Harkness Project Title:  Multinational comparisons of Health Status and Youth Risk Behavior in Alternative Education School Students

Mentors: Robert W. Blum, M.D., Ph.D., and Michael D. Resnick, Ph.D.

Placement: Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota

Biography at time of Harkness Fellowship: Simon J. Denny, M.B.Ch.B., a 2000-01 Commonwealth Fund Harkness Fellow in Health Care Policy, is a pediatrician and research fellow at the Center for Youth Health in Papatoetoe, New Zealand.  Previously he was chief resident at the Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland. Denny is a member of the Adolescent Health Research Group, which has developed an innovative multimedia computer-based tool for administering health questionnaires to young people. This tool was successfully piloted in 1999 and has received international recognition for its innovation and relevance in questionnaire research with young people.  Denny is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and studied medicine at the University of Auckland.  Based at the University of Minnesota, Denny’s Harkness Fellowship project compares data on risk behaviors, protective factors, health care utilization, and barriers to health care for adolescents in the United States, New Zealand, and other countries. 

Project: Denny’s project compared the prevalence in the U.S. and New Zealand of health-risk behaviors (e.g., drug use or violence) among students enrolled in alternative education schools.  He compared data from a survey of students in 36 alternative education schools in New Zealand with data from U.S. Youth Risk Behavior Survey.  For a further comparison, he contrasted these findings with data from the WHO Portrait of Adolescent Health in the Caribbean.

Career Activity Since Fellowship

• Senior Lecturer in Youth Health, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, 2006

Current Position: Senior Lecturer in Youth Health, School of Population Health, University of Auckland. (Updated August 2010)

E-Mail: sdenny@auckland.ac.nz

Harkness-Related Publications

Denny SJ, Clark TC, Watson PD. The health of alternative education students compared to secondary school students: a New Zealand Study. New Zealand Medical Journal 2004, 117:1205.

Denny S, Clark TC, Fleming T, Wall M. “Emotional Resilience: Risk and Protective Factors for Depression among Alternative Education Students in New Zealand.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. Vol 74(2) Apr 2004, 137-149

Denny, S.J., Clark, T.J., and Watson, P.D. "Comparison of health-risk behaviours among students in alternative high schools from New Zealand and the USA." Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health, 39; January/February 2003:33–9.

Watson P, Denny S, et al. "Adolescents' perceptions of a health survey using multimedia computer assisted self-administered Interview (M-CASI)," Australian & New Zealand Journal of Public Health, 2001 Dec;25(6):520–4.