ASPPH FRIDAY LETTER - Advanced stage cancer diagnoses declined following health insurance expansion in Massachusetts, likely due to increased access to screening and diagnostic services that identified cancers earlier, according to new research led by health economists including HPM's Lindsay Sabik.
I chose the fellowship at UPMC because it is a national leader in health care and has exciting growth in the future. I wanted to be part of an organization that shared similar values and truly lived out those values. One of the biggest factors in my decision was my experience in my residency at UPMC Children’s Hospital. I saw firsthand the culture at UPMC and was surrounded by leaders who continued to support and encourage my personal and profes...
The UVAHealth System Fellowship was my top choice, because it is both an academic medical center and one of the best hospitals in the state of Virginia. I completed my undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia, and I wanted the chance to give back to the community I had called home for four years. I am most excited about the fellowship structure. In the first year of the two-year fellowship, I will explore their service lines, while mov...
My aspiration to pursue UPMC’s Insurance Administrative Fellowship was due to their unwavering focus on career development. Continuous education and a constant learning environment represent UPMC’s drive towards excellence in every facet. During my search for potential fellowships to apply for, I decided to narrow down my list based on two-year duration, IDFS organization, and rotational experience. UPMC matched everything I was looking for in ...
I applied to the NYU Langone Fellowship because I was amazed at how well their hospital services reflected the community needs of their diverse populations. I wanted to build a career with one of the best health systems in the nation that put a significant focus on innovation and strategy with the patient in the heart of every decision they made and the process they implemented. I accepted my offer because of how well I connected with my intervi...
After graduating, I’ll be starting as an Administrative Fellow with OhioHealth, Central Ohio’s largest health system. I’ll be placed in the OhioHealth Physician Group, which includes providers across over 250 physician offices. OhioHealth has been named to Fortune’s list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” for 13 consecutive years, and I was really drawn to the emphasis that the organization places upon relationship building. I’m very excit...
Congratulations to Yichen Jia (BIOST ’22, front-left) and Peng Liu (BIOST '16 '21, front-right), winners of the national ENAR Distinguished Paper Award. The two doctoral students will present their award-winning work at one of the country's largest professional gatherings of biostatisticians, the ENAR Spring Meeting in Nashville, March 22–25. Pitt Biostatistics students are consistently recognized among these top student researchers.
MEDICAL DIALOGUES - “Midlife is not just a period where women have hot flashes and experience other menopausal symptoms, it’s a time when their cardiovascular disease risk is increasing as we see significant changes in multiple clinical measures of their physical health,” said EPI's Samar R. El Khoudary. “Our study is not able to tell us why we’re seeing these changes … but we can say, right now, that women should be made aware that their cardio...
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Just like with his interest in preventative medicine, Ruishen Lyu (BIOST MS '20) had two main reasons for choosing Pitt from among the other universities to which he was accepted. The first was the great reputation of a large research university like the University of Pittsburgh. The second was the program itself and what it offered. In researching the academic components of the program and hearing from students and alums via online message boar...
VICE - The most recent research found that insurance was inconsistent in guaranteeing full coverage of birth control options. “This is an ongoing issue,” said HPM’s Marian Jarlenski, who researches maternal and child health. “You may be hit by a surprise bill; you may just decide to pay out-of-pocket, not knowing there might be an appeals process; or you could go to a different clinic.”
U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT - “Our study is the first to present evidence that Massachusetts' health reform may be associated with a shift to earlier-stage diagnosis for a cancer that has a high cure rate when caught early,” said HPM's Lindsay Sabik. “We expect that early cancer diagnosis will likely be one of the major success stories of national health insurance reform.”
Congratulations to Kara Goyla (BCHS ') who graduated from Drexel's PA program on December 14 and passed her boards! She was inducted into Pi Alpha, the National Physician Assistant Honor Society and received the Benjamin Eskin Memorial Award "for the PA student who demonstrated exceptional effort and demonstrated qualities of personal dedication and integrity." Golya sends her gratitude and states she could not have made it through this arduous ...
Congrats to BCHS's Elizabeth Felter and Sara Baumann (BCHS '19). Their article "Development of a Community-Engaged Classroom for Teaching Health Communications: Lessons Learned from Nine Semesters of Implementation," has been selected as a Pedagogy in Health Promotion's 2019 Best Paper of the Year Award. This is a great honor!
ASPPH FRIDAY LETTER - Coaching Boys Into Men, a program that seeks to prevent dating violence and sexual assault, reduces abusive behaviors among middle school male athletes toward their female peers, according to clinical trial results published in JAMA Pediatrics. The trial, examining the short- and long-term effectiveness of the program, was led by BCHS's Elizabeth Miller.
PITT WIRE - Advanced stage cancer diagnoses declined following health insurance expansion in Massachusetts, likely due to increased access to screening and diagnostic services that identified cancers earlier, according to new research led by health economists including HPM's Lindsay Sabik. “Colorectal cancer frequently occurs in adults under 65 who are not yet eligible for Medicare. And we know from previous research that people who do not have ...
Over the last year we are lucky to have recruited three outstanding junior faculty members: Lu Tang, Jenna Carlson (BIOST '17), and Jiebiao Wang. The newest addition to the department, Wang received his PhD from the University of Chicago and was previously a post-doctoral fellow at CMU. His areas of expertise and research interests include high dimensional data, genomics, and causal inference. Wang is currently teaching BIOST 2025: Biostatistics...
Last year, the department hosted its first alumni breakfast at the ENAR Spring Meeting in Philadelphia. Pitt Breakfast @ ENAR was a huge success, and our alumni and students had the chance to connect prior to the day's activities. We look forward to having a presence again this year at both ENAR Nashville and JSM Philadelphia 2020. Stay tuned for more details!
Harvey Co Chien (BIOST MS '87) recently established a scholarship fund to support students pursuing master's degrees in biostatistics. You too can support students and the department, providing resources, supporting educational programs, aiding travel costs, and allowing us to remain accessible and affordable to the next generation of biostatisticians. Find out more.
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - It makes sense to pitch LEAD to the medical community [as well as law enforcement and neighborhood associations], said BCHS’s Mary Hawk. Medical professionals, after all, see a lot of people with substance abuse problems, and don’t always know how to get them help. “These are people we love, right?” she said. “We all want the people we love to have opportunities to thrive.”
We are excited to introduce two new concentrations for the Master's of Science in Biostatistics: Health Data Science (HDS) and Statistical and Computational Genetics (SCG). Find out more in AMSTATNews, on our website , or by contacting Ada Youk (ayouk@pitt.edu) or Renee Valenti (renee.valenti@pitt.edu).