Rice, Medical Center Institutions Join Forces on Health Initiative

CONTACT:

Rice University:

Lia Unrau, science editor

(713) 831-4793
or unrau@rice.edu

University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center:

Gay
McFarland, news media administrator

(713) 500-3033 or
gmcfarla@admin4.hsc.uth.tmc.edu

Baylor College of Medicine

Dorey Zodrow, senior director of
communications

(713) 798-4712 or dzodrow@bcm.tmc.edu

RICE, MEDICAL CENTER INSTITUTIONS JOIN FORCES ON HEALTH
INITIATIVE
Tarlov to Lead Major Research Program to Examine Social
Determinants of Illness

The resources of Rice University and
the University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center will be joined formally
for the first time in a major research program to identify social and societal
determinants of the health of the world’s population and to develop public
policies that could contribute to a significant decrease in illness and increase
in well-being and productivity.

Rice and the University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center
officials announced today the research team–to be led by Dr. Alvin R. Tarlov of
Harvard University–will be based at Rice’s James A. Baker III Institute for
Public Policy.

As another component of this cooperative health policy
initiative, Baylor College of Medicine has joined Rice to establish an endowed
chair for a scholar who will specialize in health policy and health
economics.

Tarlov is currently executive director of the Health Institute
at the New England Medical Center in Boston and professor of health promotion
and chairman of the Mind/Brain/Body Society and Health Initiative at Harvard
University. Formerly, Tarlov was president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family
Foundation in California and chairman of the Department of Medicine at the
University of Chicago.

Tarlov has accepted a position as the Sid Richardson and Taylor
and Robert H. Ray Senior Fellow in Health Policy at Rice’s Baker Institute and a
professorship at the UT-Houston School of Public Health. Tarlov will move to
Rice in the fall to launch the research program.

The Baker Institute position is funded by a $2 million
endowment from the Sid Richardson Foundation and distributions from the Ray
Endowment and UT-Houston. In addition to the Tarlov appointment at Rice’s Baker
Institute, a substantial amount of other resources are being committed to this
project. Rice and UT-Houston Health Science Center will jointly make three
appointments in the field of social determinants of health and illness: one in
medical sociology and two in social epidemiology.

“We are privileged to have Alvin Tarlov, a leading figure in
the field of social determinants of health, to accept this joint position
linking the Baker Institute and the University of Texas-Houston Health Science
Center,” said Rice President Malcolm Gillis. “This represents yet another
important step in our plan to expand collaboration with several institutions of
the Texas Medical Center over the coming decades. This new effort begins with
the recognition that our current health care system is geared much too strongly
to treatment of those who are most seriously ill, at the expense of proactive
measures. Medical intervention far earlier in the process could significantly
reduce the number of people who become seriously ill.”

Dr. M. David Low, president of the University of
Texas&endash;Houston Health Science Center, said, “Several years ago I began
working on introducing a program on the social determinants of health. To
implement such an ambitious undertaking, however, I knew we needed more than the
typical capabilities of an academic health center. We needed sociologists and
economists and others who were interested in determinants of health from a
policy perspective, such as faculty and staff at Rice University and
specifically the Baker Institute.

“The Society and Health Initiative that we are jointly
implementing–and which we expect will lead to a worldwide epidemiological
effort to trace the socially influenced causes of disease–will be as pertinent
as the present effort to map the human genome. There could be no better leader
for this initiative than Alvin Tarlov.”

Tarlov said: “The vision and quality of the great institutions
in Houston and the ambition of their plans poise the program for world-grade
accomplishment that will be meaningful for health improvement in Texas, the
United States and internationally.”

The creation of the James A. Baker III Joint Chair in Health
Policy and Health Economics at Rice and the Baylor College of Medicine will play
an important part in the scope of the research effort.

“The individual who holds the James A. Baker III chair will
ultimately affect development of the health policies in the United States that
play a critical role in all of our lives, both as providers and consumers,” said
Dr. Ralph D. Feigin, president and CEO of Baylor College of Medicine.

Baker Institute Director Edward Djerejian said: “Tarlov will
lead this innovative program, which will be open to faculty involvement across
the board in an interdisciplinary manner both here at Rice and at the Medical
Center institutions.”

“Although American health policy has been debated repeatedly
and at times hotly since the turn of the century, those debates have revolved
almost entirely around questions about access to medical care and methods of
payments for medical services,” Djerejian continued. “And each round has served
more to confuse than to clarify. So far, none of the commonly asked questions or
their answers have been very helpful in guiding policy. Our global approach to
health issues will stake out new ground and provide creative opportunities for
research and policy formation.”

###