News
Underrepresented low income populations at higher risk for severe RSV, says Schaffner
May. 31, 2024—Older adults from underrepresented populations and those with lower incomes were more likely to have risk factors for severe respiratory syncytial virus disease, a study showed. The findings suggest that targeting respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination in at-risk populations could help address health disparities, according to researchers. In June 2023, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on...
Alex Diamond to chair national high school sports medicine advisory committee
May. 30, 2024—Alex Diamond, DO, MPH, professor of Orthopaedic Surgery, Pediatrics and Neurological Surgery at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, was recently named the chair of the National Federation of State High School (NFHS) Associations Sports Medicine Advisory Committee. His duties will begin immediately as he replaces the former chair, Greg Elkins, MD, who died in...
Aliyu and VIGH awarded $1.2M training grant to develop an ethics-based genetic and genomic research program in Nigeria
May. 29, 2024—The long-standing partnership between Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH) and collaborators Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) and Bayero University (BUK) is poised to address the growing demand for research in precision medicine in Africa. This collaborative effort has been recognized with a five-year, $1.2 million training grant from the Fogarty International Center for an innovative research...
Zheng leads study on breast cancer risk variants for women of African ancestry
May. 28, 2024—A study led by researchers from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center sheds light on some of the genetic variants that make breast cancer more deadly for women of African ancestry and significantly reduces the disparity in knowledge for assessing their genomic risk factors. The study, which was published May 13 in Nature Genetics, is the largest genome-wide association study ever...
New tool could pinpoint infants at highest risk for RSV, says Hartert
May. 21, 2024—A new tool could help pediatricians identify infants most at risk for severe respiratory syncytial virus, according to research published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases. “We know that 50% of infant hospitalizations for RSV are among term healthy infants who are not considered high risk for RSV and have not qualified for RSV immunoprophylaxis in the...
Unintentional shootings involving children continues to be a public health crisis, says Gastineau
May. 17, 2024—Metro police have confirmed 25-year-old Elonshe Williams was shot and killed Sunday in a North Nashville apartment, possibly by a child. Police are looking into whether a 3-year-old may have fired a weapon belonging to Williams. The incident follows a separate shooting in Cheatham County that happened Monday, April 29 where investigators said a 3-year-old was shot in...
Spalluto and Lewis investigate military exposures on veterans’ lung cancer risk
May. 16, 2024—Recruitment has begun for a national, multisite Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) study that seeks to expand lung cancer screening eligibility, reduce the time to lung cancer diagnosis, and increase veteran engagement. Jennifer A. Lewis, MD, MS, MPH, assistant professor of Medicine, is the principal investigator of the MAS-EXPAND study that is being conducted at...
Poverty tops smoking as a major death risk, says Zheng
May. 14, 2024—During the past 40 years, the gap between rich and poor Americans has continued to widen in terms of health and mortality, as well as income. Now, in a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center found that Black and white people who earned less than $15,000 a year died, on average, more than...
Dusetzina weighs in on Senate investigations for pricing of popular diabetes and weight loss medications
May. 13, 2024—A Senate committee is investigating the prices that Novo Nordisk charges for its blockbuster medications, Ozempic and Wegovy, which are highly effective at treating diabetes and obesity but carry steep price tags. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said in an interview that the...
Prescribing fewer antibiotics can help curtail negative affects of antimicrobial resistance, expected to lower global life expectancy by an average 1.8 years by 2035, says Schaffner
May. 10, 2024—As one public health threat takes a bow, another takes center stage. Less than a year after the end of the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency, a group of international political, public health, and biomedical leaders warns of another menace to human life that could also trigger economic loss. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR)—which occurs when certain germs...
Bird flu has reached the commercial milk supply, says Margaret-Fill
May. 8, 2024—Dairy cows in the U.S. are coming down with bird flu. Federal officials started investigating last month, and they found infected cows in more than 30 herds across eight states. And this week the FDA said that fragments of the virus are showing up in the milk supply. NPR’s Pien Huang and Tennesee Department of...
Creech supports increased investigations into Covid-19 vaccine-injury compensation claims
May. 7, 2024—Within minutes of getting the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, Michelle Zimmerman felt pain racing from her left arm up to her ear and down to her fingertips. Within days, she was unbearably sensitive to light and struggled to remember simple facts. She was 37, with a Ph.D. in neuroscience, and until then could ride...
CDC investigating reported cases of illnesses in Tennessee attributable to counterfeit cosmetic botox injections, says Schaffner
May. 6, 2024—Cosmetic procedures are all the rage nowadays, but some counterfeit products have recently sent people in Tennessee to the hospital. The reason: Botulism. Now the state department of health and other agencies are investigating. The cost of beauty can come at a high price and that doesn’t necessarily include your wallet; it could mean your...
Cunningham-Erves explores use of culturally targeted health educational programs to promote participation in cancer clinical trials among underrepresented populations
May. 3, 2024—Health disparities in cancer still exist for African American and Latino communities, a problem that Jennifer Cunningham-Erves, Ph.D., has devoted much of her career to addressing. With approximately 4 percent of minorities participating in clinical trials, removing barriers to trial participation is both a key scientific and ethical imperative, said Cunningham-Erves, Associate Professor of Health Policy at Vanderbilt...
Mathew and colleagues develop global ranking system to encourage poverty reduction
May. 1, 2024—Nearly half of the world’s population, including one billion children, lives in poverty (defined as income of less than $2 U.S. per day). With an eye toward better understanding how the private sector can help reduce poverty, four students at Vanderbilt University Peabody College of education and human development collaborated with the Center on Business and Poverty,...