Brown SPH in the news

Experts describe ways to turn down the volume, from earbuds to smartphone apps that detect harmful noise levels

American life expectancy started dropping even before the pandemic. It’s a critical barometer of our nation’s health and a sign that all is not well in the U.S.

Anaridis Rodriguez is joined by Pandemic Preparedness expert, Jennifer Nuzzo, from Brown University, to dig deeper into how we can best prepare ourselves for another pandemic.

Panel hosted by Information Futures Lab featured various media, communication experts

Here’s just the tip of the iceberg: $722.50 for a nurse to push a drug into an IV. $21,500 for ten stitches. The prices charged by hospitals are exorbitant and rising. Private health insurance premiums paid by working age adults are rising rapidly. Many Americans skip necessary medical care, while those who do get treated can end up bankrupt. With U.S. health care spending reaching $4.5 trillion in 2022, finding ways to cut costs has become increasingly urgent.

Homicides were down sharply in Boston during the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period in recent years, records show. The city saw just two confirmed homicides in the first quarter of the year, compared to 11 during the first quarter of 2023, according to Boston police statistics. There were five homicides in Boston in the first quarter of 2022, nine during the same period in 2021, and 10 in the first quarter of 2020.

A Texas dairy worker has tested positive for the avian flu, marking the first identified human case of an illness in the U.S. that has sickened cattle across several states over the past few weeks.

In four years of the Covid pandemic, we have seen lots and lots of guidance change over time. Most recently, the CDC has relaxed its recommendations about isolating after testing positive for Covid.

Americans who test positive for COVID-19 no longer need to stay in isolation for five days, U.S. health officials announced Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its longstanding guidance, saying that people can return to work or regular activities if their symptoms are mild and improving and it’s been a day since they’ve had a fever.

In mid-February, a measles outbreak started at the Manatee Bay Elementary School in Broward County in South Florida. There are now at least nine cases in the county and one additional one in Polk County in Central Florida.

New research points to October as the sweet spot, at least for kids. But it’s not too late to get one, even now.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may soon drop its isolation guidance for people with COVID-19. The planned change was reported in The Washington Post on Tuesday, attributed to several unnamed CDC officials.

Following a transformational tenure, Academic Director Dr. Anthony Napoli passes the torch to Dr. Scott Rivkees, ensuring a seamless transition for the program’s continued success.

Accomplished physician, scholar and public health expert Ateev Mehrotra M.D., MPH, will join Brown's School of Public Health on July 1, 2024.

The facility, also known as a safe injection center, will be the first in Rhode Island and the only one in the U.S. outside New York City to operate openly.

Every health care model involves people doing their best to balance competing priorities in the face of limited resources. In other words, every system involves tradeoffs.

Birth By Us, a maternal health app co-founded by Ijeoma Uche ’21, is one of three winners of the 2024 Westly Prize for Young Social Innovators, the Westly Foundation announced Jan. 23 on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Strokes are the leading cause of death and a major contributor to disability in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A new study published Wednesday in the journal “Neurology” found Black people in the United States experience strokes more frequently and at younger ages compared to White people.

The number of private equity firms has exploded in health care in recent years, spending hundreds of billions of dollars to buy physician practices, hospitals, laboratories and nursing homes. It’s a trend that should have everyone’s attention, from politicians to patients, because it can significantly increase costs, reduce access and even threaten patient safety.

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans has grown substantially in the past few decades, enticing more than half of eligible people, primarily those 65 or older, with low premium costs and perks like dental and vision insurance. And as the private plans' share of the Medicare patient pie has ballooned to 30.8 million people, so too have concerns about the insurers' aggressive sales tactics and misleading coverage claims.

Who owns your doctor’s office? More and more often nowadays, the answer is a private equity firm — a type of investment fund that buys, restructures, and resells companies.

With the expanded scope of biosecurity involving human, animal, and plant-based pathogens, there is a need for increased collaboration across sectors — human health, veterinary and agricultural authorities must work together to address potential biosecurity threats comprehensively.

