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Helen Murphy Director of Outreach Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health Center Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences Box 357234 Seattle, WA 98195-7234 Contact: (206) 616-5906, (800) 330-0827, hmurf@u.washington.edu |
Education
1972 B.S. Stanford University (Nursing)
1976 MHS University of California, Davis (Family Nurse Practice)
1992 Mahidol University, Thailand (Epidemiology)
1993 DrPH Candidate (all but dissertation) University of Hawaii (International Public Health)
Helen Murphy is the PNASH Center Outreach Director. Her specialties include participatory epidemiology, outreach and education research, training, and health education materials development.
She brings to PNASH 21 years of experience working in public health, the last ten of which have been in environmental health. She spent six years with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization first conducting research on the short and long term effects of pesticides among women farmers in Indonesia. She applied these study designs to an innovative outreach program that trained farmers and school children in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, and Cambodia to conduct their own studies on the health effects of pesticides as a health education strategy.
Just before joining PNASH, Murphy worked for the Washington State Department of Health as an epidemiologist where she conducted a statewide study of mercury in canned tuna fish. This followed her work as an Outreach Research Analyst during which time she designed a behavior change-based outreach program for the state’s fish consumption advisories.
She has 25 years experience training professionals, non-professional lay workers, and community members in a variety of languages and settings. Murphy brings to the center methods to evaluate the impact training has on both knowledge and behaviors. She also has skills in designing and field testing novel training and educational materials, one of which was a pictorial immunization card for illiterate Afghan mothers.
As an epidemiologist, her other research as the principle investigator was a three-year field trial on a cereal-based oral rehydration solution to prevent dehydration from diarrhea among Afghan children. She brings to PNASH a broad range of research experience that includes participatory action research, qualitative, ethno-medical, and quantitative methods.
Prior to her career in public health, Murphy practiced clinically for 10 years as a Family Nurse Practitioner in Washington state with the US Public Health Service and in an internal medicine practice in Everett.
Selected Publications:
Murphy HH, Hoan NP, Matteson P, Morales Abubakar ALC. Farmer self-surveillance on pesticide poisoning: a 12-month pilot in Northern Vietnam. Int J Occup Environ Health.2002; 8:201-211.
Murphy HH, Sanusi A, Dilts R, Djajadisastra M, Hirschhorn N, Yuliatingsih S. (1999) “Health Effects of Pesticide Use Among Indonesian Women Farmers: Part 1: Exposure and Acute Health Effects.” Journal of Agromedicine Vol 6, Issue 3. pg 61-85.
Murphy HH, Sanusi A, Dilts R, Djajadisastra M, Hirschhorn N, Yuliatingsih S . (2000) “Health Effects of Pesticide Use Among Indonesian Women Farmers: Part 2: Reproductive Health Outcomes.” Journal of Agromedicine Vol 6, Issue 4. pg 27-43.
Murphy HH, Mull D, Molla M, Zaidi, A. (1993) "Childhood Diarrhea Beliefs Among Afghan Refugee Mothers in Pakistan" The Afghanistan Studies Journal. Vol 4:55-70.
Murphy HH, Bari A, Molla M, Zaidi A, Hirschhorn N. (1996) "A Field Trial of Wheat-Based Oral Rehydration Solution Among Afghan Refugee Children." ACTA Paediatr 85:151-7.
Wilson R , Molla AM, Siddiqi S, Murphy HH, Bari A.(1993) "Cereal- Based ORT" in Global Learning for Health ed. Morgan E, Rau, R. NCIH: Washington D.C.