Intern Updates Cancer Data    
 
Christiana Toomey (foreground) and Eilidh Higgins learned radio production from Hussien Mohamed, director and cofounder of Sagal Radio. The main radio listeners are primarily refugees. During Toomey's second semester at Emory's Rollins School of Public Health, she volunteered to write and record radio scripts to be translated into multiple languages, focused on early childhood learning, safety and health.
Christiana E. Toomey is an intern with the Georgia Department of Public Health's (DPH) Georgia Comprehensive Cancer Registry. With a bachelor's degree in engineering sciences from Dartmouth College, an ABET-accredited bachelor's degree in engineering from Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, and only a year left to complete her master of public health degree from the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, Toomey has the strong analytical and statistical skills needed to update the Georgia cancer data report.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in Georgia. Since 1995, DPH has collected all cancer cases diagnosed among Georgia residents. This information is part of the statewide population-based Georgia Comprehensive Cancer Registry (GCCR).

"Chris has been a huge help in updating our Cancer Data Report," said Chrissy McNamara, M.S.P.H., cancer epidemiologist, Georgia Comprehensive Cancer Registry.  "We have benefitted greatly from the experience and hopefully she has learned some things that will be useful in her future public health career."

"The report is critical in forming programmatic activities," said Cherie L. Drenzek, D.V.M., M.S., state epidemiologist.  "From a scientific base to targeted intervention and education, that's why we conduct cancer surveillance."

Toomey's efforts will assist DPH, volunteers, staff of cancer control organizations, community groups and other policy makers in developing strategies and policies for prevention, control and treatment to reduce the burden of cancer throughout Georgia

"I have always been interested in health and see public health as a way to employ analytic skills as well as engage with the community," said Toomey. "One of the most compelling reasons to me to study public health is to provide the public as well as policy makers and others with the evidence that problems exist, they need systematic interventions and there are interventions that do work."

The availability of the cancer registry data at the state level allows health researchers to analyze geographic, racial and other differences that provide clues that point to risk factors. With good evidence-based data, DPH and decision makers can determine where early detection, educational or other programs should be directed.

Toomey's broad look at public health is more holistic in her definition and approach.

"Public health is the health of a population at a macro level, or the difference between health status of two or more populations, including an analysis of why those differences are there," said Toomey. "Public health looks beyond the causes that affect the individual, to look at what's going on in that person's community, their social circle, people who look like them or eat like them or talk like them, and asks what drives the differences we see."

Toomey sees her generation as shaping and influencing the global community and making major contributions to public health through technological advances.

"We live at a different time and there are a lot of advantages to practicing public health now," said Toomey. "The fact that we are all connected is a huge part of it. We have grown up in a digital age, where e-mail is sent around the world and we do not have to wait a week or more for a letter to arrive. We think about the world, our place in it, and how we communicate with each other, in a different way. Those of us studying now and coming out of this age have a degree of accessibility to fellow members of our global community. We engage in a very different way and that is a huge strength."

Toomey has set her sights on what is next after the internship with DPH and graduation, but is cautious in looking too far into the future.

"I think, for me, the focus will be on community engagement in five, 10, maybe even 20 years from now," Toomey said. "I hope to lead a huge prospective cohort study in sexual minority health, but I don't want to get ahead of myself."

Toomey has enjoyed being a graduate student and public health intern in Georgia and is not opposed to a long career in the south.

"There are many advantages to practicing public health in Georgia, if given the opportunity to remain, I would be happy to do so."

-Story by Connie F. Smith, DPH Communications

 

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