IDM's Linda Frank received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Pitt's School of Education for exceptional professional achievement, public service to the advancement of the educational field, and a commitment to the continued success of the school and the University. Award recipients will be honored at a virtual ceremony on March 25 at 5:30. Congratulations!
AARP - "It's catch-as-catch-can," says BCHS Chair Steven Albert about efforts to get vaccinations to the estimated 2 million older adults in the U.S. who are unable to leave their homes for health reasons. "It really is not as clear or rational as it should be."
HEALIO - "Studies have provided discrepant findings on the issue of early menopause in women with type 1 diabetes," said EPI's Tina Costacou. "Our results suggest that the discrepancies may relate to whether the type 1 diabetes diagnosis precedes menarche or not, something that previous investigations did not examine."
Research with a health disparities focus is the core of Taylor Robinson's (EPI MPH '22) pursuits. She has been involved in research throughout college and in high school. In college, she was an intern in the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Internship and was a 2019 Amgen NIH Scholar. Her research topics have included patient-physician communication bias, linear regression correlates of behavioral change techniques for smoking cessation on Twitt...
Julia Donnelly (BCHS MPH '21) is a second-year student who is also pursuing a Certificate in Health Equity. "After taking the Seminar in Health Equity, I developed an interest in studying the incarcerated and reentry populations. I am specifically interested in how racial disparities in policing, sentencing, incarceration, and lack of investment in social services supporting re-entry efforts affect the health of offenders, their families, and th...
"Over the summer, I conducted my first qualitative research study to gauge the experiences sex workers have had with health care professionals and the barriers to obtaining regular health care," said Jamie Martina (BCHS MPH '23). "Preliminary findings showed that there was a desire to trust health care providers but that trust was not there due to historically being stigmatized in a health setting. So I applied for the Health Justice Scholars pr...
Through the Health Justice Scholars program, Haley Director (HUGEN MPH '22) looks forward to engaging with the Spanish-speaking population in the Pittsburgh area to assess and address their needs. She plans to use her privilege and knowledge of the health care system to bring about systemic change and support those who have been historically marginalized and overlooked.
Phoebe Balascio (EPI MS '21) is excited to participate in the Health Justice Scholars Program so that she can broaden her knowledge in health equity issues and deepen her critical thinking in her areas of interest.
SMART ASSET — Some cities offer younger workers more opportunities for gainful employment, so we crunched the data to find out where younger employees make up the local workforce's biggest share. Pittsburgh ranks #5 out of the largest 100 U.S. cities, with young workers ages 16 to 29 making up 35.25% of the total workforce. No longer dominated by steel; education, healthcare, and social assistance jobs make up 32.03% of the city’s workforce.
STAT FIRST OPINION — HPM chair Julie Donohue and National Academies colleagues advocate for a “whole of government” approach to reforming the biopharmaceutical supply chain: Drug developers, manufacturers, clinicians, payers, and policymakers should focus on reducing system inefficiencies in drug development, delivery, and payment that result in discarded drugs, rather than on trying to recover the financial worth of the unused portion.
PITTWIRE - EPI's Dara Mendez, interim director of the Center for Health Equity, received the award for enhancing Clincial Experience courses for first-year students by introducing a book club which explored the history and ongoing practice of racism within medicine. "Star faculty like Dr. Mendez will help accelerate our efforts in diversity and inclusive excellence in our school," said Dean Maureen Lichtveld. Congratulations!
KDKA/CBS NEWS – Lee Harrison of Pitt Medicine and EPI said the current safety efforts are enough for now. “What we know about the UK strain is that it’s definitely more transmissible,” said Harrison. “It spreads more rapidly than other strains. We also know the current vaccines are quite effective against it.” He said symptoms of the variant and original strains aren’t much different. But washing hands, social distancing, and double masking are ...
PITTWIRE — When we hear about clinical trials, we might picture doctors and patients partnering to test new therapies. What we might not think about are the many others who make those studies happen. Take Maria Mori Brooks, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, who makes sense of the numbers generated by multicenter research collaborations. As co-director of the Epidemiology Data Center, she helps design and optimize data collection and m...
WTAE NEWS — According to its trials, Johnson & Johnson was about 25% less effective than the two vaccines already on the market at preventing someone from getting COVID-19. But HPM professor Mark Roberts said Johnson & Johnson is just as effective as the other two at preventing serious illness. "When you look at the data for preventing serious disease, and preventing death, it’s almost indistinguishable from the Pfizer and Moderna."
WPXI NEWS — A group of children rolled up their sleeves for their place in history on Feb. 23, 1954, at a mass inoculation held at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh. The new polio vaccine they received was developed by Dr. Jonas Salk at the Virus Research Lab at the University of Pittsburgh.
Casa San Jose is a community resource center that advocates for and empowers Latinos by promoting integration and self-sufficiency through breaking down language barriers with prenatal care and delivery, confusion around insurance and payments for delivery, birth certificate complications such as names being misspelled, which can complicate applications for benefits, and social security cards.
PUBLIC SOURCE — Pittsburghers who have lived with HIV for decades say the COVID pandemic echoed many of the scariest and most dangerous parts of living through the HIV and AIDS epidemic, including confusion about the science, social isolation, a reluctance to adopt public health measures, and a lack of presidential leadership. HIV disease persists, particularly among younger gay Black men living in the South, said Dr. Mackey Friedman , “If yo...
PSYCHIATRY ADVISOR – Research by Elizabeth Miller of Pitt Medicine and BCHS showed small, neighborhood classes could significantly reduce sexual violence among teenage boys living in areas of concentrated disadvantage. Adapted from a program in Brazil, Manhood 2.0's core message remains the same: challenging gender norms that foster violence against women and unhealthy sexual relationships.
The mission of the Pittsburgh Black Breastfeeding Circle is to protect, promote, and support human milk feeding as the cultural norm and optimal feeding method for birthing people of African descent in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, which includes providing culturally humble and relevant care led by trained and certified lactation professionals.
HEALTH AFFAIRS - HPM's Coleman Drake and Duke University colleague David Anderson say that by offering an extended open enrollment period, the Biden administration can remove a major administrative burden that often stands in the way of families obtaining health insurance.