Public Health On Call

Principal Matt Hornbeck of Hampstead Hill Academy, an award-winning public K-8 school in Baltimore City, returns to the podcast to talk with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about gearing up for school. They discuss how students fared academically last year—and how the school is preparing to address chronic absenteeism and mental health challenges this fall.

As life expectancy slips in the US, what can we do differently to improve overall well-being and health? For one thing: start paying for health care differently. Dr. Mai Pham, physician and president and CEO of the Institute for Exceptional Care, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about a new report from the National Academy of Medicine on the opportunity of innovation in payment: What if health insurance covered social needs? What if primary care clinicians were paid for extra time to help those patients who need support the most? What if health care institutions saw their role as broadly promoting health?

Dr. Gigi Gronvall, an expert from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, discusses the threats of poor indoor air quality including spreading infectious diseases and particulate matter. She also talks about a new framework for states to consider how to mandate clean, filtered air in public spaces to keep people safe.

During the pandemic, it became clear that America's vast and complex food system has weak spots and needs help from farm to table to be more resilient to shocks and stressors. Elsie Moore, a Johns Hopkins PhD candidate and researcher at the Center for a Livable Future talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about this "resiliency concept" and how some jurisdictions are thinking through their capacity to make sure food is available during emergencies from extreme weather and global unrest. Learn more about the Center for a Livable Future's Food System Resilience Planning Guide. https://clf.jhsph.edu/about-us/news/news-2022/new-food-system-resilience-planning-guide-helps-cities-prepare-disruptions

Last summer, Lifeline transitioned away from a 10-digit national suicide prevention number to the three-digit 988 line in hopes of making it easier for people experiencing a mental health crisis to call and text. One year after its launch, guest host Dan Gorenstein of the Tradeoffs podcast talks about the crisis line's successes and where it's fallen short.

More than three years after COVID first shuttered schools, researchers are taking stock of how children are doing academically. Hopkins biostatistician Elizabeth Stuart speaks with Stephanie Desmon about their research about learning gaps and why it's so important to invest in regaining lost ground while still letting kids be kids. She also explains how this data can help inform difficult policy decisions like school closures in the event of another public health emergency.

What can we learn from depictions of pandemics in films and series like The Last of Us, I Am Legend, and Contagion? Dylan George, director of the new Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics at the CDC, recently participated in a panel at Awesome Con to discuss these and other depictions of dystopian realities in media. Dr. George talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about what these iconic pieces got right, where they took some creative liberties, and what they reveal about gaps in our own public health systems and abilities to respond.

If a product is available for sale, it's probably safe. Right? Not so fast. Taplines podcast host Dave Infante talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about Four Loko, the popular caffeinated alcoholic drink from a decade ago, and his role as Deputy Commissioner of the FDA during the agency's analysis of the safety of the beverage. This podcast was originally released by VinePair and the full video can be seen here: https://vinepair.com/taplines-podcast/four-loko/

ChatGPT has lots of potential for use in public health, but how well does it actually perform? Public Health On Call intern Caroline Wang and Lindsay Smith Rogers discuss three potential uses—seeking personal medical advice, public health research for students, and as a practical resource for practitioners. They go over some specific prompts and analyze what the chatbot does well and where it's limited. Caroline is a Masters of Health Science student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health studying clinical epidemiology and has been an intern for the podcast since March 2020.

Earlier this month, a WHO group declared that aspartame, a synthetic sweetener found in everything from breath mints to diet sodas, is a possible carcinogenic. While more data is needed to confirm the link, there is research showing that artificial sweeteners are not, as we thought, "metabolically inert" and do actually impact our gut health which can impact our overall health. In this episode from the archives, Hopkins microbiologist Dr. Jotham Suez talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the complexities of our microbiomes, why taking probiotics may not "reset" our systems after antibiotics, and how artificial sweeteners can cause imbalances that upset the trillions of microorganisms that keep us healthy. (This episode was originally released on September 1, 2021.) Learn more: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/the-microbiome-and-your-health