By Matt Leingang
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Be it SARS, the West Nile virus or more common illnesses such as the flu, Cincinnati has hired a "disease investigator" to manage local public health emergencies.

Dr. Steven Englender, who is the state epidemiologist for Kentucky, joins the Cincinnati Health Department April 12.

STEVEN ENGLENDER

Who: Hired as epidemiologist for the Cincinnati Health Department. Starts April 12. Age: 56 Educational background: 1965 graduate of Walnut Hills High School. 1968 graduate of Case Western Reserve University, where he also went to medical school and graduated in 1973. Served two years as an epidemic intelligence officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Graduated in 1980 with a master's degree in public health and epidemiology from the University of California-Berkeley. Professional background: Worked 12 years in Arizona health departments. Became state epidemiologist for Kentucky in 2001.

Epidemiologists are scientists who study diseases and detect outbreaks so that the spread of viruses and other illnesses can be prevented and controlled.

The hiring of Englender is significant because in past cases - for example, the 2001 outbreak of shigella, a diarrhea-causing bacteria that affected nearly 2,000 children in Greater Cincinnati day-care centers - Cincinnati had to call in epidemiologists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The move also reflects the city health department's continued push to prepare for threats of bioterrorism - about one-third of Englender's $140,000 annual salary will be funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the CDC.

Englender, 56, played a key role in implementing Kentucky's smallpox vaccination plan for health-care workers last year. He also trained employees at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport on how to identify symptoms of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, in passengers.

"We live in a changing world - one with new infectious diseases and new kinds of threats - and we can't rely on the CDC for everything," Cincinnati Health Commissioner Dr. Malcolm Adcock said.

The city last had a full-time epidemiologist in the early 1990s. The position was eliminated because of budget cuts.

Englender, a 1965 graduate of Walnut Hills High School, already lives in Cincinnati. He's been commuting to Frankfort since joining the Kentucky Health Department in 2001 - one week before the September terrorist attacks.

"My job is to ask the right questions," Englender said. "What causes a certain disease? Why do some people get it and others don't? If we get those answers, then we can develop policies to attack it."

Once on the job in Cincinnati, Englender said, one priority is to investigate reasons behind the city's frustratingly high infant mortality rate - which is routinely higher than state and national averages, especially among African-Americans.

In Cincinnati, the infant mortality rate for black children is 20.2 deaths per 1,000 live births - and 9.9 for all other children, according to the Children's Defense Fund in Ohio. The state average for blacks is 16.1, and 6.1 for all other children.

Englender will also work with the newly created Center for Closing the Health Gap, an agency launched by the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, to study ways to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities. African-Americans and other minority groups generally have higher rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes

E-mail mleingang@enquirer.com