Steven S. Coughlin
Associate Professor and DirectorMaster of Public Health Program
Augusta University
biography
Steven S. Coughlin, PhD, MPH was previously a senior epidemiologist in the Post-Deployment Health Epidemiology Program, Office of Public Health, at the Department of Veterans Affairs and is currenly an Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at Emory University. Previously he was a senior cancer epidemiologist at the CDC, and an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Program in Public Health Ethics at Tulane University. Dr. Coughlin is an Associate Editor of the American Journal of Epidemiology. He is the author or coauthor of more than 210 articles and the author or co-editor of several books including Ethics and Epidemiology (Oxford University Press, 1996, 2nd edition 2009), Case Studies in Public Health Ethics (American Public Health Association, 1997, 2nd edition 2009), The Principle of Equal Abundance (Xlibris, 2007), The Nature of Principles (Xlibris, 2008), Ethics in Epidemiology and Public Health Practice (Quill Publications, 1997), Causal Inference and Scientific Paradigms in Epidemiology (Bentham Science Publishers, 2010, http://bentham.org/ebooks/9781608051816/index.htm), and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Chronic Health Conditions (American Public Health Association, 2012). Dr. Coughlin's scientific accomplishments include completing the first two case-control studies and the first cohort mortality study of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDCM) carried out any where in the world as well as the second incidence study of IDCM in a United States population. These groundbreaking studies, which were carried out in collaboration with senior epidemiologists and cardiologists in Baltimore, Washington, DC, Pittsburgh, and New Orleans in the 1980's and 1990's, with financial support from the National Institutes of Health, showed that African Americans have a 2 to 3-fold increased odds of IDCM and that those who are diagnosed with IDCM have a 5-fold increased risk of dying as compared with whites. Pronouced associations were also found between IDCM and bronchial asthma and asthma medications. Dr. Coughlin's innovative work in the early 1990's on ethics instruction in epidemiology and public health research, including a key paper on model curricula for public health ethics and a national survey of ethics instruction at schools of public health in the United States, helped pave the way for the model curricula on public health ethics developed by the Association of Schools of Public Health. Dr. Coughlin was chair of the writing group that drafted ethics guidelines for the American College of Epidemiology. Since 2004, Dr. Coughlin has been involved with an international humanitarian effort, coordinated by the Yvette Flunder Foundation, City of Refuge Church, in San Francisco, and the Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, California, to support children in Southern Africa who have been afflicted by or impacted by the AIDS pandemic. In addition, Dr. Coughlin is Founder of the Indio Center for Art, Religion, and United Societies (ICARUS) Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that was incorporated in California in 2008 to provide life-changing and life-saving services to socioeconomically disadvantaged children and adults in more than 6 countries.
Area of Interest
1. Addiction/Substance Abuse
2. Behavior and Health
3. Cancer Prevention
4. Statistical Modeling
5. Cardiovascular Diseases
6. Infectious Disease
7. Mental Health
8. Public Health Practice
9. Risk Assessment
10. Rural Health
11. Sexual Health/Behavior
12. Disease Surveillance
13. Evaluation
14. HIV/AIDS Prevention
15. Health Literacy
16. Health Outcomes
17. Health Promotion
top publication
1. Criqui MH, Coughlin SS, Fronek A. Noninvasively diagnosed peripheral arterial disease as a predictor of mortality. Results from a prospective, population-based study. Circulation 1985;72:768-73
2. Criqui MH, Lee ER, Hamburger RN, Klauber M, Coughlin SS. IgE and cardiovascular disease. Results from a population-based study. Am J Medicine 1987;82:964-8
3. Criqui MH, Browner D, Fronek A, Klauber M, Coughlin SS, Barrett-Connor E, Gabriel S. Peripheral arterial disease in large vessels is epidemiologically distinct from small vessel disease. An analysis of risk factors. Am J Epidemiol 1989;129:1110-9
4. Coughlin SS, Szklo M, Baughman K, Pearson TA. Idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy and atopic disease: Epidemiologic evidence for an association with asthma. Am Heart J 1989;118:768-74
5. Criqui MH, Seibles JA, Hamburger RN, Coughlin SS, Gabriel S. The epidemiology of immunoglobulin E levels in a defined population. Ann Allergy, 1990;64:308-13
6. Coughlin SS, Szklo M, Baughman K, Pearson TA. The epidemiology of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy in a bi-racial community. Am J Epidemiol 1990;131:48-56
7. Coughlin SS. Recall bias in epidemiologic studies. J Clin Epidemiol 1990;43:87-91
8. Espinel CH, Williams JL, Coughlin SS. Comparison of the efficacy and tolerability of Enalapril and Lisinopril in the treatment of mild to moderate essential hypertension. Clin Therapeutics, 1990
9. Coughlin SS, Chiazze L, Jr. Job-exposure matrices in epidemiologic research and medical surveillance. State of the Art Reviews in Occupational Medicine 1990;5:633-46
10. Coughlin SS. STD/HIV risk assessment and counseling by primary care providers. Nurse Practitioner Forum, 1991;133:305-13
11. Coughlin SS, Nass C, Pickle L, Trock B, Bunin G. Regression methods for estimating attributable risk in population-based case-control studies. A comparison of additive and multiplicative models. Am J Epidemiol, 1991;133:305-13
12. Doukas DJ, Gorenflo DW, Coughlin SS. Informed consent and the living will: A national survey. Family Medicine, 1991;23:354-6
13. Karstaedt PJ, Pincus JH, Coughlin SS. Standard and controlled-release levodopa/carbidopa in fluctuating Parkinsonians on a protein redistribution diet: A preliminary report. Arch Neurology 1991;48:402-5
14. Coughlin SS. Toward the primary prevention of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (Editorial). J National Med Assoc, 1991:83:949-50
15. Boekeloo BO, Marx E, Kral AH, Coughlin SS, Bowman M, Rabin DL. Frequency and thoroughness of STD/HIV risk assessment by physicians in a high risk metropolitan area. Am J Public Health, 1991;81:1645-8
Theses:
1. Coughlin SS. Misclassification Bias in a Multivariate Setting: Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors, Master's Thesis, San Diego State University, 1984, Abram S. Benenson, M.D. thesis advisor
2. Coughlin SS. A Case-Control Study of Dilated Cardiomyopathy, Doctoral Dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University, 1987, Moyses Szklo, M.D., Dr.P.H. thesis advisor
Books:
1. Coughlin SS, Ed. Ethics in Epidemiology and Clinical Research. Annotated Readings. Newton, MA: Epidemiology Resources, Inc., 1995
2. Coughlin SS, Beauchamp TL, Eds. Ethics and Epidemiology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996
3. Coughlin SS. Ethics in Epidemiology and Public Health Practice: Collected Works. Columbus, GA: Quill Publications, 1997 http://www.books.google.com
4. Coughlin SS, Soskolne CL, Goodman KW. Case Studies in Public Health Ethics. Washington, DC: American Public Health Association, 1997
5. Coughlin SS, Soskolne CL, Goodman KW. Case Studies in Public Health Ethics. Translated into Mandarin Chinese by Xiao Wei. China: Gonggong Jiankang Lunlixue Anli Yanjiu, 2007.