News
COVID-19 Severity Among American Indians and Alaska Natives in 16 States – January 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021
Thursday, December 7, 2023
Dean Seneca is a contributor to a paper that was recently published titled, "COVID-19 Severity Among American Indians and Alaska Natives in 16 States – January 1, 2020, to March 31, 2021". Full paper here.
Dr. Ann Dozier Presents at APHA 2023
Wednesday, November 15, 2023
Dr. Ann Dozier shed light on the association between maternity care practices and early breastfeeding outcomes in Atlanta at the APHA 2023 conference.
Dr. Peter Veazie and Alina Denham’s manuscript was published in Health Economics
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Dr. Peter Veazie and Alina Denham’s manuscript, titled, “Is the emergency department used as a substitute or a complement to primary care in Medicaid?” was published in Health Economics. This manuscript was apart of Alina Denham's HSR PhD dissertation. You can find the full manuscript here.
New Gene Therapy Trials That Aim to Cure Deafness in Children
Thursday, November 9, 2023
Psychologist and public health researcher Wyatte Hall, MA, PhD, spoke to Wired (Oct. 20), commenting on new gene therapy trials that aim to cure deafness in children. Hall, who is deaf himself, recommends families use a "both" approach—using technology and sign language. "If gene therapy or technology doesn't work, sign language is there as a developmental safeguard," said Hall.
A New Chapter in Leadership Commences at Jordan Health as Linda Clark Assumes the Role of President and CEO
Friday, November 3, 2023
Linda Clark, the new President and CEO, who is also an adjunct faculty in Public Health Sciences, highlighted some of her goals for maintaining quality healthcare and the future of the center. “First of all, I want to make sure that the community knows and understands that they can get higher quality healthcare and they can get it at Jordan Health,” said Clark. “I want to be on the edge of innovation. It’s time to do some new things. It’s time to do things in a way that increases the number of patients that come to see us.” Clark says she also has her finger on the pulse of the healthcare providers who work at Jordan.
Novel Community-Centric Pathway for Translational Research explored in a new publication by Dr. Fiscella and Dr. Yousefi Nooraie
Thursday, November 2, 2023
In a recent publication in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, Dr. Kevin Fiscella, MD, MPH, and Dr. Reza Yousefi Nooraie, MSc, PhD, has proposed a complementary pathway for translational research in the field of public health. This innovative approach focuses on community priorities, aiming to address population health challenges, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and increasing psychological distress. The new pathway emphasizes health determinants and long-term partnerships with communities, aiming to accelerate evidence-based interventions and advance health equity. “Focusing on the last translational stage—dissemination and implementation of research findings in clinics and communities—we see lots of opportunities for how the real-world evidence of uptake and use could inform future technology development and pre-clinical research,” Yousefi Nooraie said. “These reverse translational pathways are quite underexplored.” Dr. Fiscella and Dr. Yousefi Nooraie believe that this community-driven approach can bridge the gap between traditional biomedical research and community health needs, potentially leading to more effective and responsive translational research outcomes. They plan to initiate small-scale pilot projects to further explore and implement this novel approach.
Dr. Yu Liu Secures R21 Grant
Monday, October 30, 2023
Dr. Yu Liu as the Principal Investigator, in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team from Vanderbilt University, Meharry Medical College, Florida International University, and Nashville CARES, has secured an R21 grant from NIMHD for the research project, "Developing and Testing a Novel Multidimensional Stigma-Resilience Measure for Stigma Reduction Research with Black Men Who Have Sex with Men." The preliminary data used in the application was based on pilot funding from the School of Medicine and School of Nursing. This initiative aims to address the pressing issue of stigma reduction among Black Men who have sex with men (BMSM) by developing a culturally-tailored, BMSM-specific Multidimensional Stigma-Resilience Scale. The project's success holds promise for future resilience-based interventions and signifies a critical advancement in addressing the multifaceted stigmas faced by Black sexual minority communities in the United States.
Medicine Resident Naz Beacher presents at the American College of Preventive Medicine Leadership Retreat
Friday, October 20, 2023
In a presentation at the American College of Preventive Medicine Leadership Retreat, Preventive Medicine Resident Naz Beacher sheds light on the critical topic of "Physician Workforce Projections in Public Health and Preventive Medicine".
Dr. Francisco Cartujano Barrera Receives NIH Funding to Advance Smoking Cessation among Transgender Individuals
Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Dr. Francisco Cartujano Barrera, assistant professor of Public Health Sciences has been awarded his first NIH-funded grant, an R21/R33, for a groundbreaking project titled "TRANSforma Tu Salud Dejando de Fumar: Advancing smoking cessation among transgender individuals." Smoking cessation is a critical public health issue, and Dr. Cartujano Barrera's work recognizes that addressing the unique challenges faced by transgender individuals is essential to achieving success in this area which he will be conducting in collaboration with a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Argentina.
