We hear that new doctoral alumna CHELSEA PALLATINO (BCHS ’17) will begin a position as a postdoc researcher with Magee Women’s Research Institute in July. She’ll be studying unintended pregnancy, Hep C prevalence, and intimate partner violence among opioid-dependent mothers.
WALL STREET JOURNAL - In a piece by HPM's WALID GELLAD, he says, "Everyone agrees prescription drugs are too expensive, but what to do about it? One popular idea—supported in the past by President Trump, and by 80% of the public in some polls—is for Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices directly. But such negotiation would work only if there were some limitations on the drugs available to patients, raising many questions about the feasibility ...
What a lovely evening of connections! On Tuesday, June 13, 2017, HPM alumnus Rob Curry welcomed Pitt Public Health friends DAVID TYE, DAREEN MEYERS, MARK MEYERS, WEN TA CHIU, KRISTIN LAZZARA, KEVIN BROOM, and MARK ROBERTS to his Pasadena home for cocktails and talk about great memories, current issues, and the newest school happenings.
ESPN - There was something about showing a movie of your hometown that people relate to,” said DON BURKE, dean of Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health. It was his idea to break the data modeling down by county.The FRED platform allowed researchers to build a simulation of human interaction dynamics, said MARK ROBERTS (Public Health Dynamics Lab director and HPM chair) wherein virtual people in 116 million households across the country live, wo...
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - Congratulations to BCHS student ALYSIA TUCKER, who took home $2,500 for her Best4Baby startup that connects soon-to-be mothers with local, affordable doulas. Tucker said her company will only match expecting mothers with fully-trained doulas who have undergone 30 hours in classes and have completed a certain number of births successfully.
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER - “For the first time in Allegheny County, fentanyl was found in more people than heroin,” said Pitt Public Health epidemiologist JEANINE BUCHANICH. There appear to be two distinct epidemics in Pennsylvania, said DONALD BURKE. Southeastern Pennsylvania historically has been a source of extremely pure and cheap heroin, which is now drawing some users whose addictions began with prescription pain pills.
KVOA NEWS 4 - New prediction tools to identify patients at risk of inappropriate prescription opioid use, while allowing safe administration of legitimate pain management are being developed by alumna WEI-HSUAN JENNY LO-CIGANIC (BIOST '10, EPI '05), now an assistant professor with the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy. Her newly-funded work builds on research she completed as a postdoctoral associate at Pitt's HEALTH POLICY INSTITUTE.
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.