Public Health On Call

SARS-CoV-2, like other zoonotic diseases, originated in animals before "spilling over" into humans. Dr. Raina Plowright of Montana State University studies these events and the complex series of things that have to happen for them to take place. Dr. Plowright talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how these occur, why these events are relatively rare, and what's important to understand about them so...

Today's episode is a collaboration with one of Baltimore's top podcasts, No Pix After Dark, and host Aaron Dante . No Pix After Dark is a culture and community-based podcast sharing real people's stories, and has been the Baltimore Sun's Best Podcast for the last two years. For this episode, Aaron's listeners submitted questions about COVID-19 and Dr. Josh Sharfstein talks through some answers. Th...

Throughout the pandemic, public health officials have been threatened, assaulted, fired, or forced to resign. Lindsay Smith Rogers speaks with Dr. Beth Resnick, senior scientist at Johns Hopkins and the cofounder of the STOP! Partner Group, and Dr. Nilesh Kalyanaraman, Health Officer of Anne Arundel County in Maryland, about the treatment of some officials and their teams, how some states have pas...

Most adults consume 50% more than the daily recommended amount of salt which, in excess, contributes to hypertension, cardiovascular disease, cognitive decline, sexual dysfunction, pregnancy complications and more. Dr. Susan Mayne , Director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition at the FDA, talks with Stephanie Desmon about a change in guidelines for sodium intake and how even a mode...

Admiral Rachel Levine, MD, is the Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Health and Human Services—the "connective tissue" of all the divisions of HHS including the FDA and CDC—and a four-star admiral for the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. As assistant secretary, Dr. Levine focuses on coordinating the HHS response to priorities like COVID-19, health equity, mental health an...

Thanks to widespread testing, vaccinations, and adherence to masking and social distancing, Denmark was able to lift most COVID restrictions in late summer. Now, with a recent uptick in cases the country considers next steps. In a bonus episode, Dr. Gunhild Waldemar , a health care advocate for the elderly in Denmark, talks with Stephanie Desmon about the country's successes, what's behind some of...

From the first Taliban government exit in 2001 to 2015, Afghanistan went from having some of the worst indicators for health in the world to dramatic improvements in maternal mortality and childhood malnutrition. But when the Taliban stepped back into power in August of this year, thousands of health clinics were shuttered almost overnight and outcomes for women and children already look much wors...

Back in February, Jim Golen , a nurse in Minnesota, was on the podcast talking about his agonizing experiences as a COVID-19 long-hauler. Today, Stephanie Desmon checks in with Jim to see how he's doing nearly 19 months after contracting COVID in March 2020. If you or someone you know if suffering from long COVID, please consider taking a short survey as part of the Johns Hopkins COVID Long Study:...

Dr. Preeti Malani , the University of Michigan's Chief Health Officer, was a guest on the podcast back in the spring of 2020 and again in the fall of that year talking about how COVID-19 had affected Michigan's oldest university. Dr. Malani returns to talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how vaccines have made a stark difference for a return to campus this fall, what life looks like on the North Qu...

If a vaccinated person is exposed to COVID but doesn't get sick, does that affect that person's immunity? Is weekly testing for unvaccinated coworkers really sufficient to protect everyone? Are any new variants keeping you up at night? Should people switch vaccines for their booster doses? Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and Josh Sharfstein address COVID-19 questions s...

Children miss out on opportunities when they're not in school, and chronic absenteeism can actually affect their health and well-being throughout their lives. Guest host Andrea McDaniels , the Director of Communications for the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, talks with two leaders at Children's National Hospital who are part of an innovative program to share absenteeism data with pediatrici...

A few months ago, the state of Idaho declared Crisis Standards of Care when COVID cases peaked and hospitals were full. Dr. David Pate , a member of the governor's Coronavirus Working Group, talks with Stephanie Desmon about the difficult decisions health care workers have to make during Crisis Standards of Care, how this is and isn't the same as rationing care, why vaccination status shouldn't co...

