You don’t have to look far to find a School of Public Health (SPH) graduate among the people working within the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) to ensure the well-being of western Pennsylvanians.
"The school really is a feeder institution," says LuAnn Brink (EPI '99), PhD, a 12-year ACHD veteran and chief epidemiologist since 2014. Brink supervises the county's Bureau of Data Reporting and Disease Control and oversees surveillance...
TRIB LIVE - Reaction to proposed gun control laws shows that even some local gun owners appear just as divided about the effectiveness of such measures as the politicians debating them. Although many people seem to agree the country has to find a way to stem gun violence on American streets and in schools, there is little agreement on how best to do that. "Much of the gun regulation debate is based on speculation," says EPI's Anthony Fabio. "The...
VOICE OF AMERICA - Pregnancy puts women at higher risk of severe medical complications or death from COVID-19, according to a new study of more than 1,300 women in sub-Saharan Africa. "Africa is not Europe, is not the U.S.A.," said IDM and EPI's Jean Nachega, lead author of the new study. "We should not just rely on data coming from the U.S., Europe or China to try to understand COVID on the continent."
In the study , published in the jou...
On May 25, Tiffany Gary-Webb, associate professor of Epidemiology, participated in a White House listening session on health equity issues across the Commonwealth. Experts from a range of disciplines – medicine, nursing, public health and social work – participated in the session. Attendees were asked to share their views on health equity and its impact on clinical care.
“While our clinical advancements have been amazing and pivotal, pre...
NHLBI News - EPI's Samar El Khoudary shares what healthcare providers and the public should know about reproductive events, such as pregnancy complications or early menopause, that can influence women's cardiovascular disease risks. "We want to make sure that women are aware that heart disease is their number one killer," she says. Knowing about the risks can be the first step to prevention.
HEALIO - Alexander Sundermann (IDM '14, EPI '22) and colleagues find real-time genomic surveillance is able to detect hospital outbreaks using an approach they call Enhanced Detection System for Healthcare-Associated Transmission, which would allow hospitals to detect outbreaks early and intervene quickly. Sundermann says, "We believe that this will substantially improve patient safety" and that "sequencing surveillance will eventually become ro...
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FRONTIERS SCIENCE NEWS - New study within the US Long Life Family Study identifies biomarkers characteristic for people born in – or married into – families with exceptionally long-lived members. Both groups also have a reduced risk of developing type II diabetes. Sharing the household and lifestyle of children of long-lived parents might lead to these marked health benefits for spouses, but it’s also possible that people tend to pick their part...
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT - EPI's Wendy King weighs in on opioid use during and after bariatric surgery care. States that many weight-loss centers are indeed developing their own opioid-sparing protocols. The majority of patients seem to be on board with these protocols.
EPI student Emily Arthur won the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award, Masters Level for the project, “Maternal Health in Rural Virginia”.
With a warm and inviting smile – and a colorful tattoo of the Andy Warhol bridge on his forearm – Epidemiology alum Christian Garcia-Calavaro is eager to share his public health journey from his native Chile to Pittsburgh and back again. As he reflects on his experiences at Pitt Public Health he shares, “Through knowledge and example, I learned what made me the public health professional I am today and the foundations of the virtuous person who ...
PITT MED - Concerned about the COVID-19 death rate for Black Pittsburghers, Tiffany Gary-Webb and a group of scholars in her sphere reached out to public health officials. When they asked about the rates in the Pittsburgh area, the data were not available to the public at the time. In the ensuing weeks and months, Gary-Webb was part of a collegial huddle working together to put pressure on public health officials. Ultimately, that pressure resul...
WESA - EPI's Andrea Rosso and Tiffany Gary-Webb, Associate Director of the Center for Health Equity, are part of a research study intent on learning how structural racism has affected the cognitive health of Pittsburgh residents in two of the city's historically Black communities: Homewood and Hill District. With funding from the National Institutes of Health, epidemiologists from Pitt and the Rand Corporation will follow 1,100 research particip...
EVERYDAY HEALTH - Authors of a study on menopausal weight gain found that exercise and diet during perimenopause may be the best strategy to avoid excess weight. "The results suggest that there are differences in metabolism that are related to exercise according to menopause status," says EPI’s Samar R. El Khoudary. Adding that “findings are in agreement with data from longitudinal studies showing perimenopause as a critical window for body comp...
PITTWIRE - EPI's Jennifer Adibi was selected as an inaugural Social Justice Faculty Fellow! The fellowship supports faculty who are committed to social justice and equity, and is one of several initiatives at Pitt seeking to address structural racism and inequity. Fellows receive a $10,000 award, funded jointly by their respective schools and community partnerships, and are paired with a community organization for an 11-month project that addres...