Dr. Amina Alio talks to American Hospital Association about "The Role of Fathers in Maternal and Child Health"
Friday, September 15, 2023
Men can provide important support for women during their pregnancy and help create better outcomes for mother and child. Dr. Amina Alio, professor of of public health sciences explore the role of fathers in maternal and child health and how addressing fathers' needs can improve family well-being.
Listen to the podcast here: The Role of Fathers in Maternal and Child Health | AHA
Scott McIntosh, Ph.D. and Sangeeta Gajendra, DDS, MPH, MS, and Their Team Received NIH Grant
Friday, September 8, 2023
Scott McIntosh and Sangeeta Gajendra received NIH grant for their research project titled “Addressing Dental and Psychiatric Comorbidities: Screening and Referrals of HIV / AIDS Patients”. The pilot grant for this project was funded by the Public Health Sciences Department.
David Rich talks to 13 WHAM about wildfire smoke
Wednesday, July 19, 2023
David Rich talks to 13 WHAM about the long-term impact of wildfire smoke. "We still see health effects, even with our low levels, but that's what the concern is with these high wood smoke levels. Are we going to be expected to see more respiratory outcomes, more people having health issues? We'll be able to see that over the coming months and coming year or two."
Read the full article here.
Deborah Ossip, PhD, spoke to U.S. News & World Report
Wednesday, July 19, 2023
Deborah Ossip, PhD, professor of public health sciences, spoke to U.S. News & World Report (June 22) about the increase of e-cigarette sales, despite a federal ban in 2020 to remove many flavored vapes from the market. "If you want to meaningfully restrict the use of flavored products, you really need to close the loopholes,” said Ossip. "Combine that with the program of enforcing the regulations, and a public awareness campaign about why that's happening, because there's a lot of confused messaging around use of flavored products and e-cigarettes."
Francisco Cartujano helped develop a toolkit with the American Lung Association
Wednesday, May 24, 2023
Francisco Cartujano helped develop the Addressing Tobacco Use in Hispanic and Latino Communities toolkit with the American Lung Association. The toolkit includes culturally competent strategies, tools, and lessons learned that can be implemented by public health professionals, clinicians, and community partners serving diverse Hispanic or Latino communities.
Dr. Yu Liu and his team have been funded by the University Research Awards
Monday, May 15, 2023
Dr. Yu Liu and his team, Drs. Chen Zhang, Kevin Fiscella and Mitchell Wharton have been funded by the University Research Awards to do an important project to "Develop an evidence-based guide for capturing and evaluating structural racism against Black/African American populations affected by HIV in the US".
Epi PhD Students jointly authored an article
Thursday, May 11, 2023
Epi PhD student Daniel Lopez and Rui Li, an alumni of our Epi PhD program are authors of the article Pubertal Development And Pain Incidence And Characteristics In Children: A 1-Year Prospective Cohort Study Of A National Sample - ScienceDirect
Peter Veazie's publication on US Trends in Social Isolation has been incorporated into the Surgeon General’s report on loneliness
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
Peter Veazie's publication, with Viji Kannan, on US Trends in Social Isolation has been incorporated into the Surgeon General’s report on loneliness released this week. (Social Isolation and Loneliness in Older Adults: Opportunities for the Health Care System |The National Academies Press) Figure 2 of the report presents their findings. Their data is referenced in interviews the Surgeon General has engaged. PBS Newshour “Surgeon General Discusses Health Risk of Loneliness” references their results in the first figure shown (at 2 minutes): PBS NewsHour | Surgeon General discusses the health risks of loneliness | Season 2023 | PBS .
Diana Fernandez , M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D. is an author for a Nutrition Journal Publication
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Diana Fernandez is an author for "Longitudinal trends in produce purchasing behavior: a descriptive study of transaction level data from loyalty card households" which was recently published by the Nutrition Journal.
Read the full journal article here: https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12937-022-00814-9
Robert Block, M.D., M.P.H., Scott McIntosh, Ph.D., and Kelly Thevenet-Morrison , M.S. are authors for a Music and Medicine Journal
Wednesday, April 26, 2023
Robert Block, Scott McIntosh, and Kelly Thevenet-Morrison are authors for a journal article called "Effects of a Pilot Music Therapy Intervention on Motivation in Patients with Severe Hypercholesterolemia". It was recently published with the Music and Medicine Journal.
Robert Block, M.D., M.P.H. and Scott McIntosh, Ph.D. are coauthors for a Journal of Music Therapy publication
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Dr. Block and Dr. McIntosh wrote a journal article called "Indicators of Self-Determination in Therapeutic Songwriting Lyrics Created by Adults with High LDL Cholesterol" and it was recently published by Oxford University Press. Their study was funded by a PHS Pilot Project Grant.
Read the full journal article here: https://academic.oup.com/jmt/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jmt/thad001/7080467?utm_source=advanceaccess&utm_campaign=jmt&utm_medium=email
Philip K. Hopke is ranked #111 among Best Scientists for 2023
Tuesday, April 18, 2023
Philip K. Hopke has ranked #111 in the world ranking and #59 in United States in the 2023 Edition of the Ranking of Best Scientists in the field of Environmental Sciences. He has also been recognized with the Environmental Sciences Leader Award for 2023. Congratulations!
