Rice, UT Unite in Health Program

Rice, UT Unite in Health Program

RICE NEWS
April 15, 1999

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
recently 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 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."