September 2001

President's Corner

If you missed the 14^th Annual SPER Meeting held in the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel in Toronto, Canada, you missed a chance to hear 18 oral presentations and 116 poster presentations on an exciting mix of topics reflecting the diversity of our membership’s research interests and expertise. In addition to the oral and poster presentations typical of the annual meeting, there were three other noteworthy talks. Dr. Nigel Paneth’s keynote address reminded us about the "… cheap thrills and triumphs of low technology on child health…" eliciting reflection, chuckles, discussion, laughter, more laughter (I think you get the point) from the audience. Dr. Mostafa Arafa was the Heinz Berendes International Travel Award Recipient, and he talked about the implications of early vaginal bleeding for pregnancy outcomes. The Student Prize Paper recipient, Dr. William Callaghan, presented his research findings on leisure time physical activity and macrosomia. Many thanks to all presenters for helping to make the meeting an eventful scientific exchange. Be sure to check out the published abstracts in a forthcoming issue of Paediatric & Perinatal Epidemiology.

to serve SPER and to ensure its future successful. Please communicate with us on a regular basis and don’t be afraid to send us your thoughts and ideas.

SPER is operating in the technology age and we are delighted to have entered the 21^st century. Such technology offers us a more efficient way to communicate with members and colleagues in terms of speed and cost. Please help us by sending your email address to our Secretary or Treasurer. The Executive Committee and membership decided to discontinue mass mailings of newsletters; this is the last newsletter that will be mailed. We will continue to publish periodic newsletters, but they will be posted at SPER’s website and emailed to members with known email addresses. If you have special circumstances and need to have a hard copied mailed to you, please contact either Dr. Siega-Riz or Ananth. Membership continues to be strong, though foreign membership is declining. Please encourage interested colleagues to consider joining SPER. We are particularly interested in increasing our representation from students and fellows and foreign colleagues.

Planning is already underway for the 15^th Annual Meeting to be held on June 17-18 in Palm Desert, California (next to Palm Springs). Mark your calendars now and be prepared to celebrate our 15^th (official) year. We are planning a photo tour of SPER’s past 15 years to reflect where we have been and what our members have been up to. [Don’t worry; there will be no discussion or either age or cohort effects!]

At the recent SPER executive board meeting, it was felt that papers on interesting and innovative methods must be encouraged for presentation at the upcoming SPER meeting. Some of the topics that were proposed at the meeting included methods for analysis of correlated data, innovative methods for analyzing dose-response data (including smoothing methods), time-series analysis, modeling social, individual and population effects, and Bayesian approaches to data analysis.

We welcome ideas and suggestions from our membership on other interesting topics. If such a session is devoted, would you be interested in submitting one (or more!) abstracts for consideration? Please email your responses to either Drs Ananth or Buck.

Report on the Toronto Meeting

We had another year of record attendance at the meeting, with 170 registrants, and a record number of presentations, 126. This year’s meeting format changed such that there was an additional session for oral presentations on the first afternoon of the meeting. This additional session worked well since the SER meeting attracted many professionals from the expanded organizations contributing to their meeting and may have contributed to our increased numbers.

Thanks to everyone who worked hard to make the meeting a success – the SPER officers, especially Edem Ekwoially, who put together the program; Russell Kirby and Mary Hediger who were responsible for the abstract review process; the abstract reviewers; and all of our presenters.

Abstracts from our Fourteenth Annual Meeting in Toronto will be published in the October issue of Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology.

Report from the 2001 
Business Meeting

• The electronic abstract submission process went well this past year. Since this was the first time, we did not charge an abstract processing fee but rather increased the cost of registration. Next year we will return to charging for an abstract submission since the organization subsidizes the cost of publishing the abstracts and these costs are expected to increase in the future.

• We need to encourage Utah’s Continuing Education Office to conduct an evaluation of the presentations and meeting format.

• All of our newsletters will be sent electronically to the membership. Thus it is vital that the Treasurer has your updated email address. The Society needs to move into the electronic age to cut costs.

Next Year's Meeting
Palm Desert California
June 17-18, 2002

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An extraordinary oasis in the Coachella Valley, Marriott's Desert Springs Resort and Spa offers a rare combination of California hospitality, extensive amenities, impeccable service, luxurious accommodations and resort activities. Located on four hundred thirty-six landscaped acres in Palm Desert, the resort complex features twenty-three acres of lakes and Venetian inspired waterways including an eight story atrium lobby with exotic birds, palm trees, waterfalls and boat dock.

We look forward to seeing you there!!!!!!
Abstracts will be due February 11, 2002

Officers for 2001 - 2002

Germaine Buck, President
Edem Ekwo, Past President
Pierre Buekens, President-Elect
Cande Ananth, Treasurer
Anna Maria Siega-Riz, Secretary

Members-at-Large
Mary Hediger
Russ Kirby
Ken Schoendorf
Mary Croughan-Minihane

Linda Van Marter, Liaison with AAP's Epidemiology Section

David Savitz, Liaison with SER

Anna Maria Siega-Riz, PhD, RD Secretary
E-mail: am_siegariz@unc.edu
Phone: (919) 962-8410
Fax: (919) 966-0458
Address: 403 Rosenau Hall, CB# 7445
University of North Carolina-School of Public Health, Chapel Hill, NC 27599

For membership information, including subscriptions to Pædiatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, contact: