Public Health On Call

Families in the US are ready for rest and fun this summer after a very long year. But with unvaccinated children and changing guidance for vaccinated adults, how can families plan ahead for summer camps and travel? Guest host Dr. Colleen Barry talks with epidemiologist Dr. Keri Althoff , and Lisa David , director of an overnight camp in Pennsylvania, about COVID safety this summer and making sure...

Mass shootings are very rare, but they receive a lot of media attention and have enormous social costs. Guest host Dr. Daniel Webster , director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy, talks with Dr. Jillian Peterson from Hamline University and Dr. James Densley from Metropolitan State University about The Violence Project, research that collects data about the life his...

The Affordable Care Act was meant to bring the US into alignment with every other developed country in offering universal health coverage. Author Jonathan Cohn joins Dr. Josh Sharfstein to talk about how a health care law that has been debated since the 1930s finally gained traction under Obama and insured millions of people with serious health conditions, and yet leaves so much undone. The Afford...

Nepal is suffering from a growing humanitarian crisis. Less than 4% of the country is vaccinated, test positivity rates are up to 60-90% in some areas, and outside of capital Kathmandu, ICU care is extremely hard to find. Binita Adhikari , executive director of Health Foundation Nepal, and Anup Subedee , an infectious disease physician in Kathmandu, talk with Josh Sharfstein about what contributed...

Mental health impacts from climate change are largely thought of as acute exposures to extreme events like hurricanes and wildfires. But there are other concerns like chronic "ecological grief" and anticipated "eco-anxiety." Dr. Jura Augustinavicius from the Center for Humanitarian Health talks with Stephanie Desmon about research at the intersection of mental and environmental health, and why som...

For some, the pandemic has been a "perfect storm" in terms of unhealthy eating resulting in the "quaran-ten" or the COVID "19 pounds." Dr. Elena Jansen and Dr. Susan Carnell , two Johns Hopkins obesity researchers, talk with Stephanie Desmon about how COVID-related stress—combined with being at home more—has impacted our bodies and health behaviors during the pandemic. They also talk about how the...

Stopping gun violence requires more than thinking about policies and programs that focus on guns alone. Dr. Shani Buggs , a professor with the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how community-based violence prevention programs identify those most at risk of being involved in violence and connect them to services that can help them solve problems...

Vaccinations are seen as the primary tool to prevent COVID-19 infections, but are there other things we should be doing to bring down transmission rates? Dr. Caitlin Rivers and Dr. Crystal Watson from the Center for Health Security return to the podcast to talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about where we are, what still needs to be done, and when they'll know that the pandemic is truly in the rearview...

We last heard from Matt Hornbeck —longtime principal of Hampstead Hill Academy, a K-8 school in Baltimore city—in the fall for an update on how the school community was faring with online learning. Hornbeck returns to the podcast to talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the school's recent reopening to more than 500 students for in-person instruction. Does it feel the same?

India is in the throes of the world's worst COVID-19 infection with overwhelmed health systems and a shortage of oxygen, hospital beds, testing, and medications. Dr. Amita Gupta , chair of the Johns Hopkins India Institute, Dr. Randeep Guleria , Director of All India Institute of Medical Service in New Delhi, and Dr. Gagandeep Kang, professor of microbiology at Christian Medical College in India,...

At the onset of the pandemic, the world's family planning community worried about the impact COVID-19 would have on access to contraception and unintended pregnancies in lower- and middle-income countries. Dr. Phil Anglewicz and Dr. Caroline Moreau of Performance Monitoring for Action talk with Stephanie Desmon about what some initial research says about impacts on contraceptive use and access, wh...

India produces much of the world's vaccines in normal times, and even produced enough COVID-19 vaccines that it was donating doses to poorer countries earlier this year. So how did a vaccine powerhouse with an existing distribution infrastructure end up with one of the world's worst COVID crises? Dr. Anita Shet of the Johns Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center talks with Stephanie Desmon ab...

