September 25, 2002
The following is a press release from GlaxoSmithKline following their annual meeting.
Jonathan Kotch, MD PhD of received the Individual Recognition Award and Wanda
Norman RN of Cabarras Health Department was honored with the Public Health Staff
Award. These awards are very positive statements about each of them and the significant
role Child Care Health Consultation plays in improving the lives of children in North
Carolina.
GlaxoSmithKline Applauds Public Health Professionals
- Individuals, Healthcare Organizations Across the State Honored New Bern and Research Triangle Park, NC– North Carolina public health workers
were presented GlaxoSmithKline Child Health Recognition Awards for their involvement
in initiatives for childcare health and safety, asthma, minority infant mortality, pediatric
and adolescent primary care and communicable diseases.
The annual awards are designed to showcase exceptional and innovative programs that
improve the lives of North Carolina’s children. Winners were announced at an awards
ceremony today in New Bern in conjunction with the North Carolina Public Health
Association’s annual meeting.
“Every day, our nation's public health professionals demonstrate their enduring
compassion and commitment to improving the quality of life for what is undeniably our
most precious resource – our children,” said Robert A. Ingram, Chief Operating Officer
and President, Pharmaceutical Operations, GlaxoSmithKline.
The awards, which include monetary grants for educational and other purposes, were
presented in three categories:
 The Individual Recognition Award, given to an individual who has made an
outstanding contribution to improving children’s health services, went to
Jonathan B. Kotch, MD, MPH, Professor and Associate Chair of Graduate
Studies, Department of Maternal and Child Health, UNC-CH.
 The Local Health Department Recognition Award, given to departments that have
developed innovative programs producing measurable, sustainable outcomes, went to
three health departments, Alamance County Health Department for their Healthy
Alamance Child Asthma Coalition, Brunswick County Health Department,
Minority Infant Mortality and Catawba County Health Department, Adolescent
Health Partnership.
 The Public Health Staff Recognition Award, given to full-time or part-time employees
or retirees of local health departments in recognition of outstanding service in
preventive health activities in their local communities, went to Wanda Norman, RN,
Cabarrus Health Alliance; Judy Butler, RN, Orange County Health
Department; and Thomas K. Johnstone, Physician Assistant, Rockingham
County Department of Health.
2002 GlaxoSmithKline Child Health Recognition Awards/1 st Draft/Page 2
The winners were determined by a committee composed of healthcare professionals
selected by The Task Force for Child Survival & Development. There were 42
nominations for the awards.
More information about the award winners follows:
Individual Recognition Award Winner
Jonathan B. Kotch, MD, MPH
Department of Maternal and Child Health
UNC-CH
Thirteen million children under the age of six spend some or all of their day in the care of
someone other than a parent. For many, that care takes place in childcare centers or
family childcare homes. Contact with other children, exposure to unsafe playground
equipment and, in some cases, inadequate adult supervision predisposes them to
increased rates of illness and injury. As director of the National Training Institute for
Child Care Health Consultants (NTI), Dr. Jonathan Kotch works to improve the health
and safety of children in childcare settings. NTI trains licensed health and child care
professionals who train health consultants to childcare programs. Since 1997, NTI has
prepared 240 trainers, who have trained over 750 childcare health consultants across the
country. Dr. Kotch has served in the Department of Maternal and Child Health at UNCCH since 1978, where he has directed a number of research efforts on the health and
safety of children. Besides his duties for NTI, which is national in scope, Dr. Kotch is
also the director of the North Carolina Child Care Health and Safety Resource Center,
where he oversees the North Carolina Quality Enhancement Project for Infants and
Toddlers (QEP). NTI and QEP provide funding, training and resource information for
childcare health consultants and childcare programs. Preliminary data from North
Carolina and five pilot states around the country show improvement in childcare health
and safety policies and issues, and in immunization status and access to treatment. With
Dr. Kotch’s experience in research and evaluation, these projects are making a difference
in the lives of children in childcare in North Carolina, and throughout the US.
