UNIVERSITY TIMES - Assistant BCHS prof CHRISTINA MAIR submitted one of seven winning teaching proposals that received funding as part of Pitt's 2017 Innovatioin in Education Awards Program. Winners are selected each year by the Office of the Provost’s Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence. Mair’s project, "Teaching Multilevel Statistical Modeling with Innovative Educational Technologies," will enhance Pitt’s multilevel statistical modeling...
We were delighted to learn that Collette Ncube (HPM '09, BCHS '14) will be starting a postdoc as a senior fellow-trainee in perinatal epidemiology within the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle. Her focus area is social stratification, public health, and obstetrics.
Congratulations to alumnus JASON FLATT (BCHS '13), recipient of a KL2 award for career development (3-yrs of salary support to pursue multidisciplinary clinical research with training and mentoring) from University of California - San Francisco. Flatt is an assistant professor at the School of Nursing's Institute for Health and Aging, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences. His current research explores risk and protective factors for Alzhe...
Two Pitt Public Health students have been selected as 2017-18 Pittsburgh Schweitzer Fellows. EMMA GOSSARD and CAROLINE HAMILTON, both from BCHS, will be continuing a project started by a previous Fellow and will implement a social support network and health education program for LGBT youth ages 13 to 18 at the Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Pittsburgh. ALEXANDRA TOPPER, also from BCHS, recently graduated from the Fellowship.
PITTSBURGH BUSINESS TIMES - County Executive Rich Fitzgerald has named EOH's BERNARD GOLDSTEIN to a nine-member task force to study and recommend action steps to reduce the childhood lead exposure in the region. The task force, to be chaired by HPM's KAREN HACKER, Allegheny County's health director, has six months to make its recommendations.
UPI - "The long term effects of bullying involvement are important to establish," EPI's KAREN MATTHEWS, the lead researcher from the University of Pittsburgh, said in a press release. "Most research on bullying is based on addressing mental health outcomes, but we wished to examine the potential impact of involvement in bullying on physical health and psychosocial risk factors for poor physical health."
POST-GAZETTE - A disturbing topic is the racial disparity in the cases of asthma. EPI's LUANN BRINK has reported rates for African-Americans that are nearly double the rates for whites. Pollution sources are clustered in areas where many African-Americans live, leading to this disparity.
A round-table was held today with some amazing minds on the issue of polio eradication: Jennifer Jones, director of Rotary International; PETER SALK, IDM visiting professor and son of research pioneer Jonas Salk; and DONALD BURKE, school dean and University associate vice chancellor of global health. Rotary has been raising awareness that "We are this close to ending polio!" While all were in Pittsburgh, they shared amazing conversation about the...
TIME - “The AHCA would lead to catastrophic coverage losses among those right above the poverty line,” said JULIE DONOHUE, HPM faculty and director of the Medicaid Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh Health Policy Institute. “While individuals right above poverty-level could technically purchase coverage on the marketplace, such coverage will be out of reach for nearly all.”
NEW YORK TIMES - “I think it’s absolutely fair to say that had it not been for Dr. Youngner, the polio vaccine would not have come into existence,” PETER SALK president of the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation and a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, said in an e-mail. He added, “The really important thing to recognize is that the development of the polio vaccine at the University of Pittsburgh was a t...
ELSA S. STROTMEYER, associate professor of epidemiology at Pitt Public Health, was voted chair-elect of the Gerontological Society of America's Health Sciences Section. She will assume her role in November, joining colleagues from around the country in accepting responsibility for matters of governance and strategic planning with GSA.
IDM awarded departmental prizes in the 2017 Dean's Day student research competition to DANA WOELL of the MPH-PEL program in the MPH category, PRANALI RAVIKUMAR in the MS category, and DIANA DELUCIA in the PhD category.
In a spontaneous and touching gesture, HPM students leapt up to honor WESLEY ROHRER with a standing ovation when he was called to the podium to accept the Craig Teaching Award at the 2017 Pitt Public Health Convocation on Sunday. Rohrer serves as the director of the MHA Program in the Department of Health Policy and Management, where he is an associate professor and vice chair.
IDM students and faculty were among the thousands to participate in March for Science events held on April, 22, 2017 in Oakland (adjacent to the Pitt campus) and in Washington, DC. These nonpartisan event sought to celebrate the role that science plays in our everyday lives.
TRIB LIVE - In the U.S., there have been 5,264 Zika cases reported, with the vast majority in travelers returning from affected areas in other countries, says ERNESTO MARQUES, associate professor with Pitt Public Health and scientific director of CURA ZIKA, an international alliance with counterparts in Brazil to help fundraising for research into the virus. Learn more about Cura Zika at www.publichealth.pitt.edu/curazika.
Amber Chaudry, an MPH student in Pitt's Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, shares some of her passion for a career in public health and how helping those around her is integral to her own vision of success.
Rosa De Ferrari, an MPH student in Pitt's Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences, describes her "viviencias" (life experiences) in Ecuador and Nicaragua. She soon realized that immigrants in this country long for the kinds of social support inherent to their native communities. As she continues her journey at Pitt Public Health, she most appreciates the ready accessibility of faculty and the variety of research areas she can choo...
JOURNAL OF EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES - “In this scenario, we are using FRED to estimate the clinical impact of heat and smog on different demographics within our population,” said MARK ROBERTS, HPM chair and director of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory (PHDL). “FRED allows us to pinpoint critical conditions and the effect of potential interventions to better educate response efforts. For example, we can use the model to predict how many ins...
Yesterday was filled with pomp and circumstance as eager graduates strode into the Carnegie Music Hall auditorium, led by convocation marshall, HUGEN's ROBIN GRUBS, to celebrate degrees completed. Addressing the crowd was Ambassador Deborah Birx, U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy.
PHILADELPHIA MAGAZINE - As a brave new world of technologies like robotics, autonomous vehicles and genomics begins to take shape, Pittsburgh is one of a few scrappy, first-mover cities poised to lead it. Beyond the robots, rivers, and restaurants, Pittsburgh has community, livability and a distinct Portland-like attraction—except there are jobs and projects attracting companies like Google and Amazon and Uber.
“You can either put up red ta...