PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - EPI's Donald Burke discusses overdose deaths as an epidemic in Pittsburgh at bimonthly meeting for Allegheny County Board of Health. According to the data, last year saw an increase of 31 overdose deaths in the county, up to 719 from the 688 recorded in 2020.
Dr. Burke, dean emeritus of the School of Public Health and a member of the board, said that those figures track for exponential growth in overdose deaths in ...
TRIB LIVE - A rapidly spreading covid variant is highly contagious and can cause breakthrough infections, but it’s not more severe or dangerous than prior strains, local experts say. The omicron subvariant — known as BA.5 — has “really taken off, nationally and locally,” said Dr. Lee Harrison, professor of infectious disease and epidemiology.
“It is very, very infectious,” Harrison said. “There’s no doubt about it. In terms of immun...
UNIVERSITY TIMES - The University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR) has selected three projects from five Pitt faculty members to receive the Steven D. Manners Research Development Awards. Rosso was awarded for her work on Neighborhood Environment and Risk of Cognitive Impairment in Older Adults across Southwestern Pennsylvania. The awards, which were established in 2001, are for promising research projects in the social, behavioral, ...
PITTWIRE - Jeanine Buchanich, a research associate professor in Biostatistics, is taking a big-picture approach to figuring out what programs will best tackle the problem.Buchanich has evaluated public health interventions as varied as community-level training for first responders on naloxone use and stigma reduction; county and municipal health department prevention efforts; the Patient Advocacy Program, which helps patients who have been presc...
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PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - Alecia Dawn, a yoga instructor and owner of YOGAMOTIF, guided a small group in a yoga and meditation class Monday at the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination in Garfield. The Summer Solstice Yoga event was co-hosted by YOGAMOTIF, Healthy Start Pittsburgh and the university of Pittsburgh Postpartum Mothers Mobility Study, or PMOMS.
PMOMS is research focused on understanding factors associated with racial disparities ...
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...
MAD IN AMERICA - Jennifer Barkin (EPI '09, BIOST '02), a biostatistician and psychiatric epidemiologist, discusses the development of the Barkin Index of Maternal Functioning, the first patient-centered wellness-assessment tool focusing on mothers’ daily lives during the first year after giving birth. “I developed that actually during my doctoral studies… and the reason that I developed it was I linked up with a sort of famous reproductive psych...
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...
NEW YORK TIMES - After meeting through a Craigslist personal ad that neither can remember placing, Jonathan Gann and Michael Shankle (BCHS '96) had their first date at the Million Puppet March in Washington. Shankle is chief operating officer at the Washington Health Institute and serves as the chair of Washington’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission for the Chinatown, Downtown and Penn Quarter areas.
Congratulations to Zachary Clemens and Yuchen Kristine Sun, two second-year doctoral students in Pitt Public Health’s Department of Environmental and Occupational (EOH), who won awards at the annual meeting of the Allegheny & Erie Regional Chapter of the Society of Toxicology, May 31 – June 1, in Morgantown, Va.
Pittsburgh City Paper - BCHS' Richard Garland has been recommended by the Pennsylvania Prison Society, Let's Get Free: the Women and Trans Prisoner Defense Committee, and Book 'Em, to serve on the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board (JOB). Garland has gained respect and notoriety for his steadfast commitment to violence prevention, trauma-informed care, and re-entry, to the extent that he has received support from Mayor Ed Gainey to fill the o...
Congratulations to Manqi Cai (BIOST '24) who is one of four prize winners of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) Graduate Student Research Conference 2022. Cai is recognized for the best presentation of original research for her presentation titled "Robust and accurate estimation of cellular fraction from tissue omics data via ensemble deconvolution." In addition to a reward certificate, Cai will receive a check in the amount o...
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...
Congratulations to Molin Yue (BIOST) on receiving the abstract scholarship and 3rd place American Thoracic Society (ATS) Pediatric Trainee abstract award in San Francisco at the annual American Thoracic Society conference, the most prestigious clinical conference in pulmonary medicine. Yue presented two talks; his award-winning "Transcriptome-wide Analysis of Nasal Epithelium Predicts Time to First Severe Exacerbation in Childhood Asthma" as wel...
Dr. Valerian Kagan, professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, was honored as the “Cover Scientist” of Anti-Oxidants and Redox Signaling , for his pioneering work in the field of redox biology.
In addition to gracing the cover of the premier journal’s May issue, Dr. Kagan’s life and scientific achievements are the subject of a biographical article in the journal.
“Professor...
"Currently, I'm working with Haley Director (HUGEN '22, '26) to educate people about public health genetics through social media. You can find us at genetics.info on Instagram and TikTok!"
"This summer, I'm very excited to perform genetic epidemiology research regarding a form of skin cancer, and I'm also interested in disability advocacy work."
"To me, public health genetics is the intersection of genomics research and population health. I've benefited from public health genetics through the carrier screening program for Ashkenazi Jews, so I know firsthand the impact and importance of public health genetics."
"I am currently completing my practicum with the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation in Pittsburgh, where I am involved with many different facets of the organization. I also work as a research coordinator with the TBRS Community, a nonprofit organization supporting inviduals with the rare disorder Tatton Brown Rahman Syndrome."