associate professor of clinical psychology in pediatrics at CHOP and Penn's School of Medicine, Radcliffe investigates the impact of disease on the development of children and adolescents from underserved populations.
Resilient Patients
Studying sick kids might seem depressing, Radcliffe acknowledges, "but actually, they're upbeat and resilient. They don't think as much about what everything means; they live in the moment." And, she notes, "I'm often inspired by the families' ability to keep doing what they need to do for their kids, no matter how much it takes." The populations she works with live in poverty, and "they are incredibly resilient in the face of challenges," she says.
Radcliffe was an investigator in the Treatment of Lead-Exposed Children (TLC) Trial (W.J. Rogan et al., New England Journal of Medicine , 334: 1421-6, 2001; K.N. Dietrich et al., Pediatrics , 114: 19-26, 2004). She studied the effects of lead on cognitive and behavioral development. The multicenter clinical trial assessed the effect of succimer, a drug for removing lead from the blood, on lead-exposed infants and toddlers. Lead is known to lower intelligence. The researchers found that while succimer reduced blood lead levels, it did not improve scores on tests of intelligence and behavior. "It was disappointing, because we thought we had a way to ameliorate some of these effects," Radcliiffe says, "but now we understand even more that it's really important to prevent lead exposure in kids."
The lead study inspired the development of the MOM Program, an intervention to help high-risk mothers keep their children's health-care appointments. During the lead research, in which parents and children were asked repeatedly to return for studies over a seven-year period, "Our team became really good at nagging people and tracking them down," Radcliffe says. Children who participated in the MOM Program were more likely to receive early-intervention services at age 18 months to three years and to enter Head Start programs, and less likely to exhibit attention-deficit disorder or aggressive behavior at age five.
Serious Diseases
Radcliffe is the principal investigator for Teens Taking Control, a pain-management intervention program for adolescents with sickle-cell disease. "Teens Taking Control teaches adolescents to manage their pain more effectively at home and decrease the need to enter the hospital for pain-management support. This is especially important because adult care for sickle-cell disease is harder to find," Radcliffe explains.
The young participants are asked to recruit a support person to attend sessions with them. The intervention's two arms consist of pain management techniques (such as relaxation and visualization) and disease education (good health-care practices, having an emergency plan, sexual health, and substance-abuse prevention).
"We asked if they had ever encountered a physician who seemed insensitive to them as African Americans, and many of them said yes," Radcliffe says. Through role-playing, the teens were taught health-care advocacy. Both teens and their caregivers reported feeling more confident in managing their health needs from being in this study.
Radcliffe has also led an interdisciplinary study of teens with HIV. Many of them live in poverty, and many are stigmatized because of their sexual orientation.
The study assessed post-traumatic stress in these youths, and its effect on health-care adherence. "A very high percentage of the youth met our criteria for post-traumatic stress, and those who were most stressed were less adherent with their medical-care regimens," Radcliffe says. "That underscores the need for mental-health services as part of medical teams."
Currently, Radcliffe is studying unsafe sexual behavior in HIV-infected African American gay males, ages 16 to 24. "We are looking at post-traumatic stress, religiosity, HIV stigma, and the stigma of being a sexual minority so we can understand more of the factors that go into sexual-health risk," Radcliffe says.
'Being the Change'
Radcliffe, who grew up in a small Ohio town where there was "little diversity in day-to-day life," considers herself fortunate to have developed a diverse group of friends at Bryn Mawr. "They really opened up my world," she says. Her social circle at Bryn Mawr and Haverford included her future husband, Douglas Ross, Haverford '69, now a teacher at Friends Central School in Wynnewood, Pa.
"I'm inspired by the lives of people who have made a difference in the world," says Radcliffe, a Quaker. "I keep looking for ways to, as Gandhi said, 'Be the change you wish to see in the world.'"
Barbara Spector writes on science and technology as well as business topics. She is the editor-in-chief of Family Business magazine and former editor of The Scientist.