UPMC - Wheezing, coughing that doesn’t stop, a pale and sweaty face: clinically, severe asthma attacks look very similar from patient to patient. But biologically, not all severe asthma is the same—and a team of scientists including EOH Chair Sally Wenzel has, for the first time, identified the key difference in people, a finding that has important implications for treatment.
WTAE - "I'm worried that vaccine hesitancy is going to prevent us, in many parts of the country, from achieving herd immunity. Local communities that are more hesitant, it could mean they are more at risk," said HPM's Mark Roberts, director of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory. Roberts also weighed in on the likelihood and reasoning for potentially needing additional vaccine boosters in the future.
WESA - Lead author Beth Hoffman (BCHS '19, '22) lays out five guidelines for future pro-vaccine events, for example: be inclusive, make sure participants have suggested tweets in hand and are trained in how to respond to messages, and share personal stories and science-backed information. Hoffman noted that engaging with vaccine hesitant people "to inoculate them against misinformation" is often better than engaging with the relatively small per...
Paula K. Davis, associate vice chancellor for diversity, equity, and inclusion, offers resources for support and invites the health sciences community to the 2021 Diversity Forum in July. "I cannot provide words of hope. To do so would be disingenuous. I can say, however, there are ears willing to listen and allies with whom to plan action and advocacy." Read the full letter...
After receiving her COVID-19 vaccine at an interprofessional clinic on campus, Dean Maureen Lichtveld celebrated by posing with a life-sized picture of Jonas Salk – a symbol of the importance of vaccines and one of the core principles of public health: prevention. Lichtveld shares her experience in an effort to encourage everyone to get vaccinated to protect our communities, get back to campus, and back to our lives.
THE CONVERSATION - Knowing the genome sequence helps researchers understand how the virus is mutating into variants and how it's traveling from person to person. Alexander Sundermann (IDM '14, EPI '22), EPI and IDM's Lee Harrison, and Pitt Medicine's Vaughn Cooper explain genomic surveillance - what it is and why we need more of it to track coronavirus variants and help end the COVID-19 pandemic.
ACADEMIC TIMES - Americans who receive Medicare but make slightly too much money to qualify for supplemental coverage from Medicaid spend thousands more dollars on out-of-pocket medical expenses while receiving fewer outpatient services and prescriptions than people covered by both programs, according to new research by HPM's Eric Roberts and colleagues.
PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE - Two of the three COVID-19 vaccines being administered to curb the spread of the disease require two shots for full protection, but some experts say one shot may be enough, at least for now. "As soon as I saw the reports on the Moderna and Pfizer applications for emergency use authorization, I saw both had striking effectiveness," said EPI's Donald Burke.
In collaboration with the Center for Global Health, Pitt held its first-ever Global Health Case Competition last fall. Pitt supported the winning team from that competition to enter Emory University's Morningside International Global Health Case Competition. Emily Crisan (BCHS '24) joined five undergraduate students and faculty mentor HPM's Elizabeth Van Nostrand and won third place out of 53 teams from across the U.S. for their plan and strateg...
Congratulations to EPI's Lisa Bodnar for receiving the 2021 Society for Epidemiologic Research Carol J. Rowland Hogue Award recognizing a mid-career scientist who has made an exceptional contribution to the practice of epidemiology. Hear from the 2021 awardees at the SER 2021 Virtual Conference June 23-25.
MS. MAGAZINE - Phoebe Balascio (EPI '21) is a transracial, transnational, Chinese American adoptee, passionate about racial justice, immigrant justice, disability justice, and the adoption industrial complex. Her current research at Pitt Public Health focuses on gender-based violence.
U TIMES - "My motto is always 'Making science work for communities," said Dean Maureen Lichtveld. So her top goal for the school is to increase student and faculty connections to the community and its public health concerns. Another priority is precision public health – an interdisciplinary practice to tackling community-based problems with community-based assets. "We will go to the community and address…public health threats."
UPMC - "Excuse me, are you willing to answer a few survey questions about your experience with COVID-19? Will you provide a blood sample and a nasal swab to test for coronavirus?" Pitt is one of 15 sites nationwide involved in the COMPASS study that will survey residents around the Pittsburgh area to learn who has antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.
TIME - Public health experts are worried that the country is headed for a fourth major spike. There's good reason to think this one might be less disastrous than the previous three. HPM's Mark Roberts, director of the Public Health Dynamics Lab, points to the relatively small uptick in deaths as a sign that prioritizing high-risk people for vaccination may be resulting in fewer fatalities even as cases increase.
EPI's Lisa Bodnar was recently chosen as president-elect of the Society for Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research - an organization of individuals from a wide variety of disciplines who share a common interest: the epidemiology of pregnancy, infancy, and childhood.
Congratulations to Yvette Conley (HUGEN '93, '99), one of the 2021 recipients of the Provost's Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring for her work at the School of Nursing, Department of Health Promotion and Development. The award recognizes faculty members who serve as outstanding mentors to graduate stduents seeking a research doctorate degree.
INDIANA UNIVERSITY BLOOMINGTON - Douglas Landsittel (BIOST '97) has been appointed chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in Indiana. "I am honored to have the opportunity to lead such an enthusiastic and talented group of faculty," he said. "Their research has made critical contributions across infectious disease modeling, genetics and bioinformatics, nutritional and social epidemiology, and statistical methods development. I...
NIMHD - The Science of Health Disparities Research is an in-depth volume for comprehensive information on conducting clinical and translational health disparities studies and features EPI's Tiffany Gary-Webb and BCHS' Sara Baumann (BCHS '19) authored the chapter "Racial/Ethnic, Socioeconomic, and Other Social Determinants."
WASHINGTON POST - One of the biggest challenges for state and local officials has been getting vaccines to homebound older adults, said BCHS Chair Steven Albert. "This is an invisible population. They're not like long-term care residents in nursing homes. They are very elderly and frail and they live at home and are an afterthought, in some cases."
UPMC - Women who experience an accelerated accumulation of abdominal fat during menopause are at greater risk of heart disease, even if their weight stays steady, according to research published in the journal Menopause. "We need to shift gears on how we think about heart disease risk in women, particularly as they approach and go through menopause," said EPI's Samar El Khoudary, senior author.