MEDICAL XPRESS - "We started this as a feasibility study to see if we could identify barriers to short-term PrEP use and make adjustments. But we were excited when we got the results and discovered that almost all the participants were adherent to the point of protection against HIV," said BCHS’ James Egan (BCHS '14). "This gives us a promising strategy to pursue in engaging at-risk men in HIV prevention efforts that work for them."
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE – Dean Emeritus Bernard Goldstein asserts that the agency has ignored a Clean Air Act mandate as well as the congressional specification of what factors should be considered in setting an “adequate margin of safety” for air quality impact. The proposal fails to consider factors affecting sensitive populations in the pandemic, including the elderly and those with pre-existing lung and heart disease.
DAILY MAIL - “There has been a lot of discussion around harmful masculinities in the media and in the research community,” said study author and medical anthropologist Elizabeth Miller, BCHS faculty and chief of adolescent and young adult medicine at Pitt Medicine. However, she added, “no one has agreed on a standardized way to measure the concept.”
STAT - “The temporary reform due to Covid allowed telemedicine visits from a patient’s home, but it presumed that patients had access to the technology to engage in those visits,” said HPM’s Eric Roberts, paper co-author. “We’re showing that there’s a substantial number of Medicare beneficiaries who lack access to that technology… a very vulnerable population both in terms of their health profile and their economic profile.”
SLATE – Since January, researchers hoping to fight COVID-19 have designed a stunning 1,200 clinical trials, but the effort has been marked by disorder and disorganization, with huge financial resources wasted. Applying history lessons to today, HPM’s Walid Gellad, director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing, slammed U.S. leadership for failing to set a clear clinical trial agenda.
THE TELEGRAPH - Derek Angus (BCHS '92), chair of critical care medicine and HPM distinguished professor, says hard conversations about who should be prioritized will be needed both within and between countries. It might be decided that frontline workers should be at the head of the queue, but you could say that minorities who have a disproportionate burden of the disease should have a chance. You must be transparent about your principles of fair...
TRIB LIVE – Semmelweis’ life story is both inspiring and tragic. He was an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures when “childbed fever” deaths were common if births were attended by physicians rather than midwives. The composer sees parallels between then and our pandemic now. The haunting work was created by American composer Raymond J. Lustig, Irish-American librettist Matthew Doherty and Hungarian director Martin Boross.
NEW YORK TIMES - “We really can’t isolate the impact of school closures from other interventions,” said HPM’s Julie Donohue. “I do worry that these large estimates of the effect of school closures will lead people to give up because it is going to be challenging to open schools. I do worry that some districts will look at these numbers and say, well, it’s just too hard and it’s not safe to reopen.”
AP – Epidemiologist Donald S. Burke said a preliminary review of mobility data shows the recent spike is consistent with an outbreak fueled by a narrow demographic such as younger people at bars and restaurants. As a second tier of hot-spot cities, Pittsburgh is still fertile ground for the virus. “The real question is are we going to overwhelm the hospital capacity in our region? Are we going to have the number of ICU beds and ventilators?”
EPI's Tiffany Gary-Webb presented testimony on COVID-19 disparities and our equity response at the July 15 House Democratic Policy Committee hearing on COVID-19 Health Disparities, impressing Representative Stephen Kinsey who wants to follow-up with Gary-Webb to connect the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh groups and using the Pittsburgh group as a model for others.
PUBLIC SOURCE – BCHS’ Steven Albert believes the Allegheny County Health Department has done a great job despite a meager federal response and a decades-long disinvestment in public health. He said when our health department says to stay home if you have a problem but only get a test if you’re symptomatic, that shows we don’t have the testing apparatus we need. If it takes a week to get test results, we’re failing miserably.
THE MORNING CALL - EPI's Tiffany Gary-Webb, member of the Pittsburgh Black Covid-19 Equity Coalition, said there is a lack of robust and accessible testing, and that testing sites are not concentrated in communities of color. “We know that there’s disproportionate impacts, so we really think interventions now are desperately needed,” she said. “The narrative is clear, so now we really need to take action.”
THE HILL - EOH's Bernard Goldstein contributed an op-ed to The Hill urging the EPA to consider COVID-19 when setting air pollutant standards.
"With so many Americans at risk," he says, "the EPA needs to withdraw its proposed particulate standards and seriously consider the impact of COVID-19 on the adequacy of the margin of safety required for air pollutant standards. Otherwise, we will be condemned to wait until the next review at least fiv...
PUBLIC SOURCE - A new Gender Equity Commission report lists 11 recommended actions to address gender and racial disparities in Pittsburgh.Gender and race are at the center of its recommendations but the report also mentions how people who are differently abled, elderly or trans, for example, can feel discrimination more acutely. India Hunter (BCHS '19) voiced her concerns. "We, as a city, we’re really good at making a lot of documents and talkin...
EOH's Sally Wenzel has won the American Thoracic Society's AII Scientific Accomplishment Award.Dr. Wenzel’s remarkable research contributions over the years have significantly improved our understanding of asthma pathogenesis and directly impacted approach to treatment. Dr. Wenzel has developed an unparalleled translational program to study asthma’s pathobiology and mechanisms and is one of the key scientists who established the concept of asthm...
Rajesh Pandav (EPI ‘01) is currently a WHO representative for the Timor-Leste government. Pandav provided a COVID-19 update on the situation in the island nation, the preparedness and response measures put into place, and addressed continuing challenges in a recent update that was posted to the YouTube channel for the WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia
POST-GAZETTE - “The epidemic has a lot of drivers that go deep into society. It’s a combination of the persons who are susceptible to drug use because of unemployment and a sense of despair in many parts of our country,” Dean Emeritus Donald Burke said. And now that the world is in the middle of a pandemic where stay-at-home orders leave people isolated, unemployed, and stressed, he doesn’t doubt there will be an increase in 2020.
TRIB LIVE - “Some people get reported at a later time and there’s a lag,” said Jong Jeong, biostatistics professor and interim chair. For more clarity you can look at the percentage of positive cases out of tests administered. But it’s still helpful to monitor the trajectory of the virus in the region. Watching case counts rise—even if the rise really occurred weeks ago—helps statisticians and scientists create models and make predictions.
Xinjun (David) Wang (BIOST ’22) has been awarded a graduate student fellowship from UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. He received a perfect review score in the application despite the strong competition this year. The fellowship will provide support for two years for him to work on his thesis “Machine Learning and Statistical Methods for Analyzing Single-cell Multi-omics Data.” Congratulations Xinjun!
FEATURED
"The June 15, 2020, decision by the Supreme Court of the United States affirming Federal Civil Rights protections in employment for sexual and gender minorities (SGM) across the country has significant health equity implications...we celebrate this decision as a positive step toward creating more equitable health and social environments for those in our communities who exist across the gender and sexuality spectrum," said BCHS's Andre Brown.