Ghost guns are firearms that can be made at home from kits or 3D printed parts. They're unregulated and untraceable, meaning no background check is required to purchase them. Dr. Alex McCourt , a public health lawyer with the Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy, talks with Stephanie Desmon about why these guns are so dangerous, what we know and don't know about their use in viole...

Canada is experiencing a serious wave of COVID infections with the majority from variants of concern like B.1.1.7. British Columbia currently has one of the highest rates of P.1 outside of Brazil itself where the variant was first discovered. Dr. Brian Goldman , the host of two CBC podcasts and a clinician at Sinai Health System in Toronto, returns to the podcast to talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein a...

India is in the throes of the world's worst COVID-19 infection with overwhelmed health systems, and a shortage of oxygen, hospital beds, testing, and medications. Dr. Amita Gupta, chair of the Johns Hopkins India Institute, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how this "unprecedented public health disaster" snuck up on the country after they successfully controlled the first wave back in the fall....

The recent mass shooting in Indianapolis sparked a national conversation about "red flag" laws, or Extreme Risk Protection Orders. Dr. Josh Sharfstein talks with Dr. Shannon Frattaroli of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy, and Josh Horwitz of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence about ERPOs and what went wrong in Indiana, and what needs to be done to implement laws effe...

Lancaster County is home to one of the largest Amish and Mennonite, or "Plain", communities in the US. In the last year, it's estimated that 90% of families had a case of COVID-19 in their household, but experts don't know for sure how widespread infections were because of a lack of testing data. Reporter Nicole Brambila talks with Stephanie Desmon about the challenges of getting Plain families to...

Early in the vaccine rollouts, 14 clinics in the San Francisco Health Network texted their most vulnerable patients a webform to sign up for COVID-19 vaccine appointments. Dr. Anna Robert , director of primary care, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how the webform went viral with people from all over the Bay area taking appointments meant for specific individuals, how the clinics addressed the...

In this episode, Dr. Josh Sharfstein talks with Hopkins researchers who break down three papers looking at reinfection. Dr. Sheree Schwartz , an epidemiologist, talks about a CDC paper on reinfections in a single Kentucky nursing home. Henri Garrison-Desany , a doctoral student in epidemiology, talks about two papers: a Lancet paper from Denmark and one in the Journal of Infection from Brazil. The...

COVID is creating massive environmental issues such as the 1.56 billion face masks that entered the oceans in 2020 alone. Teale Phelps Bondaroff , the Director of Research for Oceans Asia, talks with Stephanie Desmon about how improperly discarded PPE to a massive rise in the production of single-use plastics are setting the world significantly back in controlling its problem with microplastics an...

61 million Americans have a disability yet most haven't been prioritized for COVID-19 vaccines. And while eligibility has opened up across the nation, there remain significant barriers for people with disabilities to get appointments. Maria Town , President and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities talks with Stephanie Desmon about how COVID has exacerbated longstanding gaps...

Across the country, COVID case rates are going up and public health officials are racing to get vaccines in arms. Dr. Letitia Dzirasa , Baltimore City's Health Commissioner, talks with Stephanie Desmon about the unique ways the city is trying to reach those at highest risk including mobile vaccination teams. They also talk about this critical point in the pandemic, how vaccine questions are not li...

The race between vaccines and variants has to be won globally, but at the current rate, much of the world won't reach herd immunity until 2023. Congressman Jake Auchincloss from Massachusetts talks with Stephanie Desmon about the immediate need to address manufacturing bandwidth and the opportunity for the US to lead production. They also discuss the US's obligation to maintain a healthy and thriv...

This week, the FDA paused the use of Johnson & Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine because of reports of six women under 50 who developed a rare form of blood clots called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. Today, Stephanie Desmon talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about what this means for vaccine rollouts, vaccine hesitancy, and what might happen next. This bonus episode has been lifted from yesterday's Faceb...

There are psychological and cognitive obstacles to compassion, especially against an invisible virus. Dr. Paul Slovic , a psychology professor at the University of Oregon, and his son Dr. Scott Slovic , a literature professor at the University of Idaho talk with guest host Dr. Colleen Barry about the psychic numbing that occurs when considering large-scale crisis like genocide, climate change, and...