After months of scrutinizing data from clinical trials, the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for children 5-11. Many parents and guardians are eager for their child to be first in line but what do those who might feel hesitant need to know? Dr. Gigi Gronvall , parent and immunologist at the Center for Health Security, returns to the podcast to talk with Stephani...

Fear of COVID exposure and overflowing hospital units are two of the known stressors contributing to burnout among nurses and doctors. But there are a slew of other factors exacerbating health care workers' distress—many of which don't just affect clinical staff. Researchers Dr. Johannes Thrul and Dr. Svea Closser talk with Stephanie Desmon about a recent report from the Center For Health Security...

Happy Halloween! Today, epidemiologist Dr. Emily Gurley talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about bats and why they are so critical for public health. They also discuss theories of why bats tend to harbor viruses capable of infecting humans, how we can coexist with bats, why some people consider bats cute, and what it's like to actually work with bats.

Where are we now on combating mis- and disinformation about COVID and vaccines that has run rampant online since the early days of the pandemic? Clint Watts and Rachel Chernaskey of Miburo, a digital consulting company that focuses on misinformation and extremism, talk with D r. Josh Sharfstein about the current ecosystem of persisting misinformation, where we are in terms of combating purveyors,...

Across the US, 84% of residents in nursing homes and long-term care facilities are vaccinated for COVID-19, but only 64% of staff. Federal mandates could help but it's unclear when or how those would be enforced and, in the meantime, the industry is already suffering from a severe staffing shortage. Dr. David Grabowski , a health policy researcher and professor at Harvard, talks with Dr. Josh Shar...

At this point in the pandemic, what do we need to know about masks? Dr. Amesh Adalja from the Center for Health Security talks with Stephanie Desmon about a new report, "Masks and Respirators for the 21st Century: Policy Changes Needed to Save Lives and Prevent Societal Disruption." They talk about which masks are best for day-to-day use and why innovation is necessary to develop masks that are co...

On a special episode, Tradeoffs host Dan Gorenstein talks about how the pandemic has affected the public health workforce: More than 300 officials quit, were fired, or retired while, at the same time, applications to public health programs jumped 40%. Gorenstein introduces a conversation between Jen Miller , who left her job with the Montana Department of Public Health after constant harassment an...

There was virtually no flu in the U.S. last year thanks to a confluence of factors including COVID-related mask wearing and social distancing. But, now that more and more of life is "back to normal," what can we expect to see this year? Virologist Dr. Andy Pekosz returns to the podcast to talk with Stephanie Desmon about why a resurgence of flu could complicate the COVID pandemic, how virologists...

School closures and unprecedented screen time may be contributing to vision problems for kids. Pediatric ophthalmologist Dr. Megan Collins talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about a rise in near-sightedness in children, why vision problems are often missed without school screenings, potential health and learning effects, and how vision problems in kids can be addressed on the individual and national l...

In this episode, Dr. Josh Sharfstein talks with researchers who break down two papers in the news. Dr. Nikolas Wada talks about a study led by researchers in Bangladesh and the U.S. which tested whether masks really help to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Dr. Kate Grabowski discusses a Lancet paper from the U.K. about "test to stay" programs in schools and whether the use of rapid tests is better t...

This week, Merck applied for FDA Emergency Use Authorization for its COVID-19 oral antiviral drug, molnupiravir. Dr. Carl Dieffenbach , director of the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, talks with Stephanie Desmon about how the drug works to help people recover from COVID-19 quicker and the drug's history starting a decade ago as an experimental treatme...

Dr. Jay Varma , physician and advisor for New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio on the pandemic response authored an Atlantic called "Not Every Question Has a Scientific Answer." In the article, Varma talks about the critical role of politicians in determining difficult COVID-19 policy questions. In this special bonus episode, Dr. Josh Sharfstein talks with Varma about the intersection of public values, po...

Monday, October 11 is Indigenous Peoples' Day in the U.S.—a day previously recognized as Columbus Day that is now reserved for reflection, education, and untangling the false narrative of discovery. Dr. Sophie Neune r of the Center for American Indian Health and co-host of a new podcast, Indigenae, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how non-Indigenous people can think about this observance and h...