After receiving her COVID-19 vaccine at an interprofessional clinic on campus, Dean Maureen Lichtveld celebrated by posing with a life-sized picture of Jonas Salk – a symbol of the importance of vaccines and one of the core principles of public health: prevention. Lichtveld shares her experience in an effort to encourage everyone to get vaccinated to protect our communities, get back to campus, and back to our lives.
THE CONVERSATION - Knowing the genome sequence helps researchers understand how the virus is mutating into variants and how it's traveling from person to person. Alexander Sundermann (IDM '14, EPI '22), EPI and IDM's Lee Harrison, and Pitt Medicine's Vaughn Cooper explain genomic surveillance - what it is and why we need more of it to track coronavirus variants and help end the COVID-19 pandemic.
ACADEMIC TIMES - Americans who receive Medicare but make slightly too much money to qualify for supplemental coverage from Medicaid spend thousands more dollars on out-of-pocket medical expenses while receiving fewer outpatient services and prescriptions than people covered by both programs, according to new research by HPM's Eric Roberts and colleagues.
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - Two of the three COVID-19 vaccines being administered to curb the spread of the disease require two shots for full protection, but some experts say one shot may be enough, at least for now. "As soon as I saw the reports on the Moderna and Pfizer applications for emergency use authorization, I saw both had striking effectiveness," said EPI's Donald Burke.
In collaboration with the Center for Global Health, Pitt held its first-ever Global Health Case Competition last fall. Pitt supported the winning team from that competition to enter Emory University's Morningside International Global Health Case Competition. Emily Crisan (BCHS '24) joined five undergraduate students and faculty mentor HPM's Elizabeth Van Nostrand and won third place out of 53 teams from across the U.S. for their plan and strateg...
Congratulations to EPI's Lisa Bodnar for receiving the 2021 Society for Epidemiologic Research Carol J. Rowland Hogue Award recognizing a mid-career scientist who has made an exceptional contribution to the practice of epidemiology. Hear from the 2021 awardees at the SER 2021 Virtual Conference June 23-25.
MS. MAGAZINE - Phoebe Balascio (EPI '21) is a transracial, transnational, Chinese American adoptee, passionate about racial justice, immigrant justice, disability justice, and the adoption industrial complex. Her current research at Pitt Public Health focuses on gender-based violence.
U TIMES - "My motto is always 'Making science work for communities," said Dean Maureen Lichtveld. So her top goal for the school is to increase student and faculty connections to the community and its public health concerns. Another priority is precision public health – an interdisciplinary practice to tackling community-based problems with community-based assets. "We will go to the community and address…public health threats."
UPMC - "Excuse me, are you willing to answer a few survey questions about your experience with COVID-19? Will you provide a blood sample and a nasal swab to test for coronavirus?" Pitt is one of 15 sites nationwide involved in the COMPASS study that will survey residents around the Pittsburgh area to learn who has antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.
TIME - Public health experts are worried that the country is headed for a fourth major spike. There's good reason to think this one might be less disastrous than the previous three. HPM's Mark Roberts, director of the Public Health Dynamics Lab, points to the relatively small uptick in deaths as a sign that prioritizing high-risk people for vaccination may be resulting in fewer fatalities even as cases increase.
EPI's Lisa Bodnar was recently chosen as president-elect of the Society for Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research - an organization of individuals from a wide variety of disciplines who share a common interest: the epidemiology of pregnancy, infancy, and childhood.
Congratulations to Yvette Conley (HUGEN '93, '99), one of the 2021 recipients of the Provost's Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring for her work at the School of Nursing, Department of Health Promotion and Development. The award recognizes faculty members who serve as outstanding mentors to graduate stduents seeking a research doctorate degree.
INDIANA UNIVERSITY BLOOMINGTON - Douglas Landsittel (BIOST '97) has been appointed chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in Indiana. "I am honored to have the opportunity to lead such an enthusiastic and talented group of faculty," he said. "Their research has made critical contributions across infectious disease modeling, genetics and bioinformatics, nutritional and social epidemiology, and statistical methods development. I...
NIMHD - The Science of Health Disparities Research is an in-depth volume for comprehensive information on conducting clinical and translational health disparities studies and features EPI's Tiffany Gary-Webb and BCHS' Sara Baumann (BCHS '19) authored the chapter "Racial/Ethnic, Socioeconomic, and Other Social Determinants."
WASHINGTON POST - One of the biggest challenges for state and local officials has been getting vaccines to homebound older adults, said BCHS Chair Steven Albert. "This is an invisible population. They're not like long-term care residents in nursing homes. They are very elderly and frail and they live at home and are an afterthought, in some cases."
UPMC - Women who experience an accelerated accumulation of abdominal fat during menopause are at greater risk of heart disease, even if their weight stays steady, according to research published in the journal Menopause. "We need to shift gears on how we think about heart disease risk in women, particularly as they approach and go through menopause," said EPI's Samar El Khoudary, senior author.
Multiple authors on behalf of the Microcephaly Epidemic Research Group, including IDM's Ernesto Marques, found the frequency of microcephaly in their results is consistent with previous studies. In addition, as children were evaluated at a later age and repeatedly by different groups of specialists our findings provide new insight into the absolute risk of more specific abnormalities, especially those more likely to be persistent, and suggest th...
EOH Chair Sally Wenzel has been chosen to be the American Thoracic Society 2021 Amberson Lecturer at this year's ATS Conference May 14-19. The Amberson Lecture recognizes exemplary professionalism, collegiality, and citizenship through mentorship and leadership in the ATS community and the chosen lecturer is an individual with a career of major lifetime contributions to clinical or basic pulmonary research and/or clinical practice.
Wendy Braund, Pennsylvania's acting interim physician general led a conversation about the PA Department of Health resposne to COVID-19, addressing the current situation and containment and mitigation efforts. Braund painted a picture of COVID-19 across the nation in addition to the state itself. She talked about the demographics of the states data, additional virus strains, plus containment and mitgation efforts. Open for full recording.
ACHD - Our faculty, staff, and students are volunteering in both clinical and non-clinical roles in partnership with the Allegheny County Health Department, community organizations, and other Pitt Health Sciences volunteers as additional points of dispensing are opening and dissemination of COVID-19 vaccines increases.