SRPH student Moudouni secures national public health research poster presentation

(COLLEGE STATION, TX) Darcy Moudouni, a doctoral student of health policy and management at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health, was selected as one of 19 people nationwide for the Delta Omega National Honorary Society in Public Health portion of the research poster presentations at the American Public Health Association (APHA) annual meeting, Oct. 25-29 in San Diego.

“I am honored to be presented with an opportunity to represent the School of Rural Public Health at APHA,” Moudouni said. “I am in debt to the hardworking individuals at our school who put together our research symposium each year and give students like myself an opportunity to showcase our work.”

Moudouni presented her poster, “Correlates of Fall-Related Mortality in U.S. Elderly,” during the school’s public health week activities April 7-13. She won first place from the school and was nominated to submit her abstract to the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health.

“This is a great honor for Ms. Moudouni and the School of Rural Public Health,” said Ciro V. Sumaya, M.D., M.P.H.T.M., founding dean of the HSC-SRPH. “It demonstrates the high caliber of our students and academic research activities.”

Utilizing a national data set of hospital discharge records, Moudouni found increased age at admission was significantly associated with increased risk of fall death. The relationship remained unchanged after controlling for socio-demographic and health status indicators, suggesting that age, as a risk factor for death, may not just be due to increasing disease burden from increasing years of life. The study also found men more likely to die from falls than women.

The Texas A&M Health Science Center provides the state with health education, outreach and research. Its seven colleges located in communities throughout Texas are Baylor College of Dentistry, the College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, the Institute of Biosciences and Technology, the Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy and the School of Rural Public Health.