 |
|
Sri Jagdish Temple
|
Preventing Tobacco Use in Schools
Armed with a briefing booklet and the book A
Passage Through India, written by a previous
Fulbrighter, Glorian Sorensen traveled to India
determined to examine the social disparities in
tobacco use. Her goals were to research the factors
associated with differences in tobacco use among
school personnel by region, type of school and
presence of tobacco control policy, and identify
barriers to and facilitators of tobacco control
interventions.
 |
|
Glorian Exterior Bihar
|
Sorensen, director of the Dana-Farber Cancer
Institute's Center for Community-based Research
and professor in the Department of Society, Human
Development, and Health at the Harvard School
of Public Health, traveled to various regions
of India, including Patna, rural Maharashtra,
and Ahmedabad, to conduct her research. She also
collaborated with many fellow scientists. "I
have been fortunate to work with one of the major
leaders within India in tobacco control research,
P.C. Gupta," Sorensen said. Sorensen worked
closely with Gupta in designing a plan to conduct
her research.
 |
|
Glorian Focus Group Bihar
|
Sorensen was able to produce three completed
manuscripts for publication from her analysis
and comparisons of teacher tobacco use in the
Indian states of Bihar and Maharashtra and her
research within schools to elucidate the findings
from the Global School Personnel Survey.
With the help of her colleagues, Sorensen was
also able to design a school-based policy intervention
study to test the effect of school-based policies
and related interventions on teachers' tobacco
use and teaching about tobacco use prevention.
Sorensen's grant to India was as beneficial to
her colleagues as it was to her. "I believe
I have been able to contribute to the professional
development of other researchers here," she
said. "I have provided mentoring to several
junior colleagues collaborating with me on this
research, and they have told me that our work
together has been meaningful within their own
professional development." Sorensen said
she will take her experiences from India and incorporate
them into her professional and personal life.
Please contact
us if you would like to submit your own story
and/or photographs.
"International education
exchange is the most significant current project
designed to continue the process of humanizing
mankind to the point, we would hope, that
nations can learn to live in peace"
--J. William Fulbright |
|
