Public Health On Call

Based on past conflicts, if Russia takes over in Ukraine, it's likely that some of Ukraine's public health policies will be essentially rewritten or revoked overnight. Dr. Chris Beyrer returns to the podcast to talk with Stephanie Desmon about Russia's history of revoking life-saving public health policies and imposing its own "traditional" laws like targeting homosexuals for harrassment and assau...

Chicago's public health response to the pandemic has been focused on racial equity from the beginning—and the approach is paying dividends. Dr. Allison Arwady , Chicago's health commissioner, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the city's innovative efforts, why they chose to invest in building a public health workforce over bringing in outsourced solutions, and how she and her team have kept up...

Epidemiologist Keri Althoff and mental health expert Elizabeth Stuart return to the podcast to talk us through yet another phase of the pandemic. They speak with Stephanie Desmon about where we are now and why there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic, how families can navigate mask-wearing, the CDC's new approach to monitoring risks, and why the COVID response is a dial, not an "on/off switch...

Does Russia's bombing of the Mariupol Maternity Hospital constitute a war crime? Johns Hopkins faculty member and author Len Rubenstein returns to the podcast to talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the recent attack, Russia's history of destroying hospitals, and the importance of accountability to stop such attacks in the future.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is displacing millions of people across Europe. Humanitarian expert Paul Spiegel returns to the podcast to talk with Stephanie Desmon about the crisis and its tremendous geopolitical significance, major public health concerns at play including mental health trauma, health care for refugees, and the added complication of COVID-19. They also talk about why this refuge...

Two years into the pandemic, we now have more data about how COVID affects people in the long term. Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly , Chief of Research and Education Service at Veterans Affairs in the St. Louis Health Care System talks with Stephanie Desmon about an expansive new study of 11 million people who had COVID-19. The study found that people with COVID are at higher risk for all kinds of heart issues i...

Even before COVID-19, the US was facing a shortage of nurses which has now become a full blown crisis. Nurse Alice , Chief Nursing Officer at nurse.org and host of the Ask Nurse Alice podcast talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the many factors behind the crisis, how the pandemic exacerbated an already untenable situation, and what needs to be done now to address it. Nurse Alice also shares her a...

In the very early days of the pandemic in the US, there was so much we didn't know about COVID and a lot of concern among experts about how the country could weather the health crisis. In this special episode, Lindsay Smith Rogers pulls quotes from "the file," a previously unaired podcast interview recorded with Dr. Josh Sharfstein in early March 2020, about his predictions and concerns. They disc...

Dr. Mysheika Roberts has been the health commissioner of Columbus, Ohio since 2017. In March 2020, however, the trajectory of her career changed. Dr. Roberts talks to Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the first moment when she realized what it meant to lead in a crisis. They talk about efforts in Columbus to expand testing, roll out a creative vaccine strategy, and bring together a diverse group of stakeh...

At the beginning of the pandemic, primary care clinicians had few treatments to offer patients who had COVID-19 but were not sick enough to be hospitalized. But they could provide emotional support and steer patients away from harmful treatments. Dr. Pieter Cohen , a primary care doctor at the Cambridge Health Alliance, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about all that primary care clinicians can do f...

Virologist Dr. Sabra Klein returns to the podcast to talk with Stephanie Desmon about what research has seen regarding COVID-19 outcomes for men and women. They discuss what's known now about sex (biological) and gender (social and contextual) differences in COVID-19 infection and vaccination, and why these variables are so important to consider in research and policy.

In early 2021, Virginia's governor tapped Richmond's public health director Dr. Danny Avula to be the State Vaccine Coordinator. Avula talks with Josh Sharfstein about this massive undertaking, including the biggest challenges and biggest successes along the way.

In 1899 W.E.B. Du Bois published a landmark study on tuberculosis in the Black communities of Philadelphia, titled "The Philadelphia Negro." This was the first scholarly work to demonstrate that social forces, including racism, are fundamental to health outcomes. In recognition of Black History Month, sociologist Dr. Alexandre White and health equity scholar Dr. Rachel Thornton join Dr. Josh Sharf...

