MEDICAL CARE BLOG - Contributor and HPM assistant prof, MARIAN JARLENSKI, says the future of federal and state Medicaid policy will personally impact the 74 million people now covered through their states’ programs, including the 14.6 million who have gained coverage under the ACA expansion. Has there been a correlation between state-level changes in insurance coverage under Medicaid expansion and states’ political ideology or presidential voting...
WASHINGTON POST - An active lifestyle during pregnancy is safe and beneficial. Last week, epidemiology’s LISA BODNAR published a new report in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that investigated the diets of 7,500 pregnant women. The study revealed alarmingly high percentages of added sugars and solid fats in the women’s diets. “Many women gain too much weight during pregnancy, and this has become a major public health concern...
STAT News -- “There are discounts that reduce the price of a drug for everyone and there are rebates that do not reduce prices for everyone. But if a wholesaler does not pass along discounts, then these may not be reducing the overall cost of the medicine, and that’s confusing.” said HPM's WALID GELLAD, co-director of Pitt's Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing.
PITTSBURGH COURIER - In its monthly health feature, the Courier focuses on drinking water quality in its health feature “Take Charge of Your Health Today. Be Informed. Be Involved.” EOH's AARON BARCHOWSKY advises about water safety.
NEW YORK MAGAZINE - Research by LISA BODNAR, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, highlights the need for more nutritional guidance for women of reproductive age. Her team found that women in the U.S. aren’t achieving the dietary recommendations, noting that healthy maternal diets have been linked to reduced risks of preeclampsia, preterm birth, fetal growth restriction, and maternal obesity.
We're proud of JOAN ANSON, who led a forum on "Student Services: Lessons Learned from the Field - Navigating Professional Growth in Student Affairs" at the ASPPH Annual Meeting in DC. It's wonderful to see our staff and faculty recognized as valuable leaders within the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health.
DEAN BURKE led a session at today's ASPPH Annual Meeting on "Forecasting and Deflecting the Opioid Epidemic Curve" with a projection of likely opioid overdose deaths based on biostatistical data gathered by JEANINE BUCHANICH and the Mortality Information and Research Analytics (MOIRA) system, a repository and retrieval system for detailed death data from the National Center for Health Statistics developed here (named for the Fates of Greek myth).
TRIBLIVE.COM - HPM's EVERETTE JAMES and WALID GELLAD, along with graduate student researcher MEREDITH HUGHES, posted an analysis of the issues on a blog for the journal Health Affairs. Said Hughes, “I don't think it's something that people think of as something that they might need,” Hughes said of long-term care. “A lot of people are aware of health insurance and the issue of going to the doctor, but for most people this is not something that's ...
MEDICALRESEARCH.COM - Work by collaborator YOEL SADOVSKY, scientific board advisor for our CURA ZIKA initiative, finds that the mature placenta was likely to be resistant to infection. His work led to recent research confirmation that the greatest vulnerability to Zika is in the first trimester.
Dozens of Pitt Public Health grads from the capital area gathered at Penn Social during the 2017 ASPPH annual meeting, joining Dean Burke and host faculty for hearty conversations and refreshments. If the forecast of snow scared you away, we missed you! Access our photo albums anytime at www.publichealth.pitt.edu/flickr.
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - The crisis in osteoporosis is an acute one, and in the last several years it has gotten to a crisis level because of the significant decline in treatment. As president of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, JANE CAULEY, distinguished professor of epidemiology and associate dean for research, said plans are underway for a “Call to Action” to reverse the troublesome trend. Her review of osteoporosis researc...
PITTSBURGH BUSINESS TIMES - "We found that Medicare beneficiaries with Part D prescription coverage with six or more chronic conditions who were aligned to an ACO had the highest savings on medical costs—$966 per patient in 2012, compared to their peers not assigned to an ACO," said lead author YUTING ZHANG, associate professor of health policy and management at Pitt Public Health. "This is encouraging because it demonstrates that ACO provid...
DIETRICH STEPHAN and SUSANNE GOLLIN of our Department of Human Genetics are featured in a video about their work to connect genetic technologies to address development and growth of breast cancer tumors. Hear about their personal motivations and their strategies for attacking cancer today and into the future.
NEW YORK TIMES - To help families impacted by the devastating consequences of the Zika virus, consider donating to Pitt Public Health's CuraZika initiative, which collaborates with several clinics in Brazil, including the Altino Ventura Foundation and the Association for the Assistance of Disabled Children, supporting efforts like treatment, therapy, and legal assistance.
NEW YORK TIMES - In the impoverished northeast, devoted parents live around the needs of children whose grave disabilities are only beginning to be understood. “These babies, most of them or all of them, they’re going to live very long lives, you can keep them alive a long time, and they will need assistance from someone 24 hours a day,” said ERNESTO MARQUES, an infectious disease expert at the University of Pittsburgh and the Oswaldo Cruz Founda...
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION - Associate professor ROBERT KRAFTY and coauthors including Pitt's Sleep and Chronobiology Center introduce a new method to unlock information collected by devices that monitor activity during sleep. The study uncovered new connections between heart rate patterns of older adults serving as primary caregivers for their spouse and the amount of time they are able to spend in bed during the night.
PUBLIC SOURCE - Sex education curriculum is approved by district school boards, and the topic can become controversial. Allegheny County Health Department director and HPM/BCHS faculty member KAREN HACKER says she supports comprehensive sex education. “There’s been very little evidence to show that abstinence-only programs have been successful."
INSIDEUPMC - Senior associate dean, geneticist, and biostatistician ELEANOR FEINGOLD contributed to this interdisciplinary research team's findings: measures of eye, nose, and facial breadth could be associated with genetic variants in certain regions of the genome. In several of these regions, genes known to contribute to facial development or implicated in birth defects where the face is affected were found. However, because many genes affect f...
HUFFINGTON POST - “When you ask adult survivors of domestic violence when they experienced their first abusive relationship, the majority will tell you it was during adolescence. That really speaks to the importance of prevention work in those middle and high school years,” says BCHS' ELIZABETH MILLER. “It’s really complicated for parents to monitor what is going on."
INFECTIOUS DISEASE ADVISOR - Work of study co-author and IDM professor JOHN MELLORS reported that different clonal virus populations can be recovered from the two cell types. The findings suggest that inducible virus production may be a good marker of the latent infectious reservoir in both cell types. Identifying the sources of latent HIV and developing tools to measure improvements in therapies are essential for clinicians and their patients.