Research and Practice News

Check out some highlights of research and practice under way at Pitt Public Health:

Burke and O'Malley help National Domestic Violence Hotline 

Burke and O'Malley help National Domestic Violence Hotline

Professor Jessica Burke and student Teagan O'Malley (BCHS '12 '19) developed a framework for evaluating and improving the effectiveness of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which responds to over 1000 calls for help each day. Burke and O'Malley engaged multiple stakeholders including service ... (08/13/2019)

Rural Pennsylvanians Have Nearby Access to Opioid Treatment, but Still Travel Far to Receive it 

Rural Pennsylvanians Have Nearby Access to Opioid Treatment, but Still Travel Far to Receive it

INSIDE UPMC - Rural Pennsylvania Medicaid enrollees diagnosed with opioid use disorder are driving an average of four times as far as their nearest prescriber to receive medication-assisted treatment, according to an analysis led by HPM's Evan Cole. The study, published in the  Journal of General I... (08/10/2019)

MidAtlantic AIDS Education & Training Center receives $14.2 million to extend efforts into 2024 

MidAtlantic AIDS Education & Training Center receives $14.2 million to extend efforts into 2024

INSIDE UPMC - Public health alumnae & RPCVs Marilyn Blasingame (IDM '16) and Ingrid Godfrey (IDM '18), and IDM professor Linda Rose Frank discuss their work on the prevention and treatment  of HIV/AIDS and its co-morbidities through the MidAtlantic AIDS Education & Training Center (MAAETC), which r... (08/10/2019)

Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance teams up with Amazon Web Services  

Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance teams up with Amazon Web Services

UPMC — The PHDA announced a new machine-learning research sponsorship with Amazon Web Services to advance innovation and transform the way that diseases are treated and prevented. This alliance of Pitt, UPMC, and UMPC works to use the “big data” generated in health care, such as electronic health r... (08/07/2019)

EOH alumna Lauren Chubb is looking beyond what the eye can see to keep miners safe. 

EOH alumna Lauren Chubb is looking beyond what the eye can see to keep miners safe.

PITT MAGAZINE - Lauren Chubb, DrPH, MPH (EOH ’16, ’13) occasionally dons a hard hat to see the results of her work in the lab. Her team at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health's Mining Program has developed software to analyze respirable dust samples in just a few minutes, rath... (08/05/2019)

Kahn finds regulations that mandate sepsis care appear to have worked in New York 

Kahn finds regulations that mandate sepsis care appear to have worked in New York

NPR - A New York regulation that dictates how doctors treat sepsis appears to be paying off, according to a study in JAMA. Amidst concerns about an unorthodox requirement of a specific set of practices that a doctor might otherwise deviate from based on the patient, HPM's Jeremy Kahn found that the... (07/23/2019)

Stacy finds correlation between obesity in mothers, childhood cancer risk in children 

Stacy finds correlation between obesity in mothers, childhood cancer risk in children

SPECIALTY PHARMACY TIMES - A new studying has found a correlation between children born to pre-pregnancy body-mass index (BMI) and the likelihood of developing childhood cancer, even after correcting for known risk factors, such as newborn size and maternal age. "My hope is that this study can be, ... (07/23/2019)

Baumann Investigates Illegal Practice Against Women in Nepal 

Baumann Investigates Illegal Practice Against Women in Nepal

INSIDE UPMC - Sarah Baumann (BCHS '19) spent the past nine months in Nepal, in part conducting qualitative research and data collection on  chhaupadi , an illegal cultural tradition that isolates menstruating women – who are considered “unclean” – to huts, basements or livestock sheds. Baumann has ... (07/19/2019)

The Zika virus is still a threat. Here's what Marques, other experts know 

The Zika virus is still a threat. Here's what Marques, other experts know

THE NEW YORK TIMES - Remember Zika? With measles and Ebola grabbing headlines, it is easy to forget the health panic of 2016, when Zika was linked to severe birth defects in thousands of Brazilian newborns whose mothers were infected while pregnant, striking fear across the country and much of the ... (07/03/2019)

Gopalakrishna finds breastmilk antibody protects infants from deadly disease 

Gopalakrishna finds breastmilk antibody protects infants from deadly disease

UPMC - Kathyayini Gopalakrishna (HUGEN '20) is first author on a study showing that an antibody in breastmilk is necessary to prevent necrotizing enterocolitis - an often deadly bacterial disease of the intestine - in preterm infants. The findings suggest that the antibody content of donor milk sho... (06/27/2019)

Inpatient opioids influence at-home use, Donohue reports 

Inpatient opioids influence at-home use, Donohue reports

MEDPAGE TODAY - Patients given opioids during their hospital stay were more likely to continue using them post-discharge. Compared with patients who were not prescribed opioids, those who did get a prescription were also twice as likely to continue using them in outpatient settings three months out... (06/24/2019)

HUGEN's Lauren Winter melds genetic counseling and dental genetics 

HUGEN's Lauren Winter melds genetic counseling and dental genetics

GC PROGRAM BLOG  -- Genetic counseling student Lauren Winter (HUGEN '20) shares her experiences investigating genetic, environmental, behavioral, and microbial contributions to the disproportionately high rate of dental cavities in children living in Appalachia. She loves the variety found in her j... (06/10/2019)

Pitt Men's Study reflects on past, future of HIV fight 

Pitt Men's Study reflects on past, future of HIV fight

THE PITT NEWS - When an outbreak of HIV hit the U.S. in the early 1980s, not much was known about the virus or how it spread. Scientists, researchers, and volunteers at Pitt have been working for almost four decades to try and change that. Reflecting on 40 years means celebrating successes, lamenti... (06/10/2019)

