KDKA - "The age group is15-25 - younger and drugs and alcohol...people getting out of lock down now and not being in school and not being in jobs," explained BCHS' Gina Brooks. After a year without school or direction, many of these young people with easy access to guns have turned to drug use and drug sales. street crime often resulting in murder she explained along with BCHS' Richard Garland. They both work on the Violence Prevention Initiativ...
HEALTH AFFAIRS - There is currently an opportunity for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to help consumers enroll in better Marketplace coverage in 2022. By adjusting how returning Marketplace enrollees are automatically re-enrolled in coverage, CMS can nudge more enrollees into plans that offer them both lower premiums and reduced cost sharing. HPM's Coleman Drake and colleagues outline steps to improve consumer plan selection tha...
HPP DEBATED - BCHS' Sara Baumann (BCHS '19) talks about a recent article in the journal Health Policy and Planning, Is criminalization the answer? Perspectives of community members and police on menstrual seclusion policy in Far-West Nepal. The study was completed by an interdisiplinary Pitt team including Baumann, BCHS's Jessie Burke, and BCHS students Monica Merante, Chris Wiltrout, and Trevor Cutlip.
HEALTHLINE - The plan is still vague, so it's "hard to tell (yet) who will actually be affected," Alexandra Glynn (HPM '23) told Healthline. She does feel there are ways that it could be beneficial, pointing out that people with high copays and deductibles tend to skip tests and regular physical exams. That means many delay medical care until treatment may be more expensive. Lowering the age could mean access to earlier detection and treatment. ...
UPMC - The COVID-19 pandemic "waves" that North Americans experienced over the past year and a half had interconnected patterns that moved through space and time — and they weren't just limited to the U.S. New research from Pitt Public Health shows the waxing and waning COVID-19 case counts traveled across North American county, state and county borders with seemlingly little regard for politics and public health mandates, much like a storm can ...
PITTWIRE - Among the latest to be added to Pitt's Board of Trustees is alumna Hui (Debra) Cen (IDM '91). Cen is a biologist, biotech entrepreneur, Rotarian and social entrepreneur who did biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health, the University of California, San Francisco and Chiron. Her latest initiative is a program to match successful Chinese immigrant volunteers and mentors with educational and financial literacy programs se...
KDKA - EOH Chair Sally Wenzel, director of Pitt's Asthma Institute at UPMC, explained that recent weather creates conditions where particulates in our atmosphere can't escape. "These are plumes in the air that damage the lungs and the blood vessels of people, especially vulnerable people," said Wenzel. She recommends staying inside in the air conditioning as much as you can, visiting public spaces with air conditioning if you don’t have it in yo...
NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON AGING - Meaningful research from our students, alumni, and faculty suggest that midlife health may be an important determinant of cognitive function and heart health later on in life. Featuring work from four SWAN manuscripts, one led by EPI's Emma Barinas-Mitchell (EPI '98) for which Emily Duan (EPI '17) performed the analysis, and another led by Saad Samargandy (EPI '20). Franya Hutchins (EPI '20) performed the analyses f...
NPR - Like many Black women, Shantay Davies-Balch and Sabrina Beavers delivered their babies earlier than they'd hoped. The two friends went to StoryCorps in 2019 to speak about the challenges they each faced during pregnancy.
While Jong Jeong’s mother wanted him to be a government official, as a kid he was open to exploring his options. Eventually he pursued statistics and came to Pitt Public Health as a faculty member and administrator who is also a fellow of the American Statistical Association. Jeong is proud of the work of his fellow faculty as well as his students and is excited to get back to in-person teaching and working. Meet our Interim Chair of BIOST.
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SPOTLIGHT PA - Keeping a contact tracing program in place could help manage spikes in COVID-19 cases as mitigation measures lift, said EPI's Catherine Haggerty. "Vaccination rates, although they're on the rise and things are looking encouraging, they're certainly not 100%," Haggerty said. "Containment efforts that include quarantine of close contacts, isolation of cases continue to be critically important. This isn't the time to let down our gua...
Eleanor Feingold has been a faculty member holding various administrative roles at Pitt Public Health for over 20 years, currently serving as both the chair of the Department of Human Genetics and Vice Dean. She counts mentoring each of her students among the highlights of her career and she works tirelessly to ensure that Pitt Public Health is operating at it’s best. Spending the 2021-22 academic year as an American Council on Education Fello...
Jessie Burke wears many hats at Pitt Public Health, one being the interim chair for the Department of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology . Her passion for scholarship and public health is only matched by her appetite for her homemade chili (which she got pretty good at making courtesy of COVID-19).
UPMC - Americans are consuming more craft beer with higher alcohol content but are drinking less beer by volume, according to a new analysis from Mary Schiff (EPI '21) and EPI's Tony Fabio (EPI '99, '94) "We were pleasantly surprised to learn...that Americans seem to be self regulating," said Schiff. Additional Pitt Pubilc Health colleagues involved in the work were EPI's Dara Mendez and Tiffany Gary-Webb.
KDKA - The mental health of kids and teenagers has been a big concern, especially during the pandemic. Work from BCHS' Sara Baumann (BCHS '19) led eight local teenagers to create short films focusing on the stressors and supports for their mental health. The research project used Collaborative Filmmaking, giving teenagers equipment to create, film, and edit on their own.
TIME - The daily vaccine rate in the U.S. had dropped to 850,000 a day by early June, down from the peak of 4.3 million on April 8, but now it's starting to creep back up. HPM's Mark Roberts, director of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory, agrees that childhood vaccinations are part of the explanation, but not all. It may have something to do with recent incentive programs.
WESA - Black residents continue to be underrepresented among the county's vaccinated population and part of the solution is making the vaccine more accessible. "When community-[based] events started to happen, we saw vaccination rates in Black populations increase," said EPI's Tiffany Gary-Webb, associate dean for diversity and inclusion and member of Pittsburgh's Black Equity Coalition.
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