Feature Channels: Public Health

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New research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that a prolonged illness associated with Lyme disease is more widespread and serious in some patients than previously understood.

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Columbia Engineering Professor Samuel Sia has developed a low-cost smartphone accessory that can perform a point-of-care test that simultaneously detects three infectious disease markers—HIV and syphilis—from a finger prick of blood in just 15 minutes. The device replicates, for the first time, all mechanical, optical, and electronic functions of a lab-based blood test without requiring any stored energy: all necessary power is drawn from the smartphone. February 4, Science Translational Medicine.

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In a study with mice, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers have found that e-cigarettes compromise the immune system in the lungs and generate some of the same potentially dangerous chemicals found in traditional nicotine cigarettes.

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One of the global regions highly affected by hepatitis C is West Africa. In developed countries, hepatitis C, a blood-borne disease, is transmitted through intravenous (IV) drug use. “In West Africa, we believe that there are many transmission modes and they are not through IV drug use, but through cultural and every day practices,” says Jennifer Layden, MD, PhD principal investigator on a study recently published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

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Children under age 5 living in sub-Saharan Africa were 54 percent less likely to develop malaria if they had been given a single large dose of vitamin A, new research led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests.

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As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is preparing to issue a final ruling on whether it will extend its tobacco regulatory authority to electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), researchers from Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and Rutgers School of Public Health have identified strong support for a number of e-cigarette policies among smokers. Findings included strong support for advertising restrictions and placing warning labels for potential risks on the devices.

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Measles are becoming more commonplace, due to lack of vaccination, says Jorge Parada, MD, medical director of infectious disease at Loyola University Health System.

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Penn State College of Medicine researchers contend that professional medical societies must update or amend their Internet guidelines to address when it is ethical to "Google" a patient.

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To observe Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) Awareness Month, experts at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai (NYEE) and the Mount Sinai Health System are offering prevention tips and raising awareness of options for early detection and effective treatment.

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Imagine a smartphone that not only finds the nearest five-star restaurant or hails a cab with a quick click, but also diagnoses illness. New technology from Israel's Technion would enable smartphones to screen their users' breath for life-threatening diseases.

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As flu season continues, Virginia Tech professor Linsey Marr is studying how the disease is transmitted through the air, in hopes that her results will lead to new strategies to fight the flu.

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Having a team in the Super Bowl correlated to an average 18 percent increase in flu deaths among those over 65 years old, according to a study of health data covering 35 years of championship games.

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An amicus brief by 19 deans and over 80 faculty members from schools of public health and public health programs across the nation was filed yesterday in support of the administration's position on King v. Burwell.

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UC San Diego researchers say they can predict the spread of flu a week into the future with as much accuracy as Google Flu Trends can display levels of infection right now.

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Full implementation of new hypertension guidelines could prevent 56,000 cardiovascular disease events (mostly heart attacks and strokes) and 13,000 deaths each year, without increasing overall health care costs, an analysis conducted by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center found. The paper was published today in the online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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People’s perceptions of the cost of a drug may affect how much they benefit from the drug, even when they are receiving only a placebo, according to a new study of people with Parkinson’s disease published in the January 28, 2015 online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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Women whose bodies have high levels of chemicals found in plastics, personal-care products, common household items and the environment experience menopause two to four years earlier than women with lower levels of these chemicals, according to a new study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The findings are reported online Jan. 28 in the journal PLOS ONE.

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The recent measles outbreak linked to Disney amusement parks in southern California should not be a concern for anyone who has had measles in the past or who has received two doses of the measles vaccine.

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Psychopathic violent offenders have abnormalities in the parts of the brain related to learning from punishment, according to an MRI study led by Sheilagh Hodgins and Nigel Blackwood.

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UAB’s David Kimberlin, M.D., who also is president of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, urges parents to speak with their child’s doctor about immunizations.

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Most young adults might assume they have years before needing to worry about their cholesterol. But new findings from researchers at the Duke Clinical Research Institute suggest that even slightly high cholesterol levels in otherwise healthy adults between the ages of 35 and 55 can have long-term impacts on their heart health, with every decade of high cholesterol increasing their chances of heart disease by 39 percent.

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A new study shows that more than half the people in some developing countries could become newly at risk for malnutrition if crop-pollinating animals — like bees — continue to decline.