With Intus Care, Robbie Felton, Evan Jackson and Alex Rothberg are building healthcare analytics software to help identify risks and optimize healthcare for low-income seniors. Health insurers use the Intus Care platform to help 1,500 providers treat 15,000 patients representing $1.5 billion in value-based care payments. The company expects more than $2.1 million in revenue in 2023.

Life expectancy in the United States rose in 2022, the first increase since the COVID pandemic began, according to new federal data. But those gains were not enough to compensate for the years of life lost to the virus, which remains one of the nation’s top causes of death.

An ongoing project will help the School of Public Health generate recommendations for how to handle another event like COVID-19.

A study co-led by a Brown University researcher indicates that overdose prevention centers, like the one poised to open in Providence next year, do not lead to increased neighborhood crime rates.

A pair of preliminary studies presented at an American Heart Association conference over the weekend sparked intrigue for Rhode Island health professionals and academics.

The CDC says we should isolate for five days after testing positive. Other public health officials disagree. Who is right?

Mindfulness coupled with information on how food and exercise can impact blood pressure may be a winning combination that could improve heart health, according to a new study published today in JAMA Network Open.

Many Americans have lost confidence in the importance of public health recommendations like vaccines. Here’s why—and why they still matter.

PFAS can be found in just about everything, but there are a few things you can do to reduce your exposure.

Health care policymakers and industry leaders must reckon with the difficulties facing workers if we want to avert strikes.

Data shows harm reduction works. Here's how to read it properly.

Over the coming months, more than 100,000 Americans will likely die, mostly unnecessarily, from respiratory infections. Yes, that is the reality we are now facing this fall and winter—and likely every fall and winter for the foreseeable future. Unless we act.

WBUR reached out to Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, to understand the coming virus season, and how vaccines could help to reduce the risk of illness.

COVID cases are on the rise and this week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that anyone who is six months or older get the new COVID-19 vaccines. Health reporter Lynn Arditi talked about the new vaccines with Doctor Ashish Jha, former White House COVID advisor and current dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health.

By passing Measure 110, Oregonians sought to begin undoing the harms caused by over 50 years of a failed War on Drugs. Those harms won’t be fixed overnight.

Here are some of the noisiest parts of Providence, based on 5,000 noise complaints called to police.

If you’re 60 or over, “you don’t want to get into November without having an R.S.V. vaccine,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, the former White House Covid adviser and current dean of Brown University’s public health school.

Americans’ use of mental health services pivoted to remote visits and increased considerably, a new study found. Economists think both changes are here to stay.

Noise pollution is a physical and mental stressor with real health impacts, Professor Erica Walker tells NPR. "It's going to the emergency room for a panic attack, it's 'I can't sleep,' 'I can't hear my children.' It's all of those things," she says.

In the Boston Globe, Professors Andy Ryan and David Meyers lay out why Medicare Advantage plans are costing taxpayers billions in excess spending—and how to fix it.

Given the late summer wave of COVID infections, you might have questions about how best to protect yourself and others. In The Boston Globe, Professor Jennifer Nuzzo tackles one of the most pressing issues: When should you get your next shot?

With an updated vaccine, readily available testing, and successful treatments, Dean Ashish Jha writes that COVID-19 isn't the disruptive force that it once was: "The virus no longer needs to reorder our lives and our priorities."

"While there are areas within medicine ripe for the assistance of AI, any assertion that it will replace health care providers or make our roles less important is pure hyperbole," writes Dr. Craig Spencer for STAT.

The theory behind C.B.T. rests on an unlikely idea—that we can be rational after all.

Professor Craig Spencer writes that Americans have been too quick to condemn the field of public health, overlooking its massive achievements in the 1900s and also during the recent pandemic.

Nearly a decade into going mainstream, a grass-roots movement’s message has gotten lost in a marketing frenzy and a rush for drugs to lose weight.

For more than 14 million people in the US, cannabis use disorder is a major life disruption. Professor Jane Metrik says a new drug to help reduce use shows promise.

Professor of epidemiology Erica Walker weighed in for this comprehensive article for the New York Times.