ID Grand Rounds & SPARK Lecture: 'Equity through Public Health Collaborations in Carceral Systems'

This University of Arizona event is sponsored by the Division of Infectious Diseases and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Department of Medicine, UArizona College of Medicine – Tucson. It is open to the public, particularly community physicians and other interested health-care professionals. This is a SPARK lecture and qualifies for 1 DEI credit for the college.

Please join us as we welcome presenters Orion McCotter, MPH, Capt. Rebecca Sinenshine, MD, FIDSA, and Mariel Marlow, PhD, MPH, as presenters at:

ID Grand Rounds & SPARK Lecture
Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2023 | Noon-1 p.m.
Chase Auditorium (AHSC 8403) or Zoom
— A light lunch will be provided. —

Their topic: 

“Advancing Equity through Public Health Collaborations in Carceral Systems”

Flyer for this event:  id_grand_rounds-spark_lecture_flyer_carceral_systems_4.pdf

About the presenters:
Orion McCotter, MPH, received his MPH in epidemiology and public health policy and a BS in health sciences from the University of Arizona. While at the Arizona Department of Health Services (2008-14), he led its Arizona Border Infectious Disease Surveillance (BIDS) program, developing surveillance systems and responding to outbreaks of respiratory, arboviral, rickettsial, foodborne, and waterborne infections along the Arizona-Sonora border. As a staff epidemiologist with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mycotic Diseases Branch (2014-20), he served as a national subject matter expert for Coccidioidomycosis (Valley fever) and established a national public health workgroup. He also helped to develop capacity for identification of fungal pathogens in People Living with HIV (PLWH) in Central and South America. McCotter joined the Oregon Health Authority's Public Health Division in February 2020 as surge-capacity senior epidemiologist and led development of the workplan non-healthcare congregate settings (e.g. shelters, migrant housing and workplaces, jails, prisons, schools) for COVID-19 response. Over the last year, he has served as public health manager for carceral settings in OHA's Center for Public Health Practice. This new program aligns work for jail and prison settings from many sections of the Public Health Division, including Acute and Communicable Diseases, HIV/TB/STD, Immunizations, State Laboratory, Vital Statistics, Emergency Preparedness, Overdose Prevention, MOUD. It strategically seeks to improve public health in these marginalized populations both while in custody and transitioning back to community.

Rebecca Sunenshine, MD, FIDSA, is chief medical officer for the Maricopa County Department of Public Health and a captain in the U.S. Public Health Service. As a CDC Career Epidemiology Field Officer assigned to Arizona since July 2006, she has served at the Arizona Department of Health Services for four years and at MCDPH since 2009. She is trained as an infectious disease epidemiologist with specialty training in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the Oregon Health & Science University followed by completion of the CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service Fellowship in 2006. She has guided MCDPH through many public health emergencies including the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, Zika virus, Ebola virus, Hepatitis A countywide outbreak and COVID-19 pandemic responses.

Mariel Marlow, PhD, MPH, serves as the correctional health coordinator in the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she coordinates justice system-related activities, oversees NCHHSTP’s Correctional Health Agenda, and serves as the NCHHSTP Correctional Health Workgroup co-chair. Dr. Marlow joined the CDC in 2015, as an epidemic intelligence service officer in the Division of Foodborne, Waterborne and Environmental Diseases, and then transitioned as Mumps Program lead in the Division of Viral Diseases. She has led local and national level outbreak responses to COVID-19, mumps and botulism in diverse correctional and detention settings. This includes projects to support inclusion of persons with lived experience in the public health workforce and to improve surveillance of diseases among persons with justice-system involvement.

For background on this important topic, feel free to check out the following resources:

• CDC Correctional Health: Correctional Health is Community Health
• At-A-Glance: CDC Recommendations for Correctional and Detention Settings for Testing, Vaccination, and Treatment for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, TB, and STIs

For questions or accommodations that may be necessary, please contact the Event Organizer at least three days in advance of event.