ALKALEEJ TODAY – Hanan Bint Abdul Rahim Al-Ahmadi (HPM ’95) was appointed assistant president of the Shoura Council in Saudi Arabia. This appointment elevated her to the third-highest position of the council and made her the first Saudi woman to serve in a leadership position in the Kingdom’s consultative body.
EPI's Anne Newman received the American Heart Association's 2020 Clinical Research Prize based on her extensive research career focused on aging, including the determinants of physical and cognitive function, as well as successful aging and longevity. She is an expert in the study of cardiovascular disease, aging and body composition, and sarcopenia (muscle loss) and physical functioning.
TRIBUNE-REVIEW — When drug makers solicited volunteers to test a coronavirus vaccine, Marc Wagner jumped. It was a matter of giving back. Wagner felt compelled to do his part for science. But just as important, it was an opportunity for him to honor the herculean efforts of scientists and others he has met over the last 35 years in his battle against HIV.
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER — Monoclonal antibodies are not magic bullets. They must be given intravenously in a hospital or infusion center where COVID-19 poses a particular danger to immune-compromised chemotherapy patients. HPM's Walid Gellad summarizes “We don’t want people running to the emergency room to get this therapy. We don’t want people running to infusion centers, where there are patients with cancer."
TRIBUNE-REVIEW — IDM's Amy Hartman said the early results from vaccine trials have her feeling more optimistic than she’s been throughout the pandemic. But, she cautioned, “it’s important to keep in mind that vaccines aren’t necessarily a finite ‘solution’ but they are an important step toward controlling the pandemic.” In the meantime, continuing mitigation efforts—staying physically apart, wearing masks, and washing hands—remain vital.
THE PHILLY VOICE — Wendy King, associate professor of epidemiology, found that higher physical activity levels after bariatric surgery lessen depressive symptoms and improve mental and physical quality of life, irrespective of weight loss. Gretchen White's study identified patient characteristics, such as insufficient social support and unrealistic weight-loss expectations, that can predict not being satisfied long-term with Roux-en-Y gastric by...
MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL - "Vaccination of select high-risk individuals may start by the end of the year, but most likely the majority of vaccines will be released during the first quarter of 2021," said IDM's Amy Hartman. Vaccine makers still need to gather results from larger groups of recipients who have been studied for longer periods. "That's important," she said, "because some very rare side effects may not become apparent until either a...
TRIB LIVE - HPM's Julie Donohue said certain protocols are critical to stemming potential transmission, naming strategies such as universal mask-wearing, heightened sanitizing and hygiene practices, and “cohorting”—dividing students and staff into distinct groups with minimal interaction between each other—to reduce their number of contacts throughout the day. “It’s an incredibly challenging set of decisions to make,”
MOUNTAIN STATE SPOTLIGHT - As COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations in West Virginia are rising and the holidays loom, the worst may be ahead. Regardless of all else, the most important thing going forward is our individual behaviors, said Mark Roberts, chairman of health policy and management.
TRIBUNE REVIEW - Most people are capable of understanding personal responsibility and an obligation to their role in keeping other people safe. What is necessary is getting everyone to police their own actions and know what’s best for everyone is to stay in the right lane. “I think there’s this false idea that it’s either lockdown or nothing, lockdown or normal life,” said Steve Albert, BCHS chair.
Amy L. Hartman, Sham Nambulli, Cynthia M. McMillen, Alexander G. White, Natasha Louise Tilston-Lunel, Joseph R. Albe, Emily Cottle, Matthew D. Dunn, L. James Frye, Theron H. Gilliland, Emily L. Olsen, Katherine J. O’Malley, Madeline M. Schwarz, Jaime A. Tomko, Reagan C. Walker, Mengying Xia, Matthew S. Hartman, Edwin Klein, Charles A. Scanga, JoAnne L. Flynn, William B. Klimstra, Anita K. McElroy, Douglas S. Reed, W. Paul Duprex found that SARS...
Dongjing Liu (HUGEN '20) won the International Genetic Epidemiology Society's first place poster award for his poster titled "Transcriptome-wide association study of human facial shape identifies potential mediating genes", which he presented virtually at the IGES Annual Meeting, July 1 - 4, 2020.
Colleen R. Zaccard, Lauren Shapiro, Maria D. Martin-de-Saavedra, Christopher Pratt, Kristoffer Myczek, Amy Song, Marc P. Forrest, Peter Penzes
Dendritic spinules are thin protrusions, formed by neuronal spines, not adequately resolved by diffraction-limited light microscopy, which has limited our understanding of their behavior. Here we performed rapid structured illumination microscopy and enhanced resolution confocal microscopy to stud...
"My research, teaching, curriculum development and service applies equity, anti-racism, anti-oppression praxis as well as Black Feminist Theory, Critical Race Theory and Public Health Critical Race Praxis. My research program focuses on understanding and addressing racial and socioeconomic inequity in pregnancy, birth, and women's health. I specifically employ novel methods to measure and understand how racism (including institutional and struct...
"I chose to pursue a doctoral degree after working for many years with a community-based program focused on improving birth experiences and maternal health outcomes for women in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County. In my previous work, my staff and the women we served were often invited to participate in maternity care research, yet the reseach questions under investigation did not always align with our interests or our needs."
Peter Salk was 11 years old when a University of Pittsburgh team led by his father, the late Jonas Salk, created the inactivated poliovirus vaccine. The day of the 1955 announcement that the vaccine was safe, effective and potent, “everything just went crazy,” he recalls. “There were so many calls from reporters that we ended up having to get an answering service. Imagine how embarrassing that would be for a sixth grader.” Today, at 76, he’s bac...
"The application of the epidemiological method to everyday problems is something that pleases me and creates challenges for me. I enjoy my work because most of the time I have been involved in the analysis of morbidity and mortality data, in the research of health problems from the epidemiological perspective, and in teaching physicians who are in the training of a medical residency in epidemiology."
Shumei Sun is the W. Hans Carter Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics in the School of Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University. She has joint appointments in the Division of Epidemiology, Department of Family Medicine and Population Health at VCU. Her knowledge of the developmental trajectories of children led to her decade-long work with the CDC to generate the latest version of the CDC-NCHS growth charts that are used by...
"I entered the doctoral program without an MPH and Pitt Public Health cultivated my deep appreciation for the field of public health, in particular its principle of social justice. I was fortunate enough to have some of the best advisors and mentors, who helped me establish a vision for my research and career and also cared for me on a personal level."
"At Pitt Public Health, I gained a deep understanding of how environmental factors like water quality, air pollution and toxic chemicals impact human health. This knowledge has been invaluable in my career in journalism, as I am able to communicate environmental issues to the public in a way that is easily understandable and can help drive solutions to these pressing problems."