SPOTLIGHT: VIC STRECHER
By Jessica Ameling, '09
When Dr. Vic Strecher's daughter Julia was nine months old, he was told she had about 30 days to live. The doctors said the only thing that could possibly save her was an unprecedented heart transplant.
Like a true researcher, the terrified young father hit the books. He read hundreds of journal articles, called doctors around the country and essentially found out everything he could about the potential surgery.
“You're pretty lucky Vic,” his dad told him one night while he was researching and feeling the exact opposite of lucky. “Stuff happens to everyone, but you're able to find all the information in the world that you need to make this decision.”
That realization has helped shaped Dr. Strecher's career. Although he was already doing work in health communication, the experience gave meaning to that work and further motivated him to create means to widely disseminate health information.
Dr. Strecher is an alumnus of the HBHE program in the University’s School of Public Health, earning his doctorate in 1983. He became a professor in the school in 1995 and teaches HBHE 600, Psychosocial Factors in Health-Related Behavior. The class is one of the first taken by HBHE students.
“It's the first semester, so I see a certain vitality and energy,” he said. “They come from all over the world and they're very different kind of people. They range from very confident people to very scared people, they range from very experienced to very inexperienced in public health. But all of them share one thing, and that is they want to improve the world. I feel that the one thing that I really want to do is make sure I don't screw that up.”
Last summer, Dr. Strecher helped create a web-based version of his class for the new Certificate in the Foundations of Public Health program offered through SPH. He thinks it is essential for people with geographic or career limitations to have the opportunity to take classes through SPH.
“Wherever I travel, people ask, 'where do you learn the things that you know?'” he said. “I tell them, we teach all of this in the School of Public Health. And they say 'well I can't go there, I work full time.'”
Dr. Strecher is also founder of the Center of Health Communications Research where he directs the Health Media Lab. The center recently received another grant from the National Cancer Institute, totaling $8 million over the next five years. The grant will be used to fund cancer communications projects such as colorectal cancer screenings for African-Americans, decisions for prostate cancer treatment, and long term issues for both breast cancer survivors and childhood brain cancer survivors.
Outside of the University of Michigan, Dr. Strecher founded Health Media in 1998. Health Media uses interactive, tailored web interventions to encourage behavior change. The company, which was named the “2008 Company of the Year” by the Ann Arbor Business Review, was recently purchased by Johnson and Johnson.
“It's really gratifying to see prevention and wellness actually taking the forefront now,” he said. “It will be interesting to see whether the private sector can actually tackle the area of prevention, which has usually been relegated to not-for-profits and government kinds of organization because the for-profit world never saw a profit in it.”
The purchase has caused an increase in personnel and resources which will allow Dr. Strecher to take a new role in the company. He is spending this year traveling the world developing new products for Health Media. He will take a sabbatical this fall to work on projects such as giving the automated health coach more of a personality and creating products that can be used cross culturally.
Dr. Strecher, who recently gave a talk about stress to the students of SPH titled “School is Hell, but it Beats Working,” admits that he hasn't been the best role model for warding off stress recently. But, he does attempt to balance his extensive career by not micromanaging and also by bringing his family with him on his travels whenever possible.
One of his guests on his upcoming trip to Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and London will a very special heart transplant recipient, Vic's daughter, Julia. Seventeen years after being one of the first pediatric heart transplant recipients in the country, Julia was recently accepted into the nursing program at the University of Michigan. His older daughter is a photojournalist who works in the Middle East.
“I like to joke that they're both going to take my class someday,” said the proud dad.
Other Faculty News
AUDIO PODCAST (3:39 min.): HBHE's Scott Roberts discusses the debate of personal genetic testing, for Alzheimer's risk and more. LISTEN NOW(July 16, 2009, UM News Service)
AUDIO PODCAST: (3:45 min.) HBHE's Daniel Kruger claims that when young men are scarce, they're more likely to play the field than to propose. LISTEN NOW. (June 10, 2009, UM News Service)