MIRROR - Pitt Public Health researchers CANDY KAMMERER ( HUGEN ), RYAN MINSTER ( HUGEN ), TREVOR ORCHARD (EPI), CHIP REYNOLDS (BCHS), AKIRA SEKIKAWA (EPI), and JIAN-MIN YUAN (EPI) have discovered that apps for weight loss may not be the dieting aid you were hoping for.
NEW YORK TIMES - When interviewed, HPM's NICHOLAS CASTLE voices concern about staff turnover and chronic underfunding.
UPMC NEWS BLOG - “Sadly, we found that only about 5 percent of the hundreds of girls who participated in our study met the minimum daily activity level recommended by national and international health agencies,” said lead author Bonny Rockette-Wagner, director of physical activity assessment at Pitt Public Health.
KAISER HEALTH NEWS - Co-director of the Pitt's Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing, HPM's JULIE DONOHUE said Medicare’s use of step therapy is one of the few tools it has to contain soaring drug costs. “Unfortunately, unfettered choice of medicines … leads to higher drug spending and higher cost for taxpayers, so you have to strike the right balance.”
YOU TUBE - In a short documentary for the Integrated Design Lab, RICHARD GARLAND, director of the BCHS Center for Health Equity's Violence Prevention Project, shares his thoughts on community violence.
JAMA -- Congratulations to VICTOR TALISA (BIOS '15) on his contribution to "Proportion and Cost of Unplanned 30-Day Readmissions After Sepsis Compared With Other Medical Conditions," an analysis of hospital readmissions due to sepsis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Talisa served as second author under his doctoral advisor and co-author JOYCE CHANG.
WTAE ACTION NEWS -- It is a heartbreaking statistic. Every 25 minutes in the United States, a baby is born suffering from opioid withdrawal. Gov. Tom Wolf joined in the fight Friday by leading a roundtable discussion on how to combat the opioid abuse epidemic. "It should be treated as the public health issue that it is," said volunteer Faith Cotter. "Addiction affects the whole family, and I think we should withhold judgement."
Change the st...
THE BOSTON GLOBE - Columnist David Shribman takes a light-hearted look at two great American cities:
They both have a north shore. They both have fine universities. They both have rabid sports fans. They both have a quarterback out-of-towners love to deride...But Boston is reserved, Pittsburgh exuberant. Boston flexes its muscles, Pittsburgh builds its muscles. Boston cultivates an urbane sophistication, Pittsburgh luxuriates in an informal e...
MARIO BROWNE (BCHS '05) was presented the 4th annual Equipoise Creating a Just Community Award in recognition of his involvement in work of social justice, creating an inclusive environment, and supporting the Pittsburgh community.
INSIDEUPMC - As public health researchers, we track and analyze data on the health status of Americans. Our database on every death in the United States for the past 50 years (Mortality Information and Research Analytics) allows us to examine geographic patterns of mortality. Using this MoIRA data system, we analyzed data from all 50 states, finding a strong association between all-cause mortality rates (data from 2014, the most recent data avail...
I grew up in Southern California and completed my medical training in India. While I was there I worked in a community hospital in the rural outskirts of Karnataka, where we were faced with many challenges. During this time certain instances lead me to develop an interested in public health, making me a strong believer in prevention is better then cure.
UNIVERSITY TIMES - Former U.S. Attorney and 2016 Pitt Public Health convocation speaker, David J. Hickton has been appointed founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security. Hickton also has been named a fellow of the Institute of Politics where he plans to continue his work in combating opioid abuse, addressing police-community trust issues, and in criminal justice reform.
PITT NEWS - Peter Salk knows the last step to eradicating polio: teamwork.
According to him, his father, Jonas Salk--the inventor of the injected polio vaccine in 1952--knew more than research would be necessary to eradicate the virus: “Cooperation brings us results. But he knew we have to deal with the issues that arise from man’s relationship to man.”
Salk spoke to 150 students, professionals, and Pittsburghers about achieving polio eradi...
UNIVERSITY TIMES - Epidemiology's RONALD LAPORTE and FAINA LINKOV solicited 6,700 research methodology volumes from 150 donors from 30 universities, and they sent them last month in a giant shipping container to the Library of Alexandria. LEWIS KULLER said, “One of the real goals of the library is to increase both the quality and the quantity of scientific investigations and public health [knowledge] in Africa."
AIDS AND BEHAVIOR - Congratulations to Ron Stall, James Egan, and the Pitt/amFAR fellows on their profiled work in HIV-prevention research regarding gay, MSM and transgender (GMT) populations in low- and middle-income countries. "The HIV Scholars Program at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for LGBT Health Research is a prime example of a creative and dynamic approach to raising the expertise needed within GMT populations to respond to the g...
COLUMBUS DISPATCH - Ideally, shouldn’t such a panel be led by credentialed scientists and not self-proclaimed experts? ... Reason magazine noted that, before the 1920s, infectious diseases were the leading cause of death in the United States. It cites the TYCHO PROJECT at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health estimate that vaccination has prevented as many as 103 million cases of infectious diseases since 1924 in the U.S. ...
TRIBLIVE - “The eradication of polio has been tantalizingly close for years now,” said Dean DONALD BURKE.... IDM visiting professor PETER SALK adds, “When polio is ultimately eradicated, it will be something the University of Pittsburgh and Pittsburghers in general can be proud of. The University played a major role in something that will be earthshaking.”
Before that milestone is achieved, Jonas Salk's injectable form of the vaccine must be ...
NEW YORK TIMES - Infectious disease specialist with IDM and at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation in Brazil, ERNESTO MARQUES JR. said Brazilian scientists felt let down when they looked for outside help—at first from European donors and health agencies. “The local researchers’ role was mainly to collect samples,” Marques said bitterly.
HEALTHCARE FINANCE - After more than a decade, ROBERT HENKEL (HPM '82) will retire from Ascension, the country's largest faith-based nonprofit healthcare system, on July 1, officially stepping down as executive vice president of Ascension, and president and CEO of Ascension Healthcare...
Those roles will be filled by PATRICIA MARYLAND (HPM '82) who will assume responsibility for Ascension's Healthcare Division, encompassing more than 141 hos...
BLOOMBERG - Pitt's head of the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing, WALID GELLAD (HPM) says ‘‘It may just be setting a starting point for negotiations and then using that for negotiations later in the ACA. You’re not going to get the support of the pharmaceutical industry if you’re talking about reducing their revenue.”