Local Health Department Recognition Award Winners
Alamance County Health Department
Healthy Alamance Child Asthma Coalition
Asthma is the number one chronic childhood disease in Alamance County, accounting for
numerous hospitalizations, emergency room visits and absences from school. Barriers to
managing asthma include physicians’ limited time to educate families with asthmatic
children about environmental triggers in the home, and parents and children who do not
fully understand how to properly administer asthma medication. In 1999 the Alamance
County Health Department partnered with Alamance Regional Medical Center to form
the Healthy Alamance Child Asthma Coalition, with the goals of decreasing asthma
morbidity among children, and improving the well being of asthmatic children and their
families. In 2001, the Coalition conducted a case management intervention project with
30 children who had been to the emergency department, or had been hospitalized for
asthma. After six months, emergency department visits had dropped 95%, hospital
2002 GlaxoSmithKline Child Health Recognition Awards/1 st Draft/Page 3
admissions were down 91%, inpatient days decreased 87% and there were 95% fewer
absences from school. Parents missed fewer workdays, and saved money by not
continuing to use the Emergency Department as a primary care resource. In 2002 the
coalition created the Pediatric Asthma Center, which is housed at Alamance Regional
Medical Center, and is staffed by respiratory therapists that serve on the coalition. The
Pediatric Asthma Center teaches asthmatic children and their parents how to prevent and
reduce asthma attacks, and provides them with case management to help them live
normal, active lives. The coalition is an excellent example of a program that has produced
measurable, sustainable outcomes, and is currently a model program for other North
Carolina counties.
Brunswick County Health Department
Minortiy Infant Mortality
In 1997, Brunswick County’s overall infant mortality rate (IMR) was 6.9, well below the
state IMR of 9.2. However, when the Brunswick County Health Department looked at
how minorities fared, they found that the minority IMR was 16.3, more than double that
of whites and the state average. Further research uncovered more troubling statistics.
Minorities were more prone to several underlying health indices that can negatively affect
pregnancy outcome: lower birth weight, younger mothers, less use of services, higher rate
of unwed mothers, inadequate prenatal care and more complications in labor and
delivery. In response, the Brunswick County Health Department formed a Minority
Infant Mortality Task Force (MIMTF), with the goal of cutting the minority IMR in half
within five years. With a creative use of staff and resources, the health department
quickly reached critical objectives. In two years, there was an increase of 30% in
minorities utilizing family planning; a downward shift in pregnancy rate from 100.3 to
70.2; a 40% increase in WIC participation; a 25% decrease in motherhood anemia; and
an 11% decrease in babies of less than 500 grams birth weight. The most impressive
change occurred in 2000, when the minority IMR in Brunswick County fell to zero. The
effort to reduce minority IMR required vision and planning, but almost no new local
dollars. And the savings from just one neonatal care unit admission (which often costs
$1,000,000 per patient) would pay for everything the health department did to achieve
these remarkable results for countless years into the future.
Catawba County Health Depatment
Adolescent Health Partnership
Four years ago, only 10.5% of Medicaid-enrolled Catawba County teens kept routine
preventive health visits. Since these teens’ pregnancy and STD rates are higher than state
and regional averages, this dearth of preventive care was a significant concern.
Determined to fill the gaps in adolescent health care, the Catawba County Health
Department partnered with Catawba Pediatrics Associates (a local pediatric practice that
serves 41% of Medicaid-eligible children in Catawba County). Together, the partners
created the Adolescent Health Partnership/Totally Teens Health Center (TTHC). TTHC
is located in the Catawba County Health Department, functioning as the operating base of
the Adolescent Health Partnership, and is open year-round as a school-linked health
center. The center offers comprehensive primary and preventive healthcare, mental health
counseling and nutritional services. TTHC also has a school-based site at Catawba Valley
2002 GlaxoSmithKline Child Health Recognition Awards/1 st Draft/Page 4
High School, an alternative school for middle and high school students. Both sites are
indispensable in reaching students who would otherwise go without care. Today, over
half of Medicaid-enrolled children receive care. Patients and parents consistently rate
TTHC “outstanding” when asked about quality, accessibility and availability of services.
The innovative and collaborative efforts of the Adolescent Health Partnership/TTHC
have made the original vision of filling the gap of adolescent health care a reality in
Catawba County.
