High School student Gazelle Zerafati won top honors in the prestigious Young Epidemiology Scholars (YES) competition, the nations leading public health research competition for high school students.
Gazelle, a 16-year old student at the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, PA, won for her project entitled “Epidemiology of Migraine in Teenage girls, a Student Population based Study.” She has a personal connection to her YES project: both she and her family suffer from migraines. In her study, Gazelle surveyed female high school students to determine the prevalence of migraine among teenage girls and assess their knowledge of this common neurological disorder. Her study showed that a great majority of the students were poorly informed about migraine symptoms and treatment and that migraine is seriously underdiagnosed and undertreated. “I was surprised to find that a large portion of the students who had migraine were not aware of it, and, therefore, never sought medical attention.”
The results of her study encouraged her to apply for Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval from a local medical school to expand her research to other high schools. So far, Gazelle has recruited seven high schools to participate. “Our new protocol allows for providing education material regarding migraine to the students after taking the survey.”
“Gazelle looked at a health condition that is affecting teens, but hasn’t been well described,” said Judge Jonathan Samet, MD, MS, Professor, and Flora L. Thornton, Chair, Department of Preventative Medicine, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, and Director, University of Southern California Institute for Global Health.” “He found that it is common, underdiagnosed, poorly recognized by the girls themselves, and substantially undertreated.”
Gazelle aspires to a career in public health as a geneticist or physician. She volunteers at a local hospital, writes a medical column for her school newspaper, and has interned with a geneticist and neurosurgeon. Fluent in Farsi, Gazelle is a two-year gold medal winner in the National Latin Exam and received the Excellence in Student Science Research Award from the Pennsylvania Society for Biomedical Research. A skilled violinist, she plays first violin with the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra.
The public health workforce is diminishing even as the population increases. By 2020, the United States will face a shortfall of more than 250,000 public health workers. According to the Association of Schools of Public Health, the YES Competition was established in 2003 by the Robert Wood Johnson foundation and the College Board to inspire talented high school students to apply epidemiological methods to the investigation of health problems, and, ultimately, encourage the brightest young minds to enter the field of public health.