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Robert E. Roush, Ed.D., M.P.H.
A native of Baytown, Texas, Dr. Robert E. (Bob) Roush took his baccalaureate and master's degrees at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. In 1969, he earned his doctorate in education (Ed.D.) at the University of Houston. He was awarded two competitive postdoctoral fellowships at the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in Washington, D.C. and at the University of Southern California School of Medicine in Los Angeles, respectively. In 1971, Dr. Roush joined the Baylor College of Medicine faculty as the founding director of the Center for Allied Health Professions. In 1979, he completed an M.P.H. degree from the University of Texas School of Public Health. From 1985 to the present, Dr. Roush has directed the Texas Consortium of Geriatric Education Centers, a federally funded group of nine academic health science centers in Texas funded through July 2005. In November 2000, Dr. Roush completed a three-year term as President of the National Association of Geriatric Education Centers, during which time he testified before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety regarding reauthorization of the Health Professions Education Act resulting in passage of S. 1754 sponsored by Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN). In November 2002, he was appointed co-chair of the NAGEC Committee on Bioterrorism and Emergency Preparedness, helping lead the national effort to leave no older American unknown to emergency services in the event of an attack by bioterrorists. At present, he is the principal investigator of three federal grants to develop curricula and guidelines in this area for the caregivers of America's elders. |
A Faculty Associate of Baylor's Huffington Center on Aging, he is also an Associate Professor of Geriatrics, Department of Medicine and Professor of Gerontology at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Additionally he coordinates Continuing Medical Education for the Section of Geriatrics and teaches medical residents and geriatrics fellows. In his 33 years at Baylor, he has authored 370 publications, invited papers and funded grant applications totaling almost $15 million dollars for various training and research projects.
His interest in distance learning and telemedicine led him to develop and edit the HCOA Web Site, one of the first 25 in the world that focused on aging. This activity lead to his using metadata elements to ensure the accuracy of health information obtained via the Internet. Four metadata elements are used to 1) assess the bona fides of the author of a web page, 2) determine any funding bias of the page, 3) ascertain use of cited literature in a piece, and 4) reveal the date when the work was first posted and/or updated. The presence of all four metadata elements in a particular web page are proxies that the contents of the page are probably accurate. Using this system, Geriatrics Fellows are taught to write information prescriptions for web sites with accurate health information for older adutls.
Nominated by a national aging organization, Dr. Roush was selected to write the aging piece for Microsoft's 1999 Encarta Encyclopedia. He has also written on the socialization of the health professions and how this process affects scholarly productivity in various fields.
Dr. Roush is the producer a critically acclaimed video on the benefits of exercise to young and older persons. The video has been shown nationally on the Dish and Direct TV Networks and was archived on the Research Channel's Web site.
In keeping with his research on the use of Personal Emergency Response Services (PERS) to minimize "found down" time among alone-living elders, he now is involved in the emerging field of gerontechnology to demonstrate the efficacy of technologies other than PERS to assist elders to live independently in their homes for as long as they can. Specifically, he is interested in electronic activities of daily living reporting systems (ADLRS) unobtrusively embedded in homes to gather data from which one might assess the well-being of elders living alone. ADLRS consists of wireless motion and light sensors strategically placed throughout one's home that, when "tripped," denote such routine activities as getting out of bed, toileting, preparing meals, and taking medications. The daily logs of these essential activities of daily living constitute norms sent via a computer to a central web site. E-mails are then sent to clients -- usually adult children of the elders and/or LTC facility or other case management personnel. Marked deviations from the rolling norms may signal a deterioration in function that can alert the client to take appropriate action.
Dr. Roush's community service includes having served as Chair, Health Advisory Committee of the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation; Director, BancTexas Northside; and Board Member of the Sam Houston State University and University of Houston Alumni Associations.
Bob and his wife Carole have a son, Jonathan, born 1970; a daughter, Stephanie, born 1974; and with the birth of their first grandchild, Carmella Star Shaffer, on June 23, 2001, are enjoying being grandparents. Bob enjoys being with his family, jogging, reading and playing golf. He is also an alumnus volunteer for his fraternity, Delta Tau Delta, which he served as a member of the Arch Chapter from 1985 until 2002 -- first as Western Division President, Director of Academic Affairs, Secretary, and 1st Vice President. From 2000-2002, Dr. Roush served as the 45th International President of Delta Tau Delta, an organization founded in 1858 at Bethany College in West Virginia.
Mailing address: Huffington Center on Aging, Baylor College
of Medicine, 1 Baylor Plaza, Rm. M-320, Houston, TX 77030; Phone (713) 798-4611 Fax (713)
794-7092
rroush@bcm.tmc.edu.