An academic-public health department partnership for education, research, practice, and governance.

Public health departments and medical schools are often disconnected, yet each has much to offer the other. There are 4 areas in which the 2 entities can partner; in Atlanta, Georgia, the Morehouse School of Medicine (particularly its Prevention Research Center or PRC) and the Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness have demonstrated partnership in each area. With respect to teaching, the 2 have collaborated on clerkships for medical students and rotations for preventive medicine residents.

Impact of depression on sex differences in outcome after myocardial infarction.

Background: Women have an unexplained worse outcome after myocardial infarction (MI) compared with men in many studies. Depressive symptoms predict adverse post-MI outcomes and are more prevalent among women than men. We examined whether depressive symptoms contribute to women's worse outcomes after MI.

Predictors of smoking cessation after a myocardial infarction: the role of institutional smoking cessation programs in improving success.

Background: Smoking cessation after myocardial infarction (MI) is an important goal for secondary prevention of mortality. Whether new initiatives to promote cessation improve patients' quit rates after MI is unknown.

Methods: The Prospective Registry Evaluating Outcomes After Myocardial Infarction Events and Recovery (PREMIER) enrolled 2498 patients with MI from 19 US centers between January 2003 and June 2004.

Time course of depression and outcome of myocardial infarction.

Background: Depression predicts worse outcomes after myocardial infarction (MI), but whether its time course in the month following MI has prognostic importance is unknown. Our objective was to evaluate the prognostic importance of transient, new, or persistent depression on outcomes at 6 months after MI.

Methods: In a prospective registry of acute MI (Prospective Registry Evaluating outcomes after Myocardial Infarction: Events and Recovery [PREMIER]), depressive symptoms were measured in 1873 patients with the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) during hospitalization and 1 month after discharge and were classified as transient (only at baseline), new (only at 1 month), or persistent (at both times).