WASHINGTON POST - Local transmission seems to have come to a standstill, with one suspected case in Texas and one case confirmed in Florida. Herd immunity may be preventing more big outbreaks. But if Zika behaves like other arboviruses, it will probably stick around. They tend to be cyclical, says Pitt Public Health researcher ERNESTO MARQUES. “You have big booms, then they drop. Then a few years later, they come back again.”
POST-GAZETTE - Vaccine expert, BCHS’s RICHARD ZIMMERMAN, recently explained some of the key reasons why people need the vaccines. As a director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Vaccination Research Group, he’s part of the team that evaluates the flu vaccine every year. He is also a member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
STAT NEWS - The director of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services promises to give states an “unprecedented level of flexibility” to design their Medicaid programs as they see fit. HPM’s JULIE DONOHUE, director of the Medicaid Research Center at Pitt, says, “The federal rules are in place to make sure basic access and quality standards are met. The devil is really in the details in terms of how much additional flexibility to giv...
THE ECONOMIST - When will it peak? And how many will it kill? Epidemiologists are frantically scrambling to go beyond simple best-guess estimates to dynamic models that can forecast addiction and overdoses more accurately. Scientists from the PUBLIC HEALTH DYNAMICS LABORATORY are developing a “dynamic transmission disease model of the opioid epidemic,” matching data in the national drug-use survey to outcomes in mortality. It predicts that prescr...
THE ECONOMIST - Today’s Daily Chart, sourced from “Sub-epidemics within the Opioid Epidemic” by H. JALAL, J. BUCHANICH , L. BALMERT, M. ROBERTS, and D. BURKE, shows red alerts for U.S. drug overdose deaths per 1000,000 population, by age, demographics, and drug type. The study points out that the number of fatal drug overdoses has doubled every eight years for the past 37 years. A continuation of that trend would see annual opioid deaths rising ...
WASHINGTON POST - “Unless you keep people alive, you can’t get them into treatment,” said HPM’s ELIZABETH VAN NOSTRAND. According to the White House, 175 people will die of a drug overdose today and every day until the crisis is curbed. So the government may start with the most basic need: Keeping alive more than 11.5 million people taking prescription opioids for nonmedical reasons plus 1 million people using heroin.
The Public Health Dynamics Laboratory (PHDL) participated in the 39th Annual North American Meeting of the Society for Medical Decision Making (SMDM), held in Pittsburgh October 22-25, 2017. This year's focuswas on “Better Decisions Through Better Data Processes.” Several faculty and postdocs participated in teaching short courses and in oral and poster presentations. PHDL also hosted in an exhibitor’s booth, sharing information on many of its so...
WASHINGTON POST - Officials acknowledge that more money is needed. Trump could cite the National Emergencies Act. And even without a formal declaration, acting Health and Human Services Secretary Eric Hargan has authority to streamline some responses. But HPM’s TINA BATRA HERSHEY says “None of these laws were intended to be long-term solutions. That’s the question here. [The epidemic is] unprecedented.”
EVA CHERNOFF (MMPH) and EMMA GOSSARD (BCHS) were awarded the 2017 William T. Green Jr. Award in Public Health. Established by WILLIAM T. GREEN (MMPH '01), this award supports special student projects that would not otherwise be implemented. Congrats!
PITTWIRE - When a mysterious illness suddenly emerged in his Brazilian hometown, IDM researcher ERNESTO MARQUES mobilized with colleagues to decode its unknowns. The work may help infectious-disease researchers stop or stall new epidemics. His story begins on page 18.
HQPITTSBURGH.COM - Pittsburgh's recent HQ2 proposal highlights the region's talent, space, infrastructure, and will to invent and to grow. Regional strengths include a world-class, diverse talent pool, high quality of life, low cost of living, a stable and collaborative business environment, forward-thinking leadership, a commitment to ensuring prosperity for all, and a significant capacity for growth. #PGHMYHQTOO
POST-GAZETTE - In his October 22, 2017 editorial, Dean DONALD BURKE writes, “As an epidemiologist, I’m exasperated. Facing a raging epidemic—of drug addiction and overdose deaths—we dither. Even an ounce of prevention would look good at this point. ... To bend the epidemic curve downward, we will need new ideas, new data and new research. And we will need a new a generation of addiction experts, mental health specialists and behavioral epidemiolo...
Alumni, faculty, students, and friends of the Department of Human Genetics got together in Orlando, Florida, during the November 2017 annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG). It was a great reception, offering opportunities to catch up on careers, research, and school news. View more photos at bit.ly/2ioVwCd .
SAUMYADIPTA PYNE, scientific director for the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory (PHDL) has been selected to receive two oration awards, both of which will be presented to him in India in November: The 2017 Subha Mukherjee Memorial Oration from the Physiological Society of India, and the Kiruba Sankar Memorial Oration from the St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences in Bangalore.
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - “Better treatments for traumatic brain injury and acute kidney injuries are desperately needed,” stated Hulya Bayir HULYA BAYIR (EOH). VALERIAN KAGAN (EOH), the study’s senior author, was key in discovering the protein’s important role in the cell-death process.
INNOVATION INSTITUTE - Public Health Dynamics Laboratory’s FRED (Framework for Reconstructing Epidemiological Dynamics) was honored as a presenter at the 2017 Pitt Innovation Showcase on October 18. Pitt innovators have broken the patent record two years in a row! In 2016, Pitt advanced into the top third of the top 100 worldwide universities granted U.S. utility patents ranking, topping Duke University, Yale University, and other top research in...
PITTWIRE - On Saturday evening, October 18, 2017, the inaugural Goldman Prize Competition judges announced an $10,000 award for Triple Note: A Data Collection and Instruction App developed by LAUREL CHIAPPETTA, biostatistics core instructor, and Mary Margaret Kerr. The program helps field researchers store and access data, video, images, audio, ad other information in a single cloud-based source.
PITTSBURGH MAGAZINE - Alumna NATALIE BULGER (HPM ’12) left Pittsburgh for college, but she wasn’t away from home for long. “My mom likes to make a joke that Pittsburgh makes this big sucking noise—that when you leave, it sucks you back in so quickly.” Pittsburgh, she adds, is a good place for someone to “strike out on their own and make a career for themselves.” And that’s exactly what she did. She began her career at The Children’s Institute of ...
ACCEPTANCE JOURNEYS PITTSBURGH is a Pitt Public Health photo-story project where community members share stories of love and acceptance for their lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) friends and family. The Pennsylvania Department of Health invited us to host a pop-up exhibit on Wednesday, October 18, 2017, as part of the commonwealth’s LGBTQ History month activities. The display was in Strawberry Square in downtown Harrisburg
NEW YORK TIMES - Research by Epi's TONY FABIO, was cited by op-ed columnist Bret Stephen's piece "Repeal the Second Amendment." Fabio's study, published in 2016 in the journal Social Medicine, analyzed the guns recovered by Pittsburgh Police and found that the vast majority were not carried by their legal owners.