Nasca headed to Vietnam on Fulbright

Professor to teach at Hanoi School of Public Health

by Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

hilip Nasca, chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, has been awarded a Fulbright grant to teach at the Hanoi School of Public Health from September to mid-January 2002. His award is one of 2,000 Fulbright grants.

     "This is a new school of public health, formed in the mid-1990s," Nasca said. "Its purpose is to train a public workforce to improve the health of the Vietnamese people."

     Nasca will be teaching a five-month course in epidemiological research and faculty-development short courses in preparing manuscripts for publication and developing research protocols and to advise the school on its curriculum.

     "They're also interested in my giving them some advice on developing chronic disease surveillance systems, particularly in the areas of cancer and coronary disease," he said. "What's been happening in Asia as these countries become more Westernized and more industrialized is a change in diets. Asian people are shifting from rice and vegetables to more high fat foods. It's a concern not only in Vietnam but in many parts of Asia that this change may bring with it an increase in many Western-type diseases, and they want to study it early."

     Nasca said he hopes to learn more about health care delivery and public health practice in developing countries and to be able to share that information with students and other faculty on his return.

     "I hope this first contact will develop into a long-term and more expansive relationship between the University of Massachusetts and the University of Vietnam and we might see an exchange of students and faculty with them," he said.

     "I'm also looking for opportunities for joint research projects. There is a large Vietnamese population in New England. One cultural group in two distinctly different geographic locations would enable us to look at what factors might affect disease."

     Nasca is a veteran of nearly 30 years in public health, 20 of them with the New York State Department of Public Health, where he was director of the Bureau of Cancer Epidemiology and Control. He previously worked with the Centers for Disease Control and public health departments, as well. He also taught public health at SUNY Albany before joining the faculty here seven years ago.