New hope for curing sepsis as researchers discover four strains - a breakthrough that could boost treatment options 

New hope for curing sepsis as researchers discover four strains - a breakthrough that could boost treatment options

UK DAILY MAIL - The findings published in JAMA could explain why several recent trials of treatments for sepsis - an immune response in which the body attacks its own organs - have failed. "The next step is to find therapies that apply to the scientific types of sepsis and then desing clinical tria... (06/03/2019)

Donohue comments on potential medicaid implications of study that says more Americans are being treated for depression 

Donohue comments on potential medicaid implications of study that says more Americans are being treated for depression

PSYCHOLOGY TODAY - More Americans receive treatment for depression and pay less out of pocket than they did two decades ago, according to a recent study. "States that haven't expanded Medicaid could look at these estimates and think: There's a way to expand treatment of mental health conditions lik... (06/03/2019)

Drake finds that rural counties that would most benefit from telemedicine lack broadband access 

Drake finds that rural counties that would most benefit from telemedicine lack broadband access

WESA - Telemedicine has the potential to connect people in rural communities to health care providers who might otherwise take hours to reach by car. But a new study by HPM's Coleman Drake finds that many of these places lack the infrastructure to actually make telemedicine possible.  (06/03/2019)

Garland on gun violence at Prevention 2019 

Garland on gun violence at Prevention 2019

BCHS' Richard Garland was among the presenters at the American College of Preventive Medicine's Prevention 2019 meeting held in Pittsburgh in May. Garland was on a panel called Lessons about Gun Violence from the National Violent Death Reporting System.  (06/03/2019)

As the U.S. measles count surpasses 25-year-old record, Roberts says: vaccinate 

As the U.S. measles count surpasses 25-year-old record, Roberts says: vaccinate

WDAM - U.S. health officials have reported 971 measles cases so far this year, the highest tally in 27 years, and experts say it's not clear when the wave of illnesses will stop. "What's causing these outbreaks is lack of vaccination," said HPM Chair Mark Roberts.  (05/31/2019)

Memory slips may be worrisome, but Ganguli study shows it's often not Alzheimer's 

Memory slips may be worrisome, but Ganguli study shows it's often not Alzheimer's

NJ.COM - New research suggests taht even for adults who develop noticeable cognitive impairments in later life, that doesn't mean they have Alzheimer's or will progress to Alzheimer's anytime soon. Mary Ganguli (EPI '87) says the findings suggest no one should jump to hasty conclusions about people... (05/29/2019)

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Public Health Training Center strengthens the current and future public health workforce 

The Mid-Atlantic Regional Public Health Training Center strengthens the current and future public health workforce

The Center for Public Health Practice's latest training center works to strengthen the public health workforce through collaboration with schools and agencies across a five-state region. The center meets workforce training needs on topics from project management and data analytics to the opioid epi... (04/30/2019)

Research Videos

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As the U.S. measles count surpasses 25-year-old record, Roberts says: vaccinate 

As the U.S. measles count surpasses 25-year-old record, Roberts says: vaccinate

WDAM - U.S. health officials have reported 971 measles cases so far this year, the highest tally in 27 years, and experts say it's not clear when the wave of illnesses will stop. "What's causing these outbreaks is lack of vaccination," said HPM Chair Mark Roberts.  (05/31/2019)
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Hoffman led research into anti-vaxxers on social media (video) 

Hoffman led research into anti-vaxxers on social media (video)

WPXI - Antivaxxers left negative business reviews for Kids First Pediatrics after they posted a social media video encouraging HPV vaccination. So, they teamed up with researchers at Pitt including Beth Hoffman (BCHS '19, '23) who found that we have to "...start thinking about how to deliver tailor... (04/29/2019)
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Scientists uncover dual-layered scaffolding of cellular nuclei (video) 

Scientists uncover dual-layered scaffolding of cellular nuclei (video)

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES  - Using super-sensitive microscopic imaging, a team of scientists led by HuGen's Quasar Padiath has made a fundamental biological discovery that explains the structure of the nuclear envelope and gives tantalizing clues as to how cells squish throug... (02/19/2019)
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Hartman among researchers trying to prevent virus more dangerous than Zika (video) 

Hartman among researchers trying to prevent virus more dangerous than Zika (video)

WPXI - Pitt researchers are looking to lessons learned about Zika when preparing for the possibility of Rift Valley Fever virus, noting that it's important to develop therapies and vaccines now. "We saw the ffects of Zika when it got into a larger population and so our work highlights the need to r... (02/11/2019)
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Hernandez's research adds to pharmaceutical industry's growing pressure over high price of drugs 

Hernandez's research adds to pharmaceutical industry's growing pressure over high price of drugs

FOX NEWS - "It's not about innovation, it's about inflation in existing products," explains Inmaculada Hernandez (HPM '16). "They are the same companies that operate in other countries and they don't show this behavior and that's because in other countries they are lucky to have this regulatory env... (01/24/2019)
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BCHS team tries new technique to share research with LGBTQ youth (video) 

BCHS team tries new technique to share research with LGBTQ youth (video)

Post-doctoral researcher Robert Coulter (BCHS '17), BCHS's Jessica Burke, and Sara Baumann (BCHS '19) tried using a video approach to share highlights of Coulter's recent research on how welcoming school environments reduce drinking among both LGBT+ -identified students and their heterosexual count... (11/24/2018)
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