News
MPH’s Clayton discusses home genetic test errors and the ethics behind it
Apr. 4, 2018—23andMe, the only direct-to-consumer genetic test authorized by the FDA to offer reports on genetic risk, claims to have more than 2 million customers. Only a fraction of these customers upload their genetic report to Promethease, whose founders said in a past interview that the site generated up to 500 reports a day. And there is...
MPH’s Heerman: Adolescents undergoing bariatric surgery still at risk
Mar. 21, 2018—Weight-loss surgery may help severely obese teens with type 2 diabetes far more than medication and lifestyle changes alone, new research suggests. A small analysis found that bariatric surgery did a "far better" job than drug and lifestyle management in achieving significant weight loss and reversing diabetes, said study lead author Dr. Thomas Inge. All...
Umeukeje explores barriers to kidney disease screening
Mar. 15, 2018—Ebele Umeukeje, M.D., M.P.H., (MPH Class of 2015) assistant professor of Medicine in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension is the first author on a study highlighting potential barriers that may prevent black Americans from being screened for kidney disease. The findings, published March 15 in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, may help...
Schaffner: Flu shot doesn’t cause influenza epidemic
Mar. 1, 2018—You can’t get the flu from a flu shot. And public health officials aren’t blaming the vaccine for causing this season’s nasty epidemic. “The vaccine itself contains only purified parts of the virus; there is no live virus in the injectable vaccine, so it is impossible for the vaccine to cause the disease,” said Vanderbilt...
NPR: Schaffner talks about why the flu season has been severe this year and Tamiflu
Feb. 27, 2018—NPR's Lulu Garcia-Navarro poses listener questions about the flu to Dr. William Schaffner, infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, and takes a closer look at Tamiflu.
Recent graduate’s global health practicum project with CDC published in NEJM
Feb. 19, 2018—2017 graduate Grace Umutesi, M.P.H., is an author on this NEJM article (N Engl J Med. 2018 Feb 14. doi: 10.1056/NEJMoa1710430), based on her practicum with the CDC's Global Immunization Division. Grace's practicum activities in Summer 2016 included: Providing on-site support for the mass vaccination campaign targeting 10 million people in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo...
Poulose collaborative provides data to improve hernia surgeries
Feb. 15, 2018—In 2013, MPH graduate Benjamin Poulose, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Vanderbilt Hernia Center and associate professor of Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, formed the Americas Hernia Society Quality Collaborative (AHSQC) to better track the outcomes of these surgeries, standardize the best practices and improve patient care. Today, the AHSQC has been approved as a Centers for...
MPH researchers find opioid use increases risk of serious infections
Feb. 15, 2018—Vanderbilt MPH Program graduates' and faculty members' research finds that opioid users have a significantly increased risk of infections severe enough to require treatment at the hospital, such as pneumonia and meningitis, as compared to people who don’t use opioids. Authors on the study, released on February 11, 2018 in the Annals of Internal Medicine include Carlos Grijalva,...
Pettit study finds AIDS-defining events increase mortality risk
Feb. 9, 2018—The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recognizes 27 ADEs, from pneumonia to tuberculosis to cervical cancer to wasting syndrome. When a death is attributed to AIDS, usually one or more recognized ADEs is involved. The availability of effective antiretroviral drug therapy has rendered HIV/AIDS a chronic disease in much of the world, no longer...
New Partnership enhances eye care for Ebola survivors in Liberia
Feb. 9, 2018—Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM), the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH) and the Vanderbilt Eye Institute (VEI) have joined forces with partners in Liberia to strengthen medical education and increase access to ophthalmology care in the aftermath of the 2014-2015 West African Ebola epidemic that killed more than 11,000 people. Program principal investigators...
Robinson and CDC colleagues release Recommended Immunization Schedule for Children and Adolescents
Feb. 7, 2018—The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) approved the Recommended Immunization Schedule for Children and Adolescents Aged 18 Years or Younger — United States, 2018. MPH Vanderbilt's alumna Candice Robinson, M.D., M.P.H., Communications and Education Branch (CEB), Immunization Services Division (ISD), National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD) is the corresponding author.
MPH’s Buntin’s Study Evaluates Community-Based Health Efforts
Feb. 5, 2018—A new study from researchers at Vanderbilt and Harvard universities, published this week in the journal Health Affairs, uses federal health survey data to evaluate community-based efforts to address smoking, obesity and other health conditions such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Examining health trends at the community level from 2007 to 2012, the researchers...
MPH’s Schaffner explains adenoviruses to CNN
Feb. 1, 2018—A runny nose, cough, sore throat, breathing problems, fever, headache, diarrhea: If you came down with these symptoms in the middle of winter, you'd probably assume it's the flu and take to your bed immediately. Think again. Another family of viruses, known as adenoviruses, often mimic the common seasonal sickness. Though they are similar, there...
NPR: MPH’s Schaffner stresses that it’s not too late for a flu shot
Jan. 24, 2018—This year's flu shot has a 30 percent effectiveness, and you’re supposed to get it in the fall, but it’s still a good idea to get it even now if you haven't yet. That’s the consensus of experts who discussed the deadly epidemic — at its highest levels in years — on the NPR show On Point Tuesday....
MPH’s Schaffner Comments on the Estimated $9 billion Flu Price Tag
Jan. 23, 2018—With a nasty flu season underway across the country, businesses can expect to see billions of dollars in lost productivity, according to global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas. "We're predicting about 11 million Americans will fall ill over the flu season and that's going to cost employers over $9 billion in wages being paid...