Contact: Phil Hearn
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A Mississippi State researcher and leading authority on secondhand smoke is a new appointee to a prestigious, Chicago-based research center of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Robert C. McMillen, an associate research professor at the university's Social Science Research Center, will serve as a site principal investigator and member of the Scientific Advisory Committee for the AAP's Julius B. Richmond Center of Excellence for Children.
"Cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke have profound impacts on the health and development of young children," said McMillen. "I think this center of excellence has the capacity to develop effective interventions that pediatricians can use to induce parents who smoke to quit, or at least not expose their children to their smoke."
Funded by the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute, the AAP center is chaired by former U.S. Surgeon General Julian Richmond. It seeks to improve child health by reducing exposure to secondhand smoke and its associated diseases by changing clinical practice in all child health-care settings.
"Dr. McMillen has developed a national reputation as one of the leading authorities on the social and cultural aspects of secondhand smoke," said Art Cosby, who directs both the SSRC and Mississippi Health Policy Research Center.
"Along with others in the MSU center, he has originated the social climate analysis approach to studying societal change and innovation," Cosby said of McMillen, who also serves as an adjunct professor of psychology at the Starkville university.
In his role with the center, which is located at the AAP headquarters in the Windy City, McMillen will participate in two major projects. They include:
--Development and maintenance for use by others of a database repository on second smoke, child-related research. It will include a meta-analyses relating to pre- and
post-natal tobacco smoke effects on children and public and clinical efforts to reduce such exposure. Medical, ethical and legal documents also will be acquired and maintained.
--"The Dissemination of Best Practices to Reduce Secondhand Tobacco Smoke Exposure of Children," a coordinated effort to educate pediatric leaders on the harms of secondhand smoke exposure, promote clinical practices to reduce such exposure, and support efforts to promote smoke-free homes for children.
In addition to MSU, collaborators at the Richmond Center include researchers from Harvard, George Washington and New York universities, as well as the University of Rochester.
McMillen is a graduate of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., and holds a master's degree in experimental psychology from MSU. He also holds a doctorate in social psychology from the University of Georgia.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information, contact Dr. McMillen at (662) 325-2742 or robert.mcmillen@ssrc.msstate.edu; or Dr. Cosby at 325-7127 or art.cosby@ssrc.msstate.edu.