Public Health On Call

Patients who have spent time in the ICU because of COVID-19 face a long recovery. Comprehensive rehabilitation that starts early and continues after release can make all the difference in getting patients back to day-to-day activities. Johns Hopkins physiatrist Dr. April Pruski talks with Stephanie Desmon about the team of physical, occupational, and speech therapists, psychologists and more perfo...

What are the mental health challenges for people living in areas where cases are spiking? How can parents help younger children who are missing school and camps or college-aged children who aren't sure when they can return to campus life? How can people deal with work-from-home stress while feeling grateful about having a job? Dr. Laura Murray talks with Stephanie Desmon to answer your COVID-19 me...

Communities of faith can be integral in supporting the health of individuals, especially when partnered with health care organizations. Guest host Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos talks with Dr. Daniel Hale , director of Johns Hopkins's Health Community Partnerships, and Imam Hassan Amin , the founder and director of the Muslim Social Service Agency in Baltimore, about how health organizations can partner...

Most higher-ed institutions closed and shifted to online instruction last spring but many are now considering how to safely bring students back to campuses this fall. Reopening schools will never be 100% risk-free, but there are steps that colleges and universities can take to ensure the safest possible experience. Lucia Mullen and Dr. Crystal Watson of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security...

Brown University economist and bestselling author Dr. Emily Oster is probably best known for her writing about parenting and childbirth. Now, she's taken her data-centric approach to demystify the COVID-19 pandemic on a new website, explaincovid.org. Oster talks with Stephanie Desmon about the most frequently asked questions, what the data says about childcare facilities that have remained open, h...

From January to May, Cambodia had only 125 coronavirus cases—70% of which were from people traveling from outside of the country, and the rest of which could be linked to those cases. Even as sporadic cases continue to be detected in travelers returning at the border, Cambodia's implementation of WHO guidelines—test, isolate, trace, quarantine, and care —has kept numbers low. Dr. Kumanan Rasanatha...

Early in the pandemic, the National Institutes of Health launched a response against the new virus that has expanded to include basic and clinical research, and research into vaccines and treatments. Dr. Emily Erbelding , director of the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about NIH's role in supporting the scientific community, what treatments are curr...

Louisiana was hit early and hard by COVID-19 but, over the past three months, the statewide response has strengthened. Now, Louisiana health officials are using the lessons they learned from the outbreak's early days to ensure that they are prepared to weather the surge in cases throughout the American South. Dr. Alexander Billioux , assistant secretary of health for the Louisiana Department of He...

Vaccine challenge trials, in which healthy volunteers are infected with a pathogen to determine whether a vaccine works, can be done faster and with fewer participants than traditional efficacy studies. But there are downsides: challenge trials require young, healthy participants which may not help produce a vaccine that would protect older populations at risk for severe COVID-19 disease. There ar...

COVID-19 is causing disruptions in health services around the world and new data shows that 18 million children across 68 countries are at risk of not getting vaccinated. Dr. Chizoba Wonodi , the Nigeria Country Director for the International Vaccine Access Center , and Dr. Anita Shet , a pediatric disease specialist, talk with guest host Dr. Sara Bennett about the impact of disrupted vaccines and...

Why has the US had a harder time with the virus than Europe? Why does contact tracing seem to be working in some places but not others? Does it make sense to wear face coverings outside? Can COVID-19 be killed in the freezer? Can I get COVID-19 from a pool? What about in an elevator? Dr. Tom Inglesby of the Center for Health Security and Dr. Josh Sharfstein address your questions submitted to publ...

COVID-19 has seen unprecedented harassment of state and local health officials. In a bonus episode, Dr. Georges Benjamin , executive director of the American Public Health Association, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the threats facing public health officials in the pandemic.

Public health's focus on the root causes of disease and injury mean the intersecting crises of COVID-19 and racism provide a critical opportunity for the field. Dr. Georges Benjamin , the executive director of the American Public Health Association, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the sector's reckoning with reality around naming, defining, and addressing racism as a critical public health pr...