Wyatte Hall PBS Interview
Wednesday, April 5, 2023
Wyatte Hall was recently interviewed for a PBS story on the misunderstood reason deaf children fall behind.
Watch the full interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwv4Ya7n0yI
Wyatte Hall Joins Congressional Briefing on Language Access for Deaf Children
Monday, February 27, 2023
Wyatte Hall, Ph.D., assistant professor of Public Health Sciences at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC), took part in a congressional briefing at the U.S. Capitol on February 22 to advocate for earlier and better language access for deaf children. The briefing was part of the eighth annual Education and Advocacy Summit hosted by the Conference of Educational Administrators of Schools and Programs for the Deaf.
Hall, who is also an assistant professor in Neurology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics and the Center for Community Health & Prevention at URMC, has studied the prevalence and impact of language deprivation on deaf children and adults for almost 10 years. While most children share a common language with their parents and have access to that language from infancy, the majority of deaf children are born into hearing families that use spoken language and many have delayed access to language.
Language – whether spoken or signed – is like sustenance for the brain. Without it, children can experience cognitive and developmental delays, as well as worse physical health, long-term academic achievement, and mental health issues throughout life.
Getting access to language late is really bad for a child’s development, health, and quality of life across the lifespan,” said Hall. “The fact that many deaf children in the U.S. have delayed access to language is a national public health emergency.
Hall and his collaborators, Naomi Caselli, Ph.D., assistant professor of Deaf Studies at Boston University, and Michele Berke, Ph.D., early childhood education principal at the California School for the Deaf, know that there is hope for deaf children born into hearing families. In a recent study, they found that such children who had access to an immersive American Sign Language (ASL)-English bilingual environment by age three attained age-appropriate academic achievement regardless of their parents’ signing abilities. They also found that children who entered the program later had significantly lower scores in all academic subjects on average, and children with stronger ASL skills tended to have better academic achievement scores.
That is why they argued in front of congressional staffers, alongside others from the Education and Advocacy Summit, that early education in an ASL bilingual school is crucial to ensuring deaf children achieve expected academic outcomes and a foundation for a healthy life. They called on congress to fund bilingual schools, and to increase funding for research on ASL, deaf health, and deaf education through the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, and to earmark funds in the CDC Early Hearing Detection and Intervention program’s budget for ASL programs, deaf mentors, and immersion programs. They also emphasized that ASL should be an “and” option for deaf children alongside English, allaying misconceptions that learning ASL could impede English language development.
“I’m honored to be a part of this briefing and to share my research with policymakers,” Hall said. “I hope this is an ongoing step toward positive change, so future generations of deaf and hard-of-hearing kids have more equitable access to language, improved education, better health, and overall higher quality of life throughout their lifetimes.”
Hall was the first graduate of the Rochester Postdoc Partnership, a unique postdoctoral training program designed to advance the research and academic careers of Deaf and hard of hearing (Deaf/HH) scientists. While in the program, he explored the relationship between early childhood language experiences and subsequent life outcomes of Deaf people. He performed qualitative work with local deaf Rochester community members, co-edited the first-ever academic text focusing on the role of language deprivation in the deaf mental health field, and developed the Deaf Childhood Experiences Questionnaire.
He currently is director of the Visual Language Access and Acquisition Lab at URMC and co-directs the Future Deaf Scientists program under the Wilmot Cancer Institute, a cancer research education and training program seeking to empower Deaf high school students to thrive in medical and science careers.
Francisco Cartujano, M.D. is a 2023 Awardee!
Tuesday, January 31, 2023
Francisco Cartujano, M.D. is a 2023 awardee of the Richard C. Devereaux Outstanding Young Investigator Award for his project, "Advancing Lung Cancer Screening Among Latinos One Text at a Time".
Tips to Advance Health Equity Concepts in Residency Training
Monday, January 30, 2023
Last week, an article from the American Medical Association highlighted work by Theresa Green, Ph.D., M.B.A., the UR CTSI's director of health equity education. Green was part of a panel discussion at the inaugural Health Systems Science Summit where she discussed efforts to advance health equity in health systems science – the study of how care is delivered, how health professionals work together to deliver that care, and how the health system can improve patient care and health care delivery.
Read the article: https://www.ama-assn.org/education/accelerating-change-medical-education/tips-advance-health-equity-concepts-residency
PHS Epi PhD Student, Mostafa Mohamed is a Primary Author on a Journal Article
Thursday, January 26, 2023
PHS Epi PhD student, Mostafa Mohamed, is a primary author on a journal article titled Association of polypharmacy and potential drug-drug interactions with adverse treatment outcomes in older adults with advanced cancer.
You can find the full journal article here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36692475/