DISCOVER MAGAZINE - Fierce debate raged in the pandemic's early months about whether wearing face masks curbed viral transmission. There was never much science that said masks didn't work, says HPM's Mark Roberts, director of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory. Pre-2020 research already showed masks' effectiveness, and COVID-era studies cemented that verdict, setting the stage for more widespread, ongoing mask use.
The Center for Health Equity along with co-sponsor Block Chronicles, held a Poetic Health Justice Forum to curate a space where people in public health, scholars, artists, writers, and creatives are in conversation about issues of equity, justice, and health. They invited poets and writers "who inspire us to envision a future, to think beyond our boundaries, and to be in concert with community across our areas and disciplines.”
CNN - EPI's Wendy King said people indicated they were receptive to the vaccine if they were familiar with its science. Educators, overall, displayed the least hesitancy; workers in construction, mining and oil/gas extraction showed the greatest. Half of those who were hesitant cited possible side effects—a fear that could be eased by education, King said. A third among the hesitant group gave other reasons: They didn't believe they needed th
CHE wishes you a Happy Juneteenth 2021, the first as a federally recognized holiday. In addition to acknowledging and uplifting Juneteenth, it is critical that we acknowledge systemic racism and oppression affecting Black communities as well as Indigenous, Latinx, and other historically oppressed communities, and uplift the efforts to undo these systems of oppression.
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - "Preparation is key. There has been disinvestment in our public health infrastructure over the past decade including systems for data collection and dissemination, workforce development, and coordination which prohibited an efficient or effective response to this COVID-19 crisis," said EPI's TIffany Gary-Webb. "Further, the delays in tracking and mitigating the impact of the pandemic in Black, brown, and other vulnerabl...
U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT - Maureen Lichtveld's nearly 40 years in environmental public health has focused on a central principle: how to prepare for the next big crisis. "The COVID-19 pandemic, as the limited coverage for childhood vaccinations [in the past], is a public health problem, requiring public health strategies of preparedness, vaccination and control," said Lichtveld, who is aiming to position Pitt at the forefront of this deeper bu...
Congratulations to Inma Hernandez (HPM '16), the 2021 recipient of the Alice S. Hersh Emerging Leader Award from AcademyHealth! This prestigious award recognizes professionals early in their career who show exceptional promise for future contributions to the field of health services research. Hernandez earned her PhD in Health Services Research and Policy and is an associate professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of California San Dieg...
U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT - Last week, the FDA broadened the criteria that doctors can use to determine eligibility for antibody treatments, the Times reported. That opens the door for more young people with certain medical conditions and members of high-risk racial or ethnic groups to get the treatments. "Ultimately, it gives prescribers a lot of latitude in what they can give this for," said HPM's Walid Gellad, director of the Center for Phar...
BUZZFEED NEWS - The resumption of an upward trend in overdose deaths matches projections that HPM's Hawre Jalal and colleagues made in a 2018 study. "The trend has been rising for 30 years, and it has only been accelerating in the pandemic," Jalal said, adding that more recent analysis suggests the trend may date back as far as 1959.
HEALIO - Adults with asthma living in neighborhoods that were deprioritized for mortgage investments in the 1930s, or redlined, had worse lung function than those living in non-redlined areas, Alexander Schuyler (EOH '23) and EOH Chair Sally Wenzel found in a cross-sectional study. "Black communities were mostly completely demarked in red or redlined as a result of this racist practice," said Schuyler.
As part of National Public Health Genetics Week HUGEN's Andrea Durst moderated a panel of four Pitt Public Health students offering their perspectives on what interested them in getting into public health and why they chose to focus on public health genetics. "Public health genetics has the potential to shift public health as we know it," said Courtney Kasturiarachi. "It means increased access to genetic testing and screening as well as the forc...
HEALIO - IDM and EPI's Jean Nachega and colleagues published a perspective in The New England Journal of Medicine that said concerns about access to COVID-19 vaccines in Africa resemble concerns regarding access to ART for HIV in the mid-1990s and early 2000s, when it was more accessible in high-income countries than African countries – “a disparity that resulted in many preventable deaths in these high-burden settings,” they wrote.
NEW YORK TIMES - "With my unvaccinated children, we will not be socializing maskless indoors with other families with kids. My kids go to school and day care, and I am not willing to risk introducing Covid in those settings due to our family's socialization activities," said BCHS's Stina Mair.
Teaming grants through the University's Momentum Funds are utilized for early-stage planning of large multidisciplinary projects. BCHS' Patricia Documet (BCHS '95, '02) along with a group of Pitt researchers for a project entitled "Developing a Latinx Youth Research Advisory Board to Address and Dismante Structural Inequities in Emerging Latinx communities."
Taylor Robinson won the master's prize at this year's poster competition from the Office of Health Sciences Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for her poster Examining Role of Environmental Pollution, Healthcare Access, and Social Vulnerability in Asthma Emergency Department Visits in Allegheny County. Mary Schiff won the doctoral award with her work The Differential Impact of Residential Segregation on Gestational Hypertension Development Among M...
PITTWIRE - A multisite study for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirms that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines being distributed to fight COVID-19 are highly effective in preventing hospitalizations among older adults, the most at-risk group for serious complications from the disease. Clinicians and researchers from Pitt Medicine and Pitt Public Health helped determine the results of the CDC led study.
EPI's Nancy Glynn (EPI '94) is the PittCoVax volunteer coordinator and has volunteered herself with students and staff from Pitt Public Health. "I was thrilled to work side-by-side with an awesome, energetic group of faculty, staff, and students," said Glynn. She also talked about building community and the importance of the vaccine.
SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE - In a recent opinion piece, IDM's Peter Salk lays out three things: get vaccinated, continue with cautious mitigation strategies, and remember that anything we do as a nation to help quell the virus elsewhere will be good for everyone. "We have come a long way in over a year. An end to the pandemic may not yet be on our doorstep, but it should be not very far beyond the horizon," said Salk.
WTAE - HPM's Mark Roberts, director of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory, will continue to wear a mask when he's out in public, even though he's been vaccinated against COVID-19. "I was admittedly a little surprised (by the CDC's revised mask guidelines) because I think these policy issues are complicated and they're balancing multiple things."
Claire McCreavy (IDM '21) was awarded a 2020 Bob Yee Public Health Scholarship. A native of Lafayette Hill, PA, McCreavy is pursuing an MPH with a concentration in infectious disease management, intervention, and community practice (MPH-MIC). She studied public health/health promotion at West Chester University of PA and is interested in Irish dance, traveling, and hiking.