Three epidemiology students traveled to Seattle this week to present findings at the 2017 annual meeting of the Society for Pediatric Epidemiologic Research. Pictured below are KYLE FREESE, LARA SIMINERIO LEMON, and TAMALA GONDWE. What was their take-away from the 30th anniversary event? Reproductive, perinatal, and pediatric epidemiology is no longer the “new kid on the block.”
Alumnus RAJESH PANDAV (EPI ’01) has now completed two years as the World Health Organization’s country representative to East Timor. Along with updates on his accomplishments, Pandav sent in a nice shout-out to his mentors at Pitt: “All this has been possible because of the excellent education I received when I was at Pitt Public Health. I would like to specially thank Assistant Dean for Student Affairs, MARY DERKACH, and my mentor, MARY GANGULI...
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER - “For the first time in Allegheny County, fentanyl was found in more people than heroin,” said Pitt Public Health epidemiologist JEANINE BUCHANICH. There appear to be two distinct epidemics in Pennsylvania, said DONALD BURKE. Southeastern Pennsylvania historically has been a source of extremely pure and cheap heroin, which is now drawing some users whose addictions began with prescription pain pills.
KVOA NEWS 4 - New prediction tools to identify patients at risk of inappropriate prescription opioid use, while allowing safe administration of legitimate pain management are being developed by alumna WEI-HSUAN JENNY LO-CIGANIC (BIOST '10, EPI '05), now an assistant professor with the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy. Her newly-funded work builds on research she completed as a postdoctoral associate at Pitt's HEALTH POLICY INSTITUTE.
UPI - Research led by EPI's WENDY KING found that while the number of adults with severe obesity using prescription opioids initially declines in the months after bariatric surgery, it eventually increases to surpass pre-surgery rates. "Almost half of patients reporting opioid use at the time of surgery reported no such use following surgery. However, among the much larger group of patients who did not report opioid use pre-surgery, opioid use gr...
PITTSBURGH TODAY - “PM2.5 is probably the chief concern for the region, mainly because of its contribution from a source as big as the Clairton plant has an effect over a fairly large area,” said EOH associate prof JAMES FABISIAK.... “Everything that’s a risk factor for bad health is showing up high in that area,” said LUANN BRINK, Allegheny County Health Department deputy director and chief epidemiologist (as well as EPI alum and assistant prof)...
Kudos to (photo front, left to right) alumna PATRICIA NOWALK (EPI '81, ’93) and BCHS faculty MARY HAWK, ED RICCI, and (back) RICHARD ZIMMERMAN, who received the Immunization Publication Excellence Award presented during the National Adult Influenza Immunization Summit, May 10, 2017, in Atlanta, Georgia. The award was in recognition of their work on the Four Pillars Practice Transformations Program for adult influenza immunization.
STAR TRIBUNE - “That is the herd immunity,” said WILBERT VAN PANUIS, Pitt Public Health epidemiologist and affiliated faculty of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory. Measles is less likely to turn into an outbreak if at least 95 percent of the population has immunity protection. ldquo;If the number drops below 95, the chance of measles infection is going up,” he said. “Children who can’t be vaccinated will be at an extreme risk.”
Alumna STEPHANIE JOHNSON (EPI '16) has been accepted into the CDC/CSTE Applied Epidemiology Fellowship. The mission of this national fellowship-training program is to meet the nation's ongoing need for applied epidemiology workforce capacity in state and local health departments. Johnson will be serving at the Puerto Rico Department of Health and the CDC-Dengue branch in San Juan, starting this summer.
Mary Ganguli is professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health. Her research focuses on the epidemiology of late-life mental disorders, particularly neurocognitive disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease. She is the principal investigator of several National Institute on Aging (NIA)-funded, population-based investigations in the area of dementia and Al...
Laura B. Gieraltowski is serving as a lieutenant commander with the Commissioned Corps of the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) for which she is a epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Emerging and Infectious Zoonotic Diseases, Division of the Foodborne, Waterborne, and Environmental Diseases’ Outbreak Response and Prevention Branch (ORPB). She regularly leads teams of public health professiona...
The following four individuals will be inducted into the Omicron chapter of the Delta Omega Honorary Society at the Graduate School of Public Health, recognizing merit and encouraging further excellence in, and devotion to, public health work:
Nancy W. Glynn (EPI '94), faculty and alumna; Leah M. Lamonte (IDM '06), alumna; Natalie A. Solomon-Brimage (BCHS '06), alumna; Christopher A. Taylor (EPI '10), alumnus.
CBS NEWS - "We knew there was an increase in the number of people experiencing problems with alcohol within the first two years of surgery, but we didn't expect the number of affected patients to continue to grow throughout seven years of follow-up," said lead author WENDY KING, associate professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health. Her team discovered that 20.8 percent of participants developed symptoms of alcohol use disorder within five ye...
UPI - "The long term effects of bullying involvement are important to establish," EPI's KAREN MATTHEWS, the lead researcher from the University of Pittsburgh, said in a press release. "Most research on bullying is based on addressing mental health outcomes, but we wished to examine the potential impact of involvement in bullying on physical health and psychosocial risk factors for poor physical health."