Chair: Neal Kohatsu                                                                Staff: Jessica Cafarella

Vice Chair: Linda Kinsinger

Since the February meeting of the ACPM Prevention Practice Committee, Committee activities have focused on: (1) developing the first ACPM position statement, which is on handgun injury; (2) beginning work with Medem, Inc. on a series of patient education articles on cardiovascular disease; (3) preparing ACPM’s practice policy statement on weight management for publication in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine (AJPM); and (4) working with AJPM to refine the review and publication of all ACPM statements. Current activities and upcoming plans in these areas are outlined below.

At the February 2001 meeting of the ACPM Board of Regents, the Board approved a statement on handgun injury that ACPM had developed in conjunction with the Doctors Against Handgun Injury (DAHI) Coalition. The Board resolved, however, that ACPM should develop a separate statement on handgun injury and control that takes a stronger stance than the DAHI statement.

The Prevention Practice Committee has coordinated development of this statement, which was authored by Committee member Christopher Armstrong in conjunction with handgun expert Joseph Sudbay. A draft of the statement was reviewed by Committee leadership in April and later distributed to both the Prevention Practice and Policy Committees for review. Following further revision, the statement will be passed along to the Board for review and approval.

At its February 2001 in-person meeting, the Prevention Practice Committee discussed ACPM’s first patient education article, Understanding Prostate Cancer Screening, which was written in conjunction with Medem, Inc. Committee members expressed concern about the process utilized for writing and reviewing the co-branded article. Since the February meeting, ACPM and Medem have worked together to develop a new process for producing patient education articles. This process is as follows:

• ACPM and Medem discuss potential topics for a patient education article that meets the needs of both organizations
• Prevention Practice Committee leadership and members of the ACPM Executive Committee discuss the potential topics and decide on a topic for immediate development
• Medem produces an outline of how the patient education article will be structured and the scope of information it will contain
• The ACPM Prevention Practice Committee, Policy Committee, and Medem staff hold a conference call to discuss the article
• Medem produces a first draft of the article, which is reviewed by the Prevention Practice and Policy Committees
• Medem revises the article, and the article is reviewed by the ACPM Board
• The article is edited as needed
• The article is entered into the Medem Library and posted on ACPM’s website

ACPM and Medem currently are working on the first in a series of patient education articles on the prevention of cardiovascualar disease, consistent with the ACPM Board’s recent approval of a resolution developed by Lewis Kuller to "take a leadership role in the primary prevention of cardiovascular disease." The first article in the series will be on cardiovascular disease and physical activity. Other articles will focus on cardiovascular disease and lipids/cholesterol, hypertension, smoking, and diabetes.

The practice policy statement Weight Management Counseling of Overweight Adults, written by David Katz and Haq Nawaz of Yale University/Griffin Hospital, has been finalized and is scheduled for publication in the July issue of AJPM.

ACPM staff will be participating in a June 1^st AJPM editorial meeting. Topics for discussion include: 1) educating AJPM reviewers about the purpose and design of ACPM statements in order to minimize conflict between AJPM and ACPM comments on guidelines; 2) publication of ACPM position statements in AJPM; and 3) publication of abstracts from Preventive Medicine 2002 in AJPM.

In recent months, the Prevention Practice Committee also has reviewed the draft statement Screening for Chlamydia, as well as revisions of the existing statements on both Childhood Immunizations and Adult Immunizations. Further drafts of these statements are expected in upcoming months. The Committee also worked with Jane Kattapong, author of ACPM’s statement Tobacco-Cessation Patient Counseling, to review a synthesis of guidelines prepared by the National Guideline Clearinghouse on tobacco use cessation and prevention.