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Analyzing every marijuana-related Twitter message sent during a one-month period in early 2014, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine have found that the “Twitterverse” is a pot-friendly place. In that time, more than 7 million tweets referenced marijuana, with 15 times as many pro-pot tweets sent as anti-pot tweets.

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About 22 percent of children in the United States live below the federal poverty line and 45 percent come from low-income families, increasing their risk for myriad health problems.

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Researchers have proposed a system for off-label drug prescriptions combining reporting, testing and enforcement regulations, and allowing interim periods of off-label use. This would give patients more treatment options while providing regulators with evidence of the drugs’ safety and efficacy.

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Classic psychedelic drugs include LSD, psilocybin and mescaline. This new School of Public Health research is published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

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Researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center have found an apparent link between human population density and vegetation cover in Africa and the spread of the Ebola virus from animal hosts to humans.

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In this month’s release, find new embargoed research about cyberbullying among middle school students; negative life events and adolescent initiation of sexual intercourse; and the effects of restaurant menu-label regulation.

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According to recent research from the Arnold School of Health at the University of South Carolina, use of social media sites like Facebook can be associated with a significant drop in pounds, especially during the critical maintenance period of a weight loss journey.

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Challenging the long-standing belief that city dwellers suffer disproportionately from asthma, the results of a new Johns Hopkins Children’s Center study of more than 23,000 U.S. children reveal that income, race and ethnic origin may play far more potent roles in asthma risk than kids’ physical surroundings.

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Combining insecticide-treated bed nets with vaccines and other control measures may provide the best chance at eliminating malaria, which killed nearly 600,000 people worldwide in 2013, most of them African children.

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A key to victory in battle, according to Chinese general and military strategist Sun Tzu, is to know your enemy. In the current fight against whooping cough resurgence, perhaps the biggest obstacle is an incomplete understanding of its underlying causes, according to a University of Michigan population ecologist.

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An international team of researchers says climate change, the loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, and altered biogeochemical cycles like phosphorus and nitrogen runoff have all passed beyond levels that put humanity in a “safe operating space.” Civilization has crossed four of nine so-called planetary boundaries as the result of human activity, according to a report published today in Science by the 18-member research team.

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A team of researchers at Georgia State's Institute for Biomedical Sciences has found a novel method to prevent and cure rotavirus, which kills about 500,000 children each year.

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A Georgia State University School of Public Health researcher's web-based training program has been proven to not only reduce the likelihood of college-age men becoming involved in sexual assaults, but also to intervene to stop an assault from happening.

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Antibiotics aren’t supposed to be effective against viruses. But new evidence in mice suggests antibiotics may help fight norovirus, a highly contagious gastrointestinal virus, report scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

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Tips on handling icicles safely by Loyola ED. The arctic freeze followed by a warm-up have led to the accumulation of ice and snow on roofs, electrical wires and buildings. While it may be tempting to knock off the icicles, be very careful says a Loyola University Health System emergency medicine physician.

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For Jewish Americans, going to synagogue makes a difference for health, according to a study of five large Jewish urban communities by Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion (ISR).

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Michael McCawley, Ph.D., interim chair of the West Virginia University School of Public Health Department of Occupational and Environmental Health Sciences, plans to provide research data in real time from a dedicated scientific observation well being drilled in Morgantown.

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Researchers at the University of Michigan have identified how a promising drug in clinical trials for the treatment of obesity and related metabolic disorders improves the metabolism of sugar by generating a new signal between fat cells and the liver.

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A significant portion of state and federal prisoners are not receiving treatment for mental health conditions, according to research by The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health.

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A first-of-its-kind randomized clinical trial from researchers at Penn Medicine and collaborators have shown that the most-suited treatment for each smoker may depend on how quickly they metabolize the nicotine in their body after quitting.

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HPV testing alone is an effective alternative to current cervical cancer screening methods that use a Pap smear, or Pap smear-plus HPV test.

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he Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reports that flu activity is “high” or “widespread” in 43 states and call it an epidemic this season. Most of the cases are caused by the H3N2 strain. “Nearly one-third of circulating H3N2 virus match the strain found in the current vaccine, meaning the vaccine is doing its job,” says Parada. “One hundred percent of the H1N1 circulating strain matches that in the current vaccine, earning a touchdown or a bull’s eye for those keeping score.” However, to date, only a small portion of the flu cases reported to date have been identified as H1N1.