Public Health On Call

Amany Qaddour , regional director for Syria Relief and Development, a nonprofit humanitarian organization on the ground in Syria, joins Dr. Sharfstein They discuss the enormous challenge of responding to a natural disaster in a part of the world that has suffered from conflict, displacement, and crisis for years. To make a contribution to the organizations mentioned in the podcast, see  https://sr...

Today, guest host Shelley Hearne , director of the Lerner Center for Public Health Advocacy brings us to the south lawn of the White House for a conversation with Catherine Flowers , environmental justice advocate and a MacArthur Genius Award winner. Flowers talks about working with grassroots advocates, celebrities, politicians, and influencers of all kinds to raise awareness around serious sanit...

The average life expectancy in the United States has dropped precipitously during the pandemic—and COVID-19 is not the only culprit. Dr. Josh Sharfstein , who leads the Bloomberg American Health Initiative at Johns Hopkins, talks to co-host Stephanie Desmon about a new report on how we can halt U.S. life expectancy declines by focusing on major causes of the declines: COVID, opioids, gun homicides...

The Stoop Storytelling Series and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health partnered last fall to present a night of storytelling by scientists, activists, and community members sharing personal stories about urgent public health issues. In part 1, Carolyn Sufrin , an obgyn and medical anthropologist, tells her story of how she began working in reproductive health care in prisons, and Cicel...

In a two-part conversation that begins while facing down a tiny yet fierce migratory bird on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Refuge to a celebration on the south lawn of the White House, guest host Shelley Hearne , director of the Johns Hopkins Lerner Center for Public Health Advocacy, and David Kieve , president of the Environmental Defense Action Fund, discuss why the new climate bill i...

Astronomer Andy Rivkin led the team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory that sent a rocket into space last year to change the trajectory of an asteroid. Stephanie Desmon talks to him about how this proof of concept launch could one day aid in the ultimate public health mission: To save humans from the fate of the dinosaurs.

Roughly 10 percent of long-term care workers have left their careers since the start of COVID-19. The shortage in staffing has led to nursing homes turning patients away, left caregivers at home struggling for help, and ultimately put patients at risk in the hands of workers who have been stretched thin. Tradeoffs host Dan Gorenstein talks about a San Fransisco non-profit home health agency lookin...

Howard Sklamberg , a former deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, talks to Dr. Sharfstein about legislation passed at the end of 2022 to improve the safety of cosmetics. On the agenda for discussion: inspections, manufacturing standards, recalls, and the answer to the trivia question of whether a combination of antiperspirant and deodorant is considered a cosmetic or a drug...

Guest host Shelley Hearne , director of the Lerner Center for Public Health Advocacy, brings us eight miles above the Arctic Circle to talk with Bernadette Demientieff , council member for the Arctic Refuge Defense Council and member of the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich'in Tribe. They discuss the very real impacts of climate change on her community in their day-to-day lives and our global interconnectedness...

Years of masking and distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic protected many of us from the common cold and flu, and isolation protected children from respiratory illnesses like RSV. So, why are so many kids getting sick this winter? In this episode, Stephanie Desmon talks to Dr. Mike Rose , a pediatric resident at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine about a concept called 'immunity debt' and why...

After years of using a ZERO COVID strategy in China, which led to many lockdowns and economic questions, the country has dropped all COVID restrictions in recent weeks. Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security joins Stephanie Desmon to discuss what has happened in China, what the consequences are now and what they will be in the future. Adalja says both policies were destin...

Environmental health wasn't always part of the public health portfolio but in recent years "science caught up to the obvious." Dr. Howard Frumkin , former head of Environmental Health Operations at the CDC and currently senior vice president at Trust for Public Land, talks with Shelley Hearne about the evidence base behind environmental impacts on our health, the political and cultural changes req...

Dr. Roger Mitchell , the former chief medical examiner of the District of Columbia, and current chief of pathology at Howard University speaks with Dr. Sharfstein about how deaths in custody are classified. Dr. Mitchell has observed that when it comes to understanding the reasons for these deaths, the usual rules of autopsies and death investigations don't always seem to apply. He's leading the ch...

As we enter the fourth year of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Mike Osterholm , a leading expert from the University of Minnesota, talks to Stephanie Desmon about why hundreds of people in the U.S. continue to die each day from COVID and tens of thousands are newly hospitalized. They discuss the question he gets asked most often, "Is this pandemic ever going to end?", as well as coming variants, the ma...

Our guest is Judge David Tatel , who recently took senior status on the U.S. court of appeals for the DC circuit after joining the court in 1994. He was appointed to fill the seat created by the appointment of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to the Supreme Court. Judge Tatel speaks with Dr. Sharfstein about West Virginia v. EPA, in which the Supreme Court announced a major new doctrine for judging act...

In this episode, Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau , director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, speaks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about sexual abuse prevention means for youth serving organizations, and for children themselves. More about the Moore Center is here .

Today, guest host Shelley Hearne , director of the Lerner Center for Public Health Advocacy talks with former EPA leader and inaugural White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy about why climate change is a people and public health problem, not a planetary problem. 

A report from the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis sheds light on disturbing instances of the Trump administration's politicization of science during the COVID-19 public health emergency. Subcommittee member Congressman Bill Foster (D-IL) talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about what's in the report, how to better protect agencies like the CDC from political interference, and lessons lear...

Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, there's been a flurry of activity at the state levels to protect, significantly restrict, or ban abortion. Legal and public health expert Joanne Rosen returns to the podcast to talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how removing the "constitutional guardrails" is playing out in courtrooms across the country, the "chilling effect" much of this has on practitioners, a...

In the last episode of Season 6, Lindsay Smith Rogers talks with co-hosts Dr. Josh Sharfstein and Stephanie Desmon about 2022: how it started, what happened, and how it's going now. They reflect on the changing COVID response, listener feedback, standout episodes, notable guests, looking ahead to topics for 2023 and more. This episode was recorded in person as a video and can be viewed on the @joh...

Last week, hundreds of public health leaders and scholars gathered in Philadelphia for the annual Bloomberg American Health Summit and to discuss critical topics ranging from gun violence and environmental justice to food policy and preventing overdose. This special episode of Public Health On Call features three panels from the main plenary session: Extreme Risk Protection Orders, Innovations in...

Dr. Shaun Truelove , an infectious disease epidemiologist, returns to the podcast to talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the latest models for the COVID-19 Scenario Modeling Hub. They discuss the possibility of another COVID surge this winter as well as what models can tell us about other respiratory diseases like flu and RSV, and factors like the flu and bivalent vaccines. Please vote for the pod...

For the first time, the WHO released a report of fungal "priority pathogens" that are causing invasive diseases in humans and are becoming more prevalent and more resistant to treatment. Dr. Hatim Sati , technical leader of the report, talks with Stephanie Desmon about why fungi pose such a threat to human health, the lack of diagnostics and treatments, and how better research and surveillance can...

Guest host Bilal Khan , a Johns Hopkins public health student who recently worked as an advisor to senior public health leaders in Pakistan, talks with Dr. Rabika Fatima , a Karachi-based doctor volunteering at medical relief camps near the floods, about what's happening on the ground in the aftermath of Pakistan's devastating floods. Organizations working on the front lines include: JDC Foundatio...

Unintentional injuries like auto and firearm accidents, drownings, and poisonings, are the leading causes of death in US children over age 1. Dr. Sadiqa Kendi , Division Chief of Pediatric Emergency Medicine at Boston Medical Center and a Bloomberg Fellow, talks with Lindsay Smith Rogers about her work on the Mass PIER project and some insights they've gained from reviewing pediatric injuries. Lea...