The University of Pittsburgh at Bradford is seeking a director
for its Center for Rural Health Practice.

Dr. Livingston Alexander, university president, explained Friday
that a national search has been launched to find a director to
replace Michael Meit, who stepped down last May.

“It is a joint relationship between Pitt-Bradford and the
Graduate School of Public Health in Pittsburgh,” Alexander said.
“We’re both involved in the search for a new director. We’ve had
extensive discussions with representatives from the University of
Pittsburgh and members of the Advisory Board for the Center, and
we’ve come to a consensus on what we are looking for in a
director.

“We are looking for someone who has a lot of experience in rural
health issues, who has experience directing public health
programs,” Alexander said. The right candidate must also have
experience in population-based research.

“They need to have an interest in the causes of poor health
outcomes in rural areas,” he added. “They need to be able to write
grants well and secure funding. They have to be able to develop a
center prepared to address rural health in our region and how those
issues play out at the national level.”

While there are many challenges that impact health in this rural
area, similar challenges are being faced in rural communities
across the nation. The center has been sponsoring studies here and
looking at the national level also, “to begin to address and shine
the spotlight on the most pressing issues” in rural health,
Alexander explained.

Some of the locally pressing issues have been identified by the
work the center has done to this point, such as oral health,
emergency preparedness and a lack of rural health
professionals.

“There have been community health assessments performed in both
McKean County and Warren County,” Alexander said, highlighting some
of the work of the center.

“The focus has been on rural health professionals,” he said.
According to the National Rural Health Association, rural
communities represent 20 percent of the nation’s population.
However, less than 10 percent of physicians practice in rural
communities. “The focus has been on professionals that are
available,” Alexander added.

He explained reports have been prepared on those issues and are
available at the center, which is located at Pitt-Bradford.

“They’ve made a lot of progress and have had a lot of impact and
continue to do quite a bit,” Alexander said of the center.

The center was created in 2001 when Pitt-Bradford received a
$150,000 grant from the Office of Rural Health Policy within the
Department of Health and Human Services.

During the past four years, the center has conducted research in
several areas, including the health disparities between rural and
urban populations; obesity and its causes; and the need to prepare
for public health emergencies in rural America. The center also
published Bridging the Health Divide: The Rural Public Health
Research Agenda, which is a document that is used nationally to
guide rural public health research.

Dr. Lorraine Ettaro, visiting assistant professor of public
health, has served as interim director at the center since July
1.