Kent State College of Public Health faculty member, TINA BHARGAVA (BCHS, '12) is the coordinator for the Prevention and Control of Diseases course, which is taught online. She is interested in improving online teaching methods. Her research interests include health behavior change and the cognitive limitations that may affect success with behavior change. Her current work focuses on re-envisioning the standard for student success.
THE BODY - Long-term survivors of HIV have experienced relentless trauma over the course of several decades, resulting in a syndrome unique to this population called AIDS Survivor Syndrome. Until now, there has been no scientific research to validate it. BCHS’ RON STALL became interested, noting that "street epidemiology tends to be pretty correct and street wisdom raises questions that are worth looking into very carefully."
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE – Health department officials like ERIC HULSEY (BCHS '08) are diving deep into the data in order to predict where and when an opioid overdose is going to occur. The trick will be getting the information, and its implications, out to the broader community. “This is not just the responsibility of the government,” says BCHS’ KAREN HACKER, director, Allegheny County Health Department. “We can hopefully influence the health ca...
ELIZABETH FELTER (BCHS ’09) joined the faculty as assistant professor in 2010. She has been a Certified Health Education Specialist since 2001 and leads the department’s health communication/health risk communication curriculum. Her teaching portfolio has expanded to include development of infographics, preparation of public service announcements, and use of video for public health communication.
TODD BEAR (BCHS ’07, ’13) joined the Pitt Public Health faculty as an assistant professor immediately upon earning his PhD in 2013. His primary research interest is the study of adversity, including child maltreatment and exposure to violence, and its effects on health over the lifespan. He utilizes a life-course perspective to study the behavioral and psychosocial pathways by which childhood adversity affects adolescent and adult health.
HSTODAY - NIJ and the Federal Interagency Workgroup on Teen Dating Violence are hosting a moderated webinar on Monday, February 26, at 1:00 PM to discuss interventions to reduce TDV across multiple settings with potentially high-risk populations, including within adolescent health care settings. BCHS’ LIZ MILLER will talk about universal screening, warm transfers, and reasons patients do not seek or accept assistance.
ASPPH FRIDAY LETTER - Health data scientist Yll Agimi, and BCHS’s Steven Albert interprets interesting link, or lack thereof, between mandated licensing procedures and motor vehicle accidents by those afflicted with dementia. “Laws requiring physicians to report dementia patients to licensing authorities not necessarily mean fewer hospitalizations.”
THE PITT NEWS – Nearly 3,000 Pennsylvanians died of opioid overdoses in 2015, according to the Public Health Dynamic's Laboratory. But researchers like MICHAEL MALLON (BCHS '13), the project coordinator for Pitt Public Health's Opioid Initiatives, are working to change that statistic. "Pennsylvania is one state that is being hit harder than others. the number of overdoses almost doubles every eight or nine years," Mallon said.
Menstruation is a suppressed topic in our society, it is usually a subject whispered about in school hallways, complained about in the bathroom or completely ignored in the workplace. Tamara Whiting has set out to normalize it with SisterFriend Inc., dedicated specifically to menstrual advocacy and product distribution. "Pitt Public Health has been an outstanding partner to SisterFriend" says Whiting, and will host a SisterFriend author presenta...
TRIB LIVE - Analyzing motor-vehicle-related hospital admissions, in-person license renewal laws and vision testing were found to dramatically reduce the number of motor vehicle accidents by drivers with dementia, according to BCHS' STEVEN ALBERT and YLL AGIMI (EPI '12) as published in Neurology.
INSIGHT INTO DIVERSITY - The school began to seriously investigate LGBTQ health topics in the early 2000s, according to BCHS's RON STALL. “In terms of sexual minority health, a majority of public funding has always gone to HIV/AIDS research, and other disparities for [gay men] were relatively unaddressed,” he explains. “For other populations, like trans women and lesbian or bisexual populations, the basic research had never even been done.”
HPC WIRE - Alum JONATHAN RAVIOTTA (BCHS '18) and BCHS's RICHARD ZIMMERMAN are members of the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center that received the Hyperion Research Award on High Performance Computing (HPC) Innovation Excellence for their papers using agent-based modeling to examine the effect of choice of influenza vaccine types on vaccine uptake.
Alumna MICHELE M. BUZZELI (BCHS ’15) is teaching about global health at Northampton Community College’s Monroe Campus in Tannersville, Pennsylvania, using her coursework at Pitt Public Health to cover the syllabus. She will also teach a section of College Success, a required first semester course for incoming students, helping them navigate the college environment.
CNN - The international study, says BCHS’s CHRISTINA MAIR, has a “key strength“ in its “large, population-based database.“ The greater impact of drinking on lower socioeconomic status individuals is “an important health disparity to measure, understand, and seek to reduce.“ Her work focuses on how lower-income neighborhoods have less access to health-protecting resources. “Without addressing disparate environmental conditions...we will not be abl...
Professor Russel Rule Rycheck was an epidemiologist who was devoted to teaching and mentoring students. He believed that public health professionals must have a “professional bag” full of tools and skills needed to make an impact on the public’s health. This award enables MPH students to develop further skills and competencies for the professional bag. This year's winners include ROSA DE FERRARI (BCHS) and ASHYLN LANCASTER (IDM).