Anna Odegaard
Health Policy Analyst, SEIU Healthcare Minnesota


The Minnesota Health Insurance Exchange: An Inside Look
Tomson Hall 280
Tuesday, February 19th at 7:00pm

Anna Odegaard is a policy specialist at SEIU Healthcare Minnesota, a
healthcare workers union.  In recent months, she has been integrally
involved in designing Minnesota's health insurance exchange. The
Affordable Care Act requires each state to develop an exchange as a
way of offering health insurance to people who are not insured through
their workplace.  In her talk, Ms. Odegaard will discuss how the
Exchange will work and the big decisions involved in designing it.
Since her talk will happen in the middle of the legislative process,
she will have very current updates on the issues the legislature faces
regarding the Exchange.

Michael Oakes, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, University of Minnesota School of PublicHealth
Co-Director, US Census Data Research Center

Division of Epidemiology & Community Health

The Social Determinants of Health: Past, Present, Future
Buntrock Commons, Black and Gold Ballrooms
Friday, February 22th at 4:00 p.m.

Michael Oakes received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Massachusetts. His research and teaching interests include quantitative methodology, social epidemiology, and research ethics. He is author of many research papers addressing the intersection of social science and health and the highly acclaimed 2006 text, Methods in Social Epidemiology. In 2007 he was a named a McKnight Presidential Fellow, an award given to a select group of the University's most promising new associate professors. In 2010 he was awarded the Schuman award for excellence in graduate teaching, the School of Public Health's highest teaching honor. Dr. Oakes teaches basic courses in statistical programming and doctoral-level seminars in group randomized trials, advanced epidemiologic methodology, and social epidemiology. Among other things, he is currently Co-Chair of UMN's Institutional Review Board (IRB) for the protection of human research subjects and Vice-Chair of UMN's conflict of interest (COI) committee. 

Univ. of Minn.Faculty Profile - Michael Oakes

Division of Epidemiology & Community Health

This lecture is a Wellness Center Swiped Event.

Timothy H. Holtz, '86
MD, MPH; Director, HIV/STD Research Program,
Thailand Ministry of Public Health - US CDC Collaboration,
Thailand

Social Inequalities and HIV in Asia: The Search for New Prevention Methods
Buntrock Commons, Black and Gold Ballrooms
Saturday, February 23rd at 9:15am

Timothy H. Holtz, MD, MPH, FACP, is the Director of the HIV/STD Research Program at the Thailand Ministry of Public Health – U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Collaboration (TUC) in Bangkok, Thailand, and is a Captain in the US Public Health Service. Dr. Holtz entered the CDC as part of the Epidemic Intelligence Service in 1999, was intensely involved with the CDC response to the World Trade Center Disaster and anthrax attacks in 2001, and from 2002–2009 worked in southern Africa, Eastern Europe, and South America on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR TB) control and TB/HIV program capacity building. Currently, he oversees clinical prevention research activities on HIV and STDs, including clinical trials of pre-exposure prophylaxis against HIV using antiretroviral medications among intravenous drug users and high-risk men who have sex with men.

A graduate of St. Olaf College and the University of Iowa Medical School, Dr. Holtz trained in primary care medicine at Harvard University/Cambridge Hospital, Cambridge MA, after which he worked with the Tibetan Government-in-exile in the Indian Himalaya while on a Health and Human Rights fellowship from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. He is board certified in internal medicine as well as preventive medicine, and was elected as a Fellow in the American College of Physicians in 2003. Dr. Holtz is an assistant professor of global health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, and has taught courses in TB and health and human rights there, and began an elective in human rights and social medicine for medical students. He is a founding member of Doctors for Global Health (DGH), a non-governmental organization that runs health and human rights programs in Central America, South America, and Africa, and served on its board from 1997–2003. The core principles of DGH are firmly rooted in social justice and human rights, delivering quality medical care and fostering social rights among impoverished and marginalized communities. Along with Drs. Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Yogan Pillay, Dr. Holtz is a co-editor of the 3rd edition (2009) of the Oxford University Press’ Textbook of International Health: Global Health in a Dynamic World. His medical memoir of working in India with Tibetan refugees, entitled “A Doctor in Little Lhasa: One Year in Dharamsala with the Tibetans in Exile” was published in 2009. In 2003 he was made a Fellow in the American College of Physicians. He has received multiple awards from the US Public Health Service, American Public Health Association, and University of Iowa College of Medicine.

St. Olaf Alumni Profiles - Dr. Timothy Holtz

A Doctor in Little Lhasa by Timothy Holtz

All lectures can be viewed at:

Anna Odegaard - "The Minnesota Health Insurance Exchange: An Inside Look"

Michael Oakes, Ph.D. - "The Social Determinants of Health: Past, Present, Future"

Dr. Timmothy Holtz -Social Inequalities and HIV in Asia: The Search for New Prevention Methods

Past Social Science Conference lectures can be viewed at: Social Science Conference Keynote Streams