Humans in Public Health Podcast

As they prepare to trade the classroom for public health practice, two soon-to-be graduates of Brown’s intensive 5-year undergraduate/MPH program reflect on their shared journey, the experiences that have shaped their commitment to public health and their reasons for optimism in uncertain times.

Meat is on the top, grains are at the bottom, scientists are concerned. Nutrition expert Professor Jennifer Sacheck helps to deconstruct the controversial new food pyramid and what it means for your health. She breaks down the new dietary guidelines, how much protein Americans actually need and how the beef lobby may be influencing everything from SNAP benefits to cafeteria trays.

When you check the weather on your phone, you’re getting a “best guess” based on the nearest airport—but your actual neighborhood could be much hotter. And in high-risk communities, this invisible temperature spike, or major air quality issue, transforms a daily forecast into a serious medical emergency.

What does it take to lead a top-tier School of Public Health? For Dr. Francesca Beaudoin, the journey started in the chaos of the ER. In this episode of Humans in Public Health, we sit down with Dean Beaudoin, who has experienced Brown from every possible angle: as a medical resident, a student, a member of the faculty, a department chair and administrative leader. Now, she steps into the role of Dean.

In this interview, the co-directors of Brown University’s new AIM Lab, emergency physician Dara Kass and legal expert Liz Tobin-Tyler, discuss the chaotic intersection of medicine and law.

Young adults are turning to AI chatbots like ChatGPT for mental health advice, highlighting a massive shift in how people seek support. In this interview Dr. Ateev Mehrotra discusses the urgent need to balance AI's capacity for providing accessible, cost-effective care with its potential to cause harm.

In a world teeming with health data—from smart watch accelerometry to millions of hospital system electronic records—how do researchers find out which medical treatments truly work? Biostatistician Rebecca Hubbard discusses the messiness of real-world data, the limits of randomized controlled trials and how both of these powerful—but imperfect—methods are essential for building a trustworthy ‘edifice of evidence.’

Measles has been declared eliminated in the U.S. for 25 years, but a surge in cases is threatening that status. Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University, joined Humans in Public Health to break down the outbreak, the chaotic federal response and how her team's tracker is stepping in to provide reliable, life-saving data.

Professor Ellen McCreedy is a musician and gerontologist whose research harnesses the power of music to recall memories. Driven to give dementia sufferers, and their caregivers, a moment of having themselves back again, McCreedy joined Humans in Public Health to discuss her work, its challenges and the grandmother who first showed her music’s power to break through Alzheimer’s disease.

Since the 1980s, the U.S. has experimented with various forms of managed health care. But none of them has managed to control costs or improve health outcomes, argues Senior Fellow Hayden Rooke-Ley. The radical new idea from CAHPR researchers for delivering lower health care costs is actually quite old-fashioned: a return to fee-for-service.

A special live Commencement & Reunion Weekend episode of our podcast, Humans in Public Health, brings Brown University experts from epidemiology and urban studies for a discussion on cities: How they collect public health problems and the ways they might help us to address those same issues.

Professor Alex Macmadu, an epidemiologist who has spent her career studying the opioid and overdose crisis, shares insights on Rhode Island’s bold step in opening the first state-approved overdose prevention center in the U.S. and what her research reveals about community attitudes toward harm reduction.

What happens when private equity firms buy hospitals and doctor’s offices?

If you ask anyone, they remember the exact moment that they realized that COVID-19 was going to change the world. For most of us, that moment came during the second week of March 2020. Schools were shut down. Many jobs became remote. But by the time most of our lives were changed by the pandemic, public health experts had already spent weeks or even months trying to stop the spread.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals are everywhere—in our homes, our clothing, the personal care products we use and in our bodies. Postdoctoral researcher Amber Hall explains the dangers PFAS pose, especially to developing humans, and offers suggestions for avoiding them.

Jared Perkins, director of health policy strategy at Brown's Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research, offers insights into the challenges of influencing health policy under a shifting political landscape and how researchers help shape federal health care decisions.

Professor Alyssa Bilinski set out to answer a seemingly simple question: how often are pregnant people included in medical trials? But finding the answer was anything but simple. With 90,000 records to analyze, she turned to AI for help—but ensuring the accuracy of the results required a creative approach.

This fall there was a deadly disease outbreak in the east African country of Rwanda. But you may not have heard about it, and according to Professor Craig Spencer, that’s a good thing.

Picture a coal power plant: a building with tall smoke stacks with big plumes of gasses coming out of them. By now, we know that those gasses aren’t great for our health or the environment. But how bad are they? That’s where Professor Cory Zigler comes in.

Most of us know that lead exposure is bad for our health. To protect us, especially children, the US hasn’t allowed lead in gasoline, house paint, children’s toys, dishware or jewelry for decades. But there are a few places where lead has stuck around. Today we’re taking a look at one of the least well known, and most stubborn sources of lead exposure in the US - guns and ammunition. 

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is among the most common conditions facing U.S. Veterans, with no effective cure. Additionally, many Veterans use alcohol to alleviate their trauma, making medical treatment even more complex. For these high risk patients, Professors Christy Capone and Carolina Haass-Koffler are thinking outside the box: Could a treatment involving psychedelic drugs potentially save Veteran lives?

How do we receive the information that shapes our beliefs, and how do we know if we can trust our sources? Professor Stefanie Friedhoff says information is a critical social determinant of health.

Rhode Island will make history later this year when it opens the first state-approved safe injection site in the country. To get ready for this big moment, we spoke to Brandon del Pozo, who’s studied the effects of New York City’s safe injection sites.

In this special bonus episode of Humans in Public Health, we talk with Professor Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University, about the rising concerns about bird flu in the United States.

To learn from the various health systems across the globe, researchers must devise new methods of working with highly sensitive data despite vast organizational differences between countries. The newest episode of our Humans in Public Health podcast interviews Professor Irene Papanicolas.

MPH student Rosemelly Jimenez Medal's father has worked as a short-haul trucker for over 25 years, and she noticed that he was struggling to hear conversations at dinner. So Jimenez Medal teamed up with her father and noise researcher Erica Walker, RGSS Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Brown University, to conduct hearing screenings on short-term truckers in California.

Liz Tobin-Tyler is a lawyer who combines law and public health to study reproductive justice, maternal and childhood health and domestic violence.

When humanitarian catastrophes erupt around the world, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of suffering. How do aid workers navigate the immense challenges in order to jump into action—juggling safety, equipment and logistics?

We all understand the dangers of smoking—but the debate over vapes, nicotine pouches and other tobacco alternatives rages on: Can vaping really save lives? Or are nicotine alternatives a slippery slope: a dangerous gateway to lifelong substance use? Professors Jasjit Ahluwalia and Jennifer Tidey discuss their takes on a harm reduction and how it applies to the modern nicotine landscape.

Director of the Mindfulness Center at Brown University, Eric Loucks' work in the areas of mindfulness-based stress reduction and heart health are demonstrating how mindfulness can improve people’s lives and change their perceptions. We chat with Professor Loucks about his journey into this area of study and what the future holds for mindfulness.

In celebration of the School of Public Health’s 10th anniversary, we are joined by former White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator, and Dean of Brown’s School of Public Health, Dr. Ashish Jha.

Our podcast interviews professor Omar Galarraga, who explains that everything from cash to coupons, to a simple redesign of a form, can make HIV treatment and prevention more accessible.