Recipients of Charles C. Shepard Award announced

Jill Van Den Bos, a healthcare consultant in Milliman's Denver Health practice, and her colleagues from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have been named recipients of the prestigious Charles C. Shepard Award. The Shepard Award, named for a former CDC scientist, is awarded annually by the Centers for Disease Control to honor excellence in science achievement. The award was received for a 2008 paper titled "Cost effectiveness of community-based physical activity interventions." The award was announced by the CDC June 29.

The paper, which was published by The American Journal of Preventive Medicine, used a Markov model to estimate the health outcomes gained from the implementation of programs to promote physical activity in adults. The study concluded that the programs analyzed cost between $14,000 and $69,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained, which compares favorably to other widely accepted obesity-prevention strategies. In addition to Van Den Bos, the research team was composed of Larissa Roux (Principal Investigator), Michael Pratt (co-Principal Investigator), Tammy Tengs, Michelle Yore, Teri Yanagawa, Candace Rutt, Ross Brownson, Kenneth Powell, Gregory Heath, Harold Kohl III, Steven Teutsch, John Cawley, I-Min Lee, Linda West, and David Buchner.