Students and faculty in the Department of Epidemiology (EPI) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health attended the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Annual Meeting held May 25-29 in Salt Lake City, Utah, where they presented research on aging, physical activity and maternal health.
“Epidemiology is inherently team science, and our department had a phenomenal showing at ACSM,” said Nancy W. Glynn, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology, co-director of the Center for Aging and Population Health. “When you are leading large-scale, NIH-funded longitudinal studies, it is important to disseminate your findings with the broader scientific community to spark new collaborations.”
This year’s ACSM meeting—the premier global forum for physical activity and exercise research—focused on physical activity, exercise and technology. The theme provided an opportunity for Glynn to highlight findings from the Study of Muscle, Mobility and Aging (SOMMA), the nation’s largest observational study of muscle aging to utilize repeat muscle biopsies.
At the meeting, Glynn chaired a featured symposium highlighting findings from SOMMA. The session examined energetic and cellular biomarkers associated with aging and featured presentations from Pitt Public Health researchers and colleagues from AdventHealth in Orlando, Fl.
Among the presenters was Reagan Garcia, PhD, MPH, an EPI of Aging T32 postdoctoral fellow, who served as an expert speaker and discussed three-year changes in physical activity metrics using wrist-worn accelerometers. The EPI of Aging T32—an NIH- and National Institute on Aging-funded training program—prepares researchers to become independent scientists in aging and population health research. Garcia’s findings demonstrated significant declines in physical activity over time, particularly in daily step counts.
The department also celebrated student recognition at the conference. Emma Gay, MPH, an EPI of Aging T32 predoctoral trainee, earned first place from the ACSM Aging Special Interest Group for her late-breaking poster abstract. As part of the award, Gay delivered a two-minute “lightning talk” during the group’s awards session and received a cash prize.
Gay’s research found that higher daily step counts were associated with favorable muscular gene expression patterns in older adults, suggesting physical activity may influence biological pathways linked to healthy aging.
In addition to the aging research highlights, maternal health research was also well-represented. Andrea Kozai, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology, chaired a session and presented on maternal health and delivered a talk on the epidemiology of cardiometabolic disease in pregnancy and future disease risk.
Looking ahead, EPI faculty will travel to Amsterdam in July to deliver an international presentation on SOMMA. In November, students and faculty plan to attend the Gerontological Society of America annual meeting in Washington, D.C.
-Ava Dzurenda