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...
CBS MONEY WATCH - President Donald Trump pointed to Pittsburgh as a reason for pulling out of the Paris climate accord, but some residents in the former steel town are calling him rusty and out-of-date. The one-time industrial center is now a thriving city focused on health care, tech, and clean energy.
EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY - Alumnus WILL BROUGHTON (BCHS '14) is coordinator for the Office of Health Access in the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University as well as future project coordinator for an apples-to-apples project to standardize the methodology and synchronize the assessment process for regional community health needs assessment in eastern North Carolina. He will be facilitating the day-to-day implementation efforts. He sa...
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.
PITTWIRE - A team of Pitt scientists led by IDM's PHALGUNI GUPTA developed a test to detect "hidden" HIV that is faster, less labor-intensive and less expensive than the current "gold standard" test.
BCHS student EMMA HOSMAN is working with the Allegheny County Health Department through the Pittsburgh Summer Institute (bit.ly/2rVg2RO). This morning, in collaboration with ACHD's Emergency Preparedness Program, she helped to lead a CPR class for 17 community participants.
A facial shape genetics paper from a research team including HUGEN's JOHN SHAFFER, ELEANOR FEINGOLD, and student EKATERINA ORLOVA, was among the top 50 most downloaded "PLoS Genetics" open-access journal papers in 2016.
TRIBUNE REVIEW - “This will be extremely useful for clinical trials and people doing the basic science on the latency,” said PHALGUNI GUPTA, senior author and IDM vice-chair. In addition to being more sensitive, the new test is cheaper, easier, faster, and requires less blood than the test commonly used now. This means it can safely be used in babies.
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.”
POST-GAZETTE - An early motive for promoting cremation — to prevent contamination — appears overstated. Poorly buried corpses of people who died of infectious diseases in the 1800s could contaminate a nearby water supply, but there would have been no general risk of contamination from those who die of trauma or non-contagious diseases, commented EOH's JAMES FABISIAK.
Alumna STEPHANIE JOHNSON (EPI '16) has been accepted into the CDC/CSTE Applied Epidemiology Fellowship. The mission of this national fellowship-training program is to meet the nation's ongoing need for applied epidemiology workforce capacity in state and local health departments. Johnson will be serving at the Puerto Rico Department of Health and the CDC-Dengue branch in San Juan, starting this summer.
ENDEAVOR NEWS - A walking route in Emporium will be inaugurated as part of National Trails Day on Saturday, June 3. Cameron County Chamber of Commerce has teamed with the Pa. Dept. of Health and Pitt Public Health's WALKWORKS program to create a 1.67-mile walking loop through the county seat marked with green circles featuring an arrow. Learn more about this health initiative directed by CAROL REICHBAUM at bit.ly/2rHofch.
PITT MED - A team of researchers, including epidemiology's REBECCA THURSTON, SAMAR EL KHOUDARY, and KAREN MATTHEWS, recruited about 400 premenopausal women for a multi-institutional study in 1996. They were asking a lot: an extra doctor’s visit once a year, forever. Yet about 400 from Pittsburgh volunteered, and at last count, 90 percent were still in. Though most women now live at least a third of their lives after menopause, its long-term effec...
NEJM - Despite the uncertain evidence of clinical benefit, drugs receiving accelerated approval enter the market as FDA-approved products, and insurers must decide whether and how to pay for them. Those decisions are becoming increasingly complex in light of the rising prices of new drugs. Read about suggestions by HPM's WALID GELLAD and listen to his interview.
POST-GAZETTE - We have two words for you — sushi doughnut. That’s as fair a place to start as any in the discussion of Mount Everest Sushi, a tiny little takeout shop with a few dine-in tables in the shadow of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health building in Oakland. Rest assured that the sushi doughnut is not some sort of a weird bastardization of raw fish, glaze, jelly and jimmies… Rather, it's simply a clever and eye-p...
ACTION NEWS 4 - A random telephone survey of 9000 residents conducted by BCHS' EVALUATION INSTITUTE spotlights trends in important public health topics such as obesity, smoking, insurance access, chronic disease status, and the utilization of health care resources. “This is fantastic data to have at our fingertips,” said County Executive Rich Fitzgerald. “Having data that not only provides us with information on the health and health concerns o...
90.5 WESA - “So in effect, the people with preexisting conditions could find coverage so unaffordable that they don't have access to the market even though the guaranteed issue rule is still in place,” said JULIE DONAHUE, professor of health policy and management at the University of Pittsburgh. Donahue said that could lead to a phenomenon called job lock, where people stay in jobs simply for the health insurance. She said the ACA was designed, i...
NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE - In an editorial on “Rory’s Regulations” requiring hospitals follow a protocol to quickly identify and treat sepsis, Pitt Public Health’s TINA BATRA HERSHEY and JEREMY M. KAHN examine the potential of additional state sepsis mandates, noting this represented a major shift in the use of health policy to improve the quality of health care, rather than using market-based incentives and reimbursement penalties. “Sepsi...
POST-GAZZETTE - In an editorial, HPM's HEATHER TOMKO wrote: During a recent browse of my Twitter feed, a quotation from Mayor Bill Peduto jumped out at me. At the National Summit on Design and Urban Mobility earlier this month, he said, “If it’s not for all, it’s not for us,” referring to ride-sharing services like Lyft and Uber, as well as Uber's self-driving cars. But as I continued to browse, I saw a glaring omission: a group of the “all” who ...