Public Health Staff Recognition Award Winners
Wanda Norman, RN
Cabarrus Health Alliance
Over 60% of children in Cabarrus County live in households in which the only, or both
parents work outside the home. Unfortunately, the general quality of childcare is low and
many childcare centers have been reluctant to accept information, consultation and
training on health and safety from the public health authority. In 1999, the Cabarrus
Health Alliance and the Cabarrus County Partnership for Children collaborated on a plan,
funded by Smart Start, to establish the Child Health Care Consultant Program. Wanda
Norman, an experienced public health nurse, was hired and worked quickly to establish
her credibility with childcare programs and gain their trust. In her soft-spoken, yet firm
and professional manner, she simply refused to take “no” for an answer. She did not ask
permission to work with childcare programs. Instead, she announced her arrival and
started to work improving the health and safety of all children in care. Today, Ms.
Norman is an accepted and valued partner among childcare providers in Cabarrus
County. They regularly call on her for advice and training to prevent health problems,
and for help when problems arise. In the first year of the consultant program, Ms.
Norman recognized a pressing need for more aggressive screening for vision and hearing
deficits than was possible in her program. She initiated a second program, the Hearing
and Vision Screening Program, which has screened over 1200 children and made
referrals for 36 whose hearing and/or visual deficits posed a threat to their educational
success, but had gone undetected by families and other caregivers. In less than three
years, Ms. Norman has made an enormous impact on the health and safety of children in
childcare programs in Cabarrus County.
Judy Butler, RN
Orange County Health Department
For over 15 years, Judy Butler has been a vital link in the prevention and therapy of
communicable diseases in Orange County. The Community Health Services Supervisor
for the Orange County Health Department, Ms. Butler works with physicians, schools,
homes and businesses to abort the spread of disease. Because bacterial and viral
resistance are on the rise, Ms. Butler works with the infectious disease specialists in local
medical centers to provide healthcare providers the best possible information about
treatment. She has helped control outbreaks of Giardia in daycare centers, meningococcal
meningitis in schools, hepatitis A in restaurants and pertussis and tuberculosis in
communities throughout the county. Ms. Butler meticulously defines the scope of an
outbreak, its unique features and appropriate therapies. When panicked parents call their
2002 GlaxoSmithKline Child Health Recognition Awards/1 st Draft/Page 5
pediatricians about a potential exposure for their child, the physicians count on her
written notifications of the outbreak in question. When large numbers of people require
treatment, she arranges therapeutic programs through the local health departments. Ms.
Butler brings to her position a calm, critical thinking style, and is never ruffled by the
magnitude or severity of the outbreak she is addressing.
Thomas K. Johnstone, Physician Assistant
Rockingham County Department of Health
Rockingham is a largely rural county that has been heavily affected by textile and
cigarette plant closings. About 2,100 jobs have been lost since 1990, which has led to a
22.5% rise in the number of clients seen in the Department of Public Health’s Pediatric
Primary Care Clinic. In his position as the pediatric provider, Tom K. Johnstone,
Physician Assistant, treats some of the most underserved children in the county. Children
are quickly put at ease with his warm, gentle, caring approach to patient care. Many refer
to him fondly as “Dr. Tom.” Some of his patients do not fit neatly into a protocol, but Mr.
Johnstone has the observation skills and insight to know when a child needs more than
just a treatment for an acute illness. To provide efficient medical care, Mr. Johnstone
works closely with the other providers in the health department. He regularly refers
pediatric patients to the Asthma Clinic so they can work together to form a treatment
plan. Patients with psychological needs are referred to the Mental Health Clinic. Patients
being seen in the family planning clinic, or in the WIC office may be worked into his
schedule immediately for evaluation of a medical problem to make the patient’s time at
the health department as efficient and convenient as possible. Mr. Johnstone frequently
works with student nurses rotating through the clinic. He demonstrates patience and
understanding while teaching these students new assessment skills. Students often report
that the best part of their public health rotation was observing Mr. Johnstone work with
children. Mr. Johstone also volunteers his services at the Free Clinic of Reidsville and
Vicinity, Inc., an agency that provides free medical and dental care to uninsured
individuals. Understandably, Mr. Johnstone is widely admired by his patients, and his coworkers.
GlaxoSmithKline—one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and
healthcare companies—is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling
people to do more, feel better and live longer. As part of this corporate commitment,
GlaxoSmithKline takes an active role in supporting community efforts in the areas of
health and human services, education, civic activities and the arts.
###