Supercourse Newsletter, September 3, 2002
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Dear Friends,
Faculty in the WHOLE world:
Friends, it is exciting, we received faculty in 4 more countries, our
total is now 138. Below is the list of the countries where we do not
have faculty. If you know of anyone in these countries, could you,
please, please, please contact them, and have them join. What a buzz
it will be to have the Supercourse in Every country of the world.
(Perhaps we should consider developing a Supercourse Faculty WORLD
tour!).
Here are the countries that we need to have the Supercourse go Around
the World. You must tell your friends in Algeria, Grenada, Liberia,
Rwanda, Somalia, and all those countries where our faculty is not
represented. Thanks so much!!
Algeria -
Andorra -
Antigua and Barbuda -
Barbados -
Belize -
Benin -
Bhutan -
Bosnia and Herzegovina -
Brunei -
Burundi -
Cape Verde -
Central African Republic -
Chad -
Comoros -
Republic of the Congo -
Djibouti -
Dominica -
El Salvador -
Equatorial Guinea -
Grenada -
Guinea -
Guinea-Bissau -
Iraq -
Kiribati -
North Korea -
Kyrgyzstan -
Liberia -
Liechtenstein -
Maldives -
Marshall Islands -
Mauritania -
Micronesia -
Monaco -
Myanmar (Burma) -
Nauru -
Palau -
Papua New Guinea -
Qatar -
Rwanda -
Saint Kitts and Nevis -
Saint Lucia -
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines -
San Marino -
Sao Tome and Principe -
Sierra Leone -
Slovenia -
Solomon Islands -
Somalia -
Suriname -
Tajikistan -
Turkmenistan -
Tuvalu -
Vanuatu -
Yemen -
Overview Slides:
We will shortly send to you a set of slides which describes the Su-
percourse. It would be wonderful if you could present it to your stu-
dents, your faculty, your community, and your government to show eve-
ryone what a fine organization you belong to.
Exciting Development in Russia by Eugene Shunikov:
Many of you have been in contact with Eugene Shubnikov, M.D. and his
wife Julia from Siberia. Eugene started collaborating with us in
Pittsburgh in 1989 with collaborations in the area of Diabetes.
Eugene collected some of the best data in Russia on the incidence of
childhood diabetes. We have remained good friends, and he has been to
visit Pittsburgh and elsewhere in the US 9 times.
Eugene and Julia do much of the processing of the lectures, so please
submit a lecture and they will start talking with you. (how many peo-
ple in your department get to talk with someone in Siberia, even in
the winter time?)
Eugene received a great response in Montreal at the Symposium "Epid-
Internet-ology: Internet at the Center of Our Field" in the World
Congress of International Epidemiological Association.
Eugene developed the Russian Supercourse to train people in the area
of prevention and I-PREVENTION in Russia with the model of a global
system of shareware lectures "Supercourse": http://www.pitt.edu/~super1
two years ago. Now Russian/FSU Supercourse has the same number of
lectures that the main Supercourse project had in 2000! It is moving
amazing swiftly! We believe that our I-PREVENTION together with other
Russian/FSU Internet resources will revolutionize Public Health in
Russia. We are open to contact with all scientists, physicians, busi-
ness people who are interested in developing Russian/Former Soviet
Union(FSU) I-Prevention program.
First of all we have coined the word "I-prevention". This discipline
uses the tools of the Internet to bring and collect information from
the large numbers of people (both healthy and sick) to prevent dis-
ease and disability. The main reason of our activity in this field
was poor health indicators among Russians: the average life expec-
tancy in Russia now is only 65,27 years (2000). Our goal was to net-
work the scientists involved in prevention and the Internet in Rus-
sia. We used main Supercourse database where there were just 5 Rus-
sians at those time, our personal contacts. Internet search reached
210 participants of our network at August 2002. We have representa-
tives from many countries, different agencies, Russian Medical Acad-
emy and private organizations. The growth of the global I-
PREVENTIONISTS was exponential in the Supercourse. We saw a similar
pattern in Russia. Second, it was important to establish a large Rus-
sian Language Lecture Library on the Internet. The first Russian Su-
percourse's lecture was opened for public by the end of 2000. Now
there are 75 lectures - about one twelfth of total number of Super-
course's Lectures. Our lectures are from FSU authors or with topics
related to FSU countries from foreign authors. Very frequently Rus-
sian/FSU authors provide their lectures in both languages, so some
lectures are already in two languages. We are translating Super-
courses lectures into Russian, for example "Understanding of Septem-
ber 11" lecture which will be introduced to Russia and world soon.
From other side lecture "Maternal and Child Health in Kazakhstan" al-
ready translated from English to Spanish. So, Russian/FSU library of
lectures is used not only by the Russian/FSU scientists.
We have Russian/FSU web page in the frame of main Supercourse web
page - http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/national/index.htm as well an In-
troduction page in Russian language also accessible from the front
page of Supercourse project (www.pitt.edu/~super1). We have as single
topic lectures as well sets of lectures: "Evidence Based Chronic Dis-
eases Prevention" training course for Internet and lectures from web
site "Working place of hospital epidemiologist" developed by special-
ists from Russian Medical Academy. We are inviting Russian/FSU scien-
tists to report latest findings for immediate translation into pre-
vention on the Internet with the help of our program.
Recently we have started a new program: National Health Profiles. The
idea is that we would have one person available in each country to
collect health indicator information. Health Profiles exist with the
recent health indicators for all FSU countries. In half of countries
we have our representatives who are working under country's Health
profiles and recruit new members of our network. They are also re-
sponsible for updating of information. Our Health Profiles in com-
parison to WHO, World Bank data and other health indicators sites are
simple and timely, in graphic PowerPoint format. By having the health
indices in a user friendly format, e.g. PowerPoint, we can get it
into the classrooms of the world very quickly. Also, it will be rap-
idly updated. Through incorporated buttons we may get a response in
seconds, include new indicators if needed. We also invite people to
send their own slides for including to already existing lecture. So,
together with parent Supercourse (www.pitt.edu/~super1/index.htm)
project our Russian Internet prevention program
(www.pitt.edu/~super1/national/index.htm) is accessible now for Rus-
sian, Former Soviet Union (FSU) and World population.
Already now, researchers in Russia and across the world are able to
find lectures and data on emerging and viral diseases, infant mortal-
ity, chronic heart disease, cancer, etc. in Russia by region/site at
our web page. Generally such scientific data are scattered in many
different places on the web, with no information as to the quality of
the information. We are inviting all people from Russia/FSU and Su-
percourse's faculty interested in health in Russia to join our I-
prevention Program for creation of the Powerful National Public
Health Programs in FSU countries as a basis for National Internet
Health Program in other countries which need improvement in Public
Health.
Eugene, Julia, Ron, Akira, Faina, Mita, Fred, Soni, Rania, Abed, Eun
Ryoung,
Fan, Tom, Deb
We would love to hear your comments, please send a note to:
<ronlaporte@aol.com>
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