The Gerontological Society of America recently announced that new rankings show its academic journals lead among the most-cited aging publications. The Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, which is edited by ANNE NEWMAN, chair of Pitt Public Health's Department of Epidemiology, upheld its first-place ranking on the list of 32 publications, with an impact factor of 5.957.
TV3 EXPOSE - Ireland's private-TV news broadcaster cites research by Pitt Public Health's BONNY ROCKETTE-WAGNER on the impacts of TV watching on weight gain and diabetes risk. “Television watching (like other sitting behaviors) has very low energy expenditure, and therefore large amounts of time [spent doing it] could lead to energy imbalance and weight gain.”
MEDICAL NEWS TODAY - Epidemiologist ANDREA ROSSO set out to uncover why some people respond to physical exercise inventions better than others. Her hunt for these super-responders saw her looking at genes involved in dopamine regulation. Rosso speculates that higher dopamine levels may play a role in sticking to exercise regimes in lifestyle interventions.
ALZFORUM - Last year, a widely reported epidemiology study came to the troubling conclusion that elderly people who regularly took proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) were at increased risk of dementia. Now, a study published in the June 7 Journal of the American Geriatrics Society challenges this association. Which study is correct? Both Lewis Kuller, University of Pittsburgh, and John Breitner, McGill University, Montreal, said it’s impossible to t...
PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE - “For a while we weren’t really sure if it was just a parallel decline with age or a truly linked decline,” said EPI’S lead author ANDREA ROSSO. Finding a brain region tied to both provides strong evidence that gait and cognitive change are not just correlated but linked, she said. Measuring gait could allow for earlier dementia detection because individuals often slow their walking speeds before any signs of cognitive im...
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.
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.”
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."
POST-GAZETTE - A disturbing topic is the racial disparity in the cases of asthma. EPI's LUANN BRINK has reported rates for African-Americans that are nearly double the rates for whites. Pollution sources are clustered in areas where many African-Americans live, leading to this disparity.