PITTWIRE - Dean Lichtveld and Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, sat down to discuss lessons learned from the U.S. response to the pandemic and the future of the nation's health. As the United States settles into a new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, mask mandates are few and far between, hospitalizations have plummeted and more than three-quarters of Americans have received at least one COVID-19 vacc...
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.
EOH student Jessie Klousnitzer won second place among doctoral students for the project, “Characterization of Lysine and Arginine Rich Antimicrobial Peptides”.
BCHS student Chinwoke Isiguzo, won first place among doctoral students for the project, “Effects of discrimination and microaggressions on exclusive breastfeeding: the role of stress”.
IDM student Rachel Merritt won first place among master’s students for the project, “Effects of Climate Change on Lyme Disease Incidence: A Literature Review”.
HPM student Alice Gao won third place among doctoral students for the project, “Explaining Racial-ethnic Disparities in the Receipt of Medication for Opioid Use Disorder During Pregnancy”.
BCHS student Monica Henderson won second place among master’s students for the project, “Black Hair Politics: A Public Health Concern”.
HUGEN student Haley Director won third place among master’s students for the project, “Race- and ethnicity-based insurance coverage gaps for genetic testing for cancer in the Greater Pittsburgh region”.
HPM student Donald Bourne won the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award, Doctoral Level for the project, “Changes in Medication Utilization and Adherence Associated with Homeless Adults’ Entry into Permanent Supportive Housing”.
EPI student Emily Arthur won the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Award, Masters Level for the project, “Maternal Health in Rural Virginia”.
IDM student Bethany Flage won the Rosenkranz Award for the project, “Heme as a causative factor for Plasmodium falciparum sexual commitment”.
On May 1, our graduates joined more than 6,600 alumni who are working in the field of public health all over the world. It was wonderful to be back in person to celebrate our graduates from both the classes of 2020-21 and 2021-22 with speaker Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, who received an honorary degree from Pitt Public Health.
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 ...
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - A recent study looks at the factors contributing to Allegheny County being ranked higher than other populous Pennsylvania counties in its death rate. "Household income is the most important factor, period,” said Donald S. Burke, physician and former dean of Pitt Public Health, who did the study at the request of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette with Hawre Jalal, a physician and associate professor of epidemiology at the Univ...
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...
PITTWIRE - HPM's Amy Raslevich received an invitation to attend President Joe Biden’s April 5 signing of the Executive Order on Strengthening Access to the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid at the White House. The event also marked President Obama’s first public return to the White House since leaving office in 2017. Raslevich was one of several dozen people in the room on Tuesday afternoon to witness the historic event that also included remark...
Congratulations to Kelly Saldana (BCHS '01) who joins Abt Associates as vice president, systems strengthening and resilience. Saldana was previously employed by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), where she has held increasingly senior roles in the agency's health sector for the past two decades. In her new role, Saldana will lead technical solutions and approaches to international development projects and proposals.
PITTWIRE - EOH's Aaron Barchowsky and colleagues at the Pittsburgh Center for Healthy Environments and Equity Research were awarded a Scaling grant from the 2022 Momentum Funds. A total of 32 research projects were recognized. These awards are aimed at supporting high-quality research, scholarship and creative endeavors. Scaling Grants support the detailed project planning, gathering of results, and reduction of technical risk so that teams can ...
PITTWIRE - Congratulations to the recipients of the CTSI Pitt Public Health Trans-Disciplinary Collaboration Pilot Awards! Five teams of Co-Investigators from Pitt Public Health and School of Medicine begin research on climate change and precision public health. The collaborative pilot investigations are focused on addressing public health under the threat of climate change through precision public health, an emerging field that employs data sci...
“It was honestly an utter surprise, but at least I was dressed professionally because I had recorded my three-minute thesis submission that day!” – Amy Raslevich
HPM doctoral student Amy Raslevich had a live FaceTime call with former president Barack Obama on March 23. To mark the 12th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, the health care advocacy group Protect Our Care, with whom Raslevich is affiliated, organized surprise FaceTim...