When will COVID become just another respiratory illness? Another way to ask that question may be: When will the response to other respiratory illnesses more closely resemble the battle against COVID? Infectious disease physician Dr. Celine Gounder talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the logic of grouping SARS-CoV-2 with flu, RSV, and other respiratory pathogens. They discuss the value of common s...

What do we know at this point about the potential for long term effects on mental health from the pandemic? How can we approach socializing and other activities we may have gotten used to NOT doing? How do we navigate going back to an office? Kids have had so much taken away during the pandemic, will this change them forever? Clinical psychologist Dr. Laura Murray returns to the podcast to talk wi...

Although Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for kids ages 5-11 back in November, uptake has been markedly slower than other age groups. Social and behavioral scientist Dr. Rupali Limaye talks with Stephanie Desmon about why vaccination rates are lagging among kids, and a new free course that trains people to be "vaccine ambassadors" and have productive conversations to help promote vaccine a...

Since 1996, more than 1 million Americans have died of drug overdoses. Beth Macy , journalist and author of Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America—which was recently made into a miniseries of Hulu—talks with Lindsay Smith Rogers on the podcast. They discuss the overdose crisis, who's accountable, what research says about what works, and why so many see the situation...

The state of Indiana was focused on bolstering its public health system before COVID-19. The pandemic has only made this work more urgent. Dr. Judy Monroe , former state health officer of Indiana, CEO and President of the CDC Foundation, was tapped by Indiana's governor to co-chair a commission looking at the public health system and making recommendations for future policies. Dr. Monroe talks wit...

Candida auris is a species of yeast that is increasingly becoming a hospital-acquired drug-resistant infection. Dr. Tara Palmore , the hospital epidemiologist at the George Washington University Hospital talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about this emerging pathogen and the risks it poses to vulnerable patients, why COVID-19 has made matters worse, and what's needed to stop it.

Dr. Lisa Cooper , a forward-thinking national leader in health equity, returns to the podcast to talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about her new book, Why Are Health Disparities Everyone's Problem? Dr. Cooper speaks about her upbringing in Liberia, her family's move to the US, and her initial introduction to health disparities in the US. They talk about Dr. Cooper's groundbreaking work examining why a...

The Beijing Winter Olympics kicks off this week in a much different pandemic context than the Tokyo Summer Olympics six months ago. Former Olympian and public health expert Dr. Tara Kirk Sell returns to the podcast to talk with Stephanie Desmon about what we know about how omicron and China's Zero COVID policy will likely make this Olympics much more complicated, the limitations of trying to maint...

The Supreme Court recently dealt a blow to vaccine mandates for larger employers, saying OSHA had overstepped in requiring employees to be vaccinated or tested weekly in order to work. So how can the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, uphold its core responsibility to keep workers safe? David Michaels , former OSHA Assistant Secretary under Obama, talks with Stephanie Desmon a...

Public health leaders are tasked with enormous jobs which have been made even more difficult during the pandemic. Dr. Jay Varma , physician and advisor for former New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio on the pandemic response, returns to the podcast to talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about why public health officials have to be subject matter experts, politicians, lawyers, visionaries, and humble public serv...

To understand what is driving beliefs and behaviors around the world, the Johns Hopkins Center for Communications Programs created a global dashboard with data from an ongoing survey of more than 22 million people from 100 countries. Marla Shaivitz and Dominick Shattuck talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about what they've learned about global opinions on COVID-19, vaccines, trusted sources of informat...

Some COVID patients continue to suffer from symptoms long after the initial infection clears. The formal name for "long COVID" is Post-Acute Sequela of COVID, or PASC. It's a condition that benefits from a comprehensive approach. Dr. Jonathan Whiteson of NYU's Post-COVID Care Program talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how the field of physiatry is well positioned to work with PASC patients, what...