THE HILL - Epidemiologist Donald Burke emphasized the need to improve the scientific basis to improve readiness: the understanding of which virus groups to watch, the field capabilities to detect spillovers in remote places before they become regional outbreaks, the organizational capacities to control outbreaks before they become pandemics, plus the laboratory tools and skills to recognize known viruses speedily, to characterize new viruses alm...
90.5 WESA - A 2013 Pitt study simulating flu transmissions found that universal access to paid sick leave reduced workplace flu infections by 6 percent. BCHS’ Steven Albert estimated that about 12 percent of flu transmissions occur in the workplace, largely when people come to work feeling sick. He said the coronavirus pandemic highlights the importance of having stronger public health policies that include paid sick leave.
NBC NEWS – In January when Emerson Boggs (IDM PhD candidate) began moderating a small Reddit community dedicated to a new coronavirus in China, she had no idea that two months later the message board would grow to more than 1.2 million members. Daily Boggs and her colleagues process thousands of comments and posts, making sure posts are scientifically accurate. "The pace of the outbreak has really shown the deficiencies of traditional outbreak r...
Congratulations to doctoral alumnus Taylor Poston (IDM '17). His undergraduate institution, Francis Marion University, honored him with their Professional Industry Award, presented annually to a graduate who serves as a practitioner or researcher in the natural or behavioral sciences, including fields like ecological and environmental sciences, social and behavioral sciences, and applied natural science. View video interview.
NEWSWEEK - Experts said that they can’t be certain, based on the limited data there is on SARS-CoV-2 (the germ which causes COVID-19 and shouldn’t be confused with the Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus). Donald Burke, professor of health science and policy, said he wasn’t sure, but as SARS-CoV-2 has the same kind of error correction molecular machinery as the virus that causes SARS, “its mutation rate will be slower.”
BIOPHARMA DIVE - HPM’s Walid Gellad, director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing at Pitt, said, "The paper, I think, informs discussions about how high prices really need to be in order to encourage private risk taking for gene therapies—it may be a different number than for other drugs that have less late stage involvement by academia and NIH.”
TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT - What can you do when faced with a deadly pandemic? Pitt Public Health alumna and Pitt-Johnstown professor Jill Henning (IDM '08) offers: You can socially distance yourself. You may get sick and be OK, but your elderly neighbor may not have it so lucky. Stay home. Wash your hands regularly.
Congratulations to doctoral candidate Tao Sun (BIOS '20) who was awarded Best Oral Presentation at the annual Biostatistics Research Day on February 27 for his work on "GWAS-based Deep Learning for Survival Prediction.”
UPMC – A new test for COVID-19 was created by a virology team including Charles Rinaldo, chair and professor of infectious diseases and microbiology and director of the UPMC Clinical Virology Laboratory. The health system plans to increase lab capacity and open testing sites around the state. The test follows U.S. CDC guidelines and was validated under the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments program of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid ...
Masters student Eli Lovelace (BIOS '20) won the Best Presentation award in local Kaggle Competition using the web-based data repository. The Pittsburgh Data Science Meetup Group hosted a Kaggle Competition on February 18, awarding prizes in two categories: most accurate model and best presentation. Lovelace won first place in the best presentation category.
Jeanine Buchanich has been awarded a 3 year $1.2 million contract with the PA Department of Health to evaluate the state's Prescription Drug Monitoring Program as part of the CDC’s Overdose Data to Action cooperative agreement. Evaluations will cover the impact of continuing medical education, first responder training, academic detailing, public service announcements and media campaigns, and overdose fatality review, among others.
"I'm anxious, like many of us. Uncertainty is having a big impact on our society. So the virus itself, the medical responses to it, whether overwhelmed or not, and then the psycho-socioeconomic impact, in some variation of percentages, are likely to have longterm impact on our society as we know it. Hopefully, some will be good! We are all in the game. Our mutual efforst are critical. Do away with the free market mentality for awhile," says EOH ...
To ensure patients and members receive timely diagnosis and treatment, UPMC Health Plan will waive any applicable deductibles, copayments or other cost-sharing for COVID-19 testing when ordered by a member’s treating medical provider. Members with symptoms or suspected exposure to COVID-19 should immediately contact their health care provider or request a live, remote telehealth consultation available through our 24/7 UPMC AnywhereCare app.
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In summer 2020, I will be entering into a fellowship position in downtown Chicago with Vizient, Inc., the nation’s leading healthcare performance improvement company. Vizient has been recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work in Healthcare” (Modern Healthcare) and among “America’s Best Management Consulting Firms” (Forbes). I'm drawn by the emphasis on healthcare informatics & analytics, career development, and the breadth of projects.
TRIB LIVE - “The goal (of social distancing) is to stop or slow the spread of infectious disease,” said HPM’s Tina Hershey. Doing so, she said, slows the spread while other public health measures have time to work. “In restricting your own movements, you are going to reduce your individual risk, but you’re also reducing the risk of others who are more vulnerable,” she said.
GLOBE NEWSWIRE - Predictive Oncology Inc., an AI-driven discovery services company providing predictive models of tumor drug response to improve clinical outcomes for patients, today announced the unanimous appointment of doctoral alumnus Daniel Handley (HUGEN '08) to its Board of Directors. Handley serves as professor and director of the Clinical and Translational Genome Research Institute at the Southern California University of Health Scienc...
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Yvette Conley (Hugen '93, '99) was recognized with a 2020 Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award in the senior scholar category for the role she played in shaping the interface between genomics and nursing. A leader in molecular genetics, Conley was the first geneticist appointed in a nursing school to infuse genomics into nursing sciences. She serves as professor and vice chair for research in Pitt's School of Nursing and was previously reco...
ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH NEWS - MPH student Samantha Totoni (EOH '21), associate professor James Fabisiak, and BCHS's Martha Ann Terry look into lead contamination in hunted meat. Despite the mounting concerns over lead exposure from wild game, lead ammunition use continues as hunters and their families remain unaware or deeply mistrustful of the dangers. Who’s warning hunters and their families?
WESA - Local residents voiced trepidation at a meeting in Homewood about the use of algorithms to guide criminal justice, law enforcement, and child welfare decisions. But left to their own devices, judges could be more arbitrary, countered University of Pittsburgh Public Health Professor Eric Hulsey (BCHS ’08). “On the flip side, you could use [algorithms] to take away that power from them and say, ‘No, you don’t get full discretion.’”
PITT NURSE MAGAZINE - Claudia Kregg-Byers RN, MPH (MMPH ’14), PhD teaches her senior students in Pitt Nursing’s Department of Health and Community Systems that health doesn’t begin and end at the bedside but encompasses where someone comes from—a whole confluence of communal and individual factors: environment, county, neighborhood, home, culture, standard of living, education, socioeconomic status, friendships, family, support systems.