Public Health On Call

The Bloomberg American Health Initiative offers full scholarships for MPH and DrPH degrees to people working on the front lines of key challenges to health in the United States. This special episode of the Initiative's American Health Podcast features an interview with host Shane Bryan and "Bloomberg fellow" Ashley Hickson, a senior policy associate at the Center for Science in Public Interest, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group that advocates for safer and healthier foods. They discuss Hickson's work examining the difference in food retail quality between high and low-income communities in the South. To learn more about the Bloomberg American Health Initiative and the Bloomberg Fellows Program, visit https://americanhealth.jhu.edu/.

In this episode, Dr. Josh Sharfstein talks with Hopkins researchers who break down three papers looking at the effectiveness of different COVID-19 vaccines against variants of concern. Carli Jones, a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, talks about some good news from a study looking at the effectiveness of Pfizer's vaccine against the variants found in the UK and South Africa. Greg Rosen, a PhD candidate, discusses a preprint study that assesses the effectiveness of the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine against the variant identified in Brazil. Dr. Nikolas Wada talks about a lab-based study assessing the potential effectiveness of mRNA vaccines against the B.1.617 variant discovered in India. These researchers are part of the Hopkins novel coronavirus research consortium, with many summaries of new studies available at http://ncrc.jhsph.edu.

At the beginning of the pandemic, it seemed like COVID-19 didn't really affect young people. But a recent uptick in cases and hospitalizations among younger adults could point to the transmissibility of newer variants. Dr. Emily Martin, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan's School of Public Health, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about how the variants may be changing the risks for young people and why a virus that moves faster underscores the importance of vaccinations.

The Bloomberg American Health Initiative offers full scholarship for MPH and DrPH degrees to people working on the front lines of key challenges to health in the United States. This special episode of the Initiative's American Health Podcast features an interview with host Shane Bryan and scholarship recipient and "Bloomberg fellow" Katherine Chon, the Director of the Office on Trafficking in Persons for the Administration for Children and Families at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). They discuss the public health response to human trafficking and hear how healthcare providers act as first responders for those experiencing human trafficking. To learn more about the Bloomberg American Health Initiative and the Bloomberg Fellows Program, visit https://americanhealth.jhu.edu/.

Police violence is one of the most observable manifestations of structural racism in the US, but is addressing this a matter of finding the "bad actors" or rethinking the system altogether? Guest host Dr. Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy, talks with Tracey Meares, professor of law and founding director of The Justice Collaboratory at Yale Law. They discuss why America's approach to public safety must be examined, how some jurisdictions are implementing change, and suicide prevention.

Dr. Justin Lessler, an infectious disease epidemiologist, returns to the podcast to talk to Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the Scenario Modeling Hub's models for the fall of 2021. Researchers projected what could happen under four scenarios of vaccination rates and viral control measures. The upshot? As has been the case since the beginning, what happens next is up to us.

After 9-11, the US government convened a crisis commission to investigate what happened and why, and to glean lessons to inform crisis prevention and response in the future. Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9-11 Commission, talks with Stephanie Desmon about laying the groundwork for a COVID-19 Commission. They talk about why it's so important to take stock of what's happened and create an informed story, the differences between a one-time attack like 9-11 and a sustained disaster like COVID, and how the commission could mean a better response to a future pandemic.

According to the ACLU, Black students are arrested, suspended, and expelled from school at higher rates than other students and far more likely to wind up in the juvenile justice system. Guest host Dr. Chidinma Ibe talks with Dr. Odis Johnson, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools about how to end the "school to prison pipeline" and help all kids feel safe, secure, and valued at school.

A recent survey found that 90% of young people support the Black Lives Matter movement's work to end racism in policing. Guest host Dr. Chidinma Ibe talks with youth leader Jada Johnson and with Joni Holifield, the founder of Heart Smiles, about how they experienced George Floyd's murder and Derek Chauvin's conviction. You can read more about Heart Smiles' work with Baltimore youth here: https://magazine.jhsph.edu/2021/heartbeat-baltimore

Guest host Dr. Chidinma Ibe talks with Joe Jones, executive director of the Center for Urban Families about the economics of racism in the United States. They discuss how discrimination in education, housing, health care, and jobs keep Black people from success, and how much of this gets attributed to individual decision making without recognizing the larger context. They also talk about what it takes to undo these barriers and create "conditions for hope."