THE CONFLUENCE (WESA) -- Outgoing director of the Allegheny County Health Department, adjunct professor in HPM and BCHS, and Pitt Public Health board of visitors member, Dr. Karen Hacker discusses the population health issues of this region as well as her plans to head the CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - BCHS's Patricia Documet, director of Latinx researh and outreach at the Center for Health Equity, is chair of the board for Casa San Jose, a Latino community resource center that held a major party last week benefiting the efforts of Casa San Jose's mission to create a welcoming community for Latino immmigrants through civic and social engagement.
INSIDE UPMC - Sarah Baumann (BCHS '19) spent the past nine months in Nepal, in part conducting qualitative research and data collection on chhaupadi , an illegal cultural tradition that isolates menstruating women – who are considered “unclean” – to huts, basements or livestock sheds. Baumann has long researched the practice, most recently with a study published in the journal Global Public Health that assessed the role of caste (a cultural and...
PUBLIC SOURCE - As her tenure comes to an end, a review of the director's efforts to address air quality, opioids and lead while facing political pressure, legal limits and organizational dysfunction.
The Peace Corps showed Alyssa Amendola that she wanted to pursue public health. She chose Pitt because of our focus on global health, eclectic research interests, and strong faculty. Her time in the Peace Corps also helped prepare her for graduate school. "I gained a new perspective that I would not have otherwise [and] I am getting more out of my graduate experience than I would have if I had not volunteered with the Peace Corps."
BCHS's Andre Brown recently assumed the role as executive director for Pittsburgh Black Pride (PBP). Since 1995, the Pittsburgh Black Pride Association has provided entertainment, social information, and health education to Black LBGTQIA+ individuals and families in the city of Pittsburgh and across Southwest Pennsylvania.
KDKA 1020 - BCHS's Richard Garland spoke to Lynne Hayes-Freeland about his work as director of the Violence Prevention Project, where he sees gunshot victims in the area, offering them services. He also talked about violence as a disease and how outreach workers interupt the spread.
UPMC Workpartners health coach Carol Martin-Mack (BCHS '12) recently performed health assessments at Pitt Public Health. During the visit, she focused on obtaining - and then explaining - baseline measurements on heart rate, blood pressure, weight BMI, body fat%, as well as cardiovascular, strength, and flexibility for employees. Martin-Mack provides assessments and coaching to numerous clients at the University of Pittsburgh, aiming to educate ...
UK DAILY MAIL - The findings published in JAMA could explain why several recent trials of treatments for sepsis - an immune response in which the body attacks its own organs - have failed. "The next step is to find therapies that apply to the scientific types of sepsis and then desing clinical trials to test them," said study author Derek Angus (BCHS '92), chair of Pitt's critical care medicine and an HPM distinguished professor.
BCHS' Richard Garland was among the presenters at the American College of Preventive Medicine's Prevention 2019 meeting held in Pittsburgh in May. Garland was on a panel called Lessons about Gun Violence from the National Violent Death Reporting System.
WESA - Karen Hacker, director of the Allegheny County Health Department, will leave at the end of July to take a job with the CDC as director of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. Hacker is also a member of our Board of Visitors and holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Health Policy and Management and Behavioral and Community Health Sciences.
UPMC - Much like cancer, sepsis isn't simply one condition but rather many conditions that could benefit from different treatments, according to the results of a Pitt study reported in JAMA involving more than 60,000 patients, featuring Derek Angus (BCHS '92), chair of Pitt's Department of Critical Care Medicine and Pitt Public Health's distinguished professor of health policy and management.
Reversibly paralyzing and heavily sedating hospitalized patients with severe breathing problems do not improve outcomes in most cases, according to an NIH-funded clinical trial conducted at dozens of North American hospitals and led by clinician-scientists at Pitt -- including Derek Angus (BCHS '92), chair of critical care medicine and distinguished professor of health policy and management -- and the University of Colorado.
LGBT HEALTH - Coulter RWS, Ware D, Fish JN, and Plankey MW found that compared with their heterosexual peers, gay/lesbian and bisexual adolescents-especially females-are at heightened risk of engaging in multiple types of polysubstance use. Designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions will likely reduce these sexual orientation disparities.
Laurenia Mangum worked within the children, youth, and family sector in the Philippines while in the Peace Corps. “The BCHS program compliments my social work background and serves as a great transition from the Peace Corps. It meets my needs without compartmentalizing the studies into one particular focus…but rather provides the opportunity for the student to customize his or her own studies.”