Public Health On Call

Two years into the pandemic, we now have more data about how COVID affects people in the long term. Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, Chief of Research and Education Service at Veterans Affairs in the St. Louis Health Care System talks with Stephanie Desmon about an expansive new study of 11 million people who had COVID-19. The study found that people with COVID are at higher risk for all kinds of heart issues including clots, inflammation, and arrhythmias even a year after having mild or asymptomatic COVID—risks that persisted even in relatively healthy people.

Even before COVID-19, the US was facing a shortage of nurses which has now become a full blown crisis. Nurse Alice, Chief Nursing Officer at nurse.org and host of the Ask Nurse Alice podcast talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the many factors behind the crisis, how the pandemic exacerbated an already untenable situation, and what needs to be done now to address it. Nurse Alice also shares her advice for those aspiring to be nurses or who might be considering leaving the profession.

In the very early days of the pandemic in the US, there was so much we didn't know about COVID and a lot of concern among experts about how the country could weather the health crisis. In this special episode, Lindsay Smith Rogers pulls quotes from "the file," a previously unaired podcast interview recorded with Dr. Josh Sharfstein in early March 2020, about his predictions and concerns. They discuss what he predicted correctly, for better or worse, what he got wrong, and what we still don't really know even two years later.

Dr. Mysheika Roberts has been the health commissioner of Columbus, Ohio since 2017. In March 2020, however, the trajectory of her career changed. Dr. Roberts talks to Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the first moment when she realized what it meant to lead in a crisis. They talk about efforts in Columbus to expand testing, roll out a creative vaccine strategy, and bring together a diverse group of stakeholders to address COVID collectively, honoring "the Columbus Way."

At the beginning of the pandemic, primary care clinicians had few treatments to offer patients who had COVID-19 but were not sick enough to be hospitalized. But they could provide emotional support and steer patients away from harmful treatments. Dr. Pieter Cohen, a primary care doctor at the Cambridge Health Alliance, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about all that primary care clinicians can do for COVID-19 patients today.

Virologist Dr. Sabra Klein returns to the podcast to talk with Stephanie Desmon about what research has seen regarding COVID-19 outcomes for men and women. They discuss what's known now about sex (biological) and gender (social and contextual) differences in COVID-19 infection and vaccination, and why these variables are so important to consider in research and policy.

In early 2021, Virginia's governor tapped Richmond's public health director Dr. Danny Avula to be the State Vaccine Coordinator. Avula talks with Josh Sharfstein about this massive undertaking, including the biggest challenges and biggest successes along the way.

In 1899 W.E.B. Du Bois published a landmark study on tuberculosis in the Black communities of Philadelphia, titled "The Philadelphia Negro." This was the first scholarly work to demonstrate that social forces, including racism, are fundamental to health outcomes. In recognition of Black History Month, sociologist Dr. Alexandre White and health equity scholar Dr. Rachel Thornton join Dr. Josh Sharfstein to tell the story of this remarkable study. They also explain why understanding this history is empowering to medical and public health practitioners today. Read Dr. White and Dr. Thornton's recent publication, with Dr. Jeremy Greene, in the New England Journal of Medicine here. www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMms2035550

When will COVID become just another respiratory illness? Another way to ask that question may be: When will the response to other respiratory illnesses more closely resemble the battle against COVID? Infectious disease physician Dr. Celine Gounder talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the logic of grouping SARS-CoV-2 with flu, RSV, and other respiratory pathogens. They discuss the value of common strategies to address transmission, testing, and treatment and to help prepare for future pandemics.

What do we know at this point about the potential for long term effects on mental health from the pandemic? How can we approach socializing and other activities we may have gotten used to NOT doing? How do we navigate going back to an office? Kids have had so much taken away during the pandemic, will this change them forever? Clinical psychologist Dr. Laura Murray returns to the podcast to talk with Stephanie Desmon about these and more COVID-19 mental health questions.