With vacations and camps upended, families with young children are struggling with making summer plans—especially when there's often confusing or conflicting guidance. Biostatistician Dr. Elizabeth Stuart and epidemiologist Dr. Keri Althoff return to the podcast to talk with guest host Dr. Colleen Barry about their decision-making framework for assessing risk to address questions like childcare, v...

Several Latin American countries are seeing a wave of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Dr. Carlos Castillo-Salgado , who has trained hundreds of epidemiologists in Latin America, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about what's going wrong, what's going right, and what needs to change fast on the continent to save lives.

The rapid pace of reopening the US without the public health capacity to contain the virus has Dr. Leana Wen worried. Wen talks with Stephanie Desmon about the current state of the pandemic, what we did and didn't learn from the surge in New York, what individuals can do to reduce their risks, and what policy makers should be doing to prevent another 100,000 deaths and countless suffering.

A year ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a landmark statement about the impact of racism on child and adolescent health. Dr. Maria Trent , the lead author of this statement, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the many ways that racism undermines health over a lifetime. Trent also discusses how to give pediatricians, teachers, parents, and caregivers the language and tools they nee...

En nuestra segunda entrevista con miembros de Centro SO L, Mónica Guerrero Vázquez , directora ejecutiva y una graduada de la escuela de salud pública de Johns Hopkins y Dra. Kathleen Page directora y médico infectóloga del hospital de Johns Hopkins, hablan sobre el virus que sigue afectando al mundo, incluyendo las noticias más recientes y lo que podemos hacer ahora para protegernos.

Retractions of scientific papers happen for a number of reasons. The desperation driving COVID-19 research has brought this "nuclear option" of scientific correction to a much more public sphere. Dr. Ivan Oransky , who co-runs Retraction Watch , talks with Stephanie Desmon about what retractions typically mean—and don't mean—and how COVID-19 may incite an "existential crisis" in the scientific res...

Can smartphones assist contact tracing, a public health tool critical to getting the pandemic under control? What's known as "digital contact tracing" has been utilized in other countries, but there are privacy, policy, and equity issues to be worked out before a US launch. Bioethicist Dr. Jeffrey Kahn talks with Stephanie Desmon about the potential and pitfalls of this technology.

Early in the US outbreak of COVID-19, New Orleans was struck hard. At one point, the city of about 400,000 people was seeing up to 450 cases diagnosed per day. Today, it has reduced cases 95% from that peak. Dr. Jennifer Avegno, director of the Health Department in New Orleans, said this is due in no small part to New Orleans's history of disaster and the infrastructure and partnerships that were...

The protests following the homicide of George Floyd reflect serious questions about the legitimacy of the police. Law professor and philosopher Ekow Yankah talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the nature of legitimacy and the longstanding double standard that has led the nation to a moment of reckoning on race. He explains, "We can no longer have an America where white problems are social problems...

A special episode today as Dr. Josh Sharfstein discusses Albert Camus's The Plague with Dr. Mark Christian Thompson , chair of the English department at Johns Hopkins. The Plague, which was written in 1947, is immediately relevant to our experiences with COVID-19 and so much more. Thompson and Sharfstein discuss the book's relevance to current events including racial and social inequality. (Don't...

The science behind loneliness shows that it's common and has significant impacts on physical, mental, and emotional health. The unusual and socially isolating circumstances of COVID-19 are exacerbating this issue and could lead to a "social recession." Former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy talks with guest host Colleen Barry about how COVID-19 is affecting our social health, how to protect ourse...

Leaders of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research Dr. Daniel Webster and Dr. Cass Crifasi have studied the relationships between communities and police forces for years. The researchers, with colleagues, recently released a new report looking at enforcement of gun laws in Baltimore. In the wake of the homicide of George Floyd and drawing on this report, Webster and Crifasi talk with...