Public Health On Call

Latest Episodes:

573 - How to Be a Climate Change Advocate: Catherine Flowers on the "Secret Sauce" of Elevating Local Environmental Issues to the National Agenda Feb 13, 2023

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Today, guest host Shelley Hearne, director of the Lerner Center for Public Health Advocacy brings us to the south lawn of the White House for a conversation with Catherine Flowers, environmental justice advocate and a MacArthur Genius Award winner. Flowers talks about working with grassroots advocates, celebrities, politicians, and influencers of all kinds to raise awareness around serious sanitation issues in US cities that we usually associate with underdeveloped nations.

572 - Can U.S. Life Expectancy Declines be Reversed? Feb 10, 2023

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The average life expectancy in the United States has dropped precipitously during the pandemic—and COVID-19 is not the only culprit. Dr. Josh Sharfstein, who leads the Bloomberg American Health Initiative at Johns Hopkins, talks to co-host Stephanie Desmon about a new report on how we can halt U.S. life expectancy declines by focusing on major causes of the declines: COVID, opioids, gun homicides and suicides, motor vehicle crashes, heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. This report sets out ten feasible ideas for reversing the decline and setting the nation on a path of greater equity and health.

571 - Hidden in Plain Sight Part 1: Stories About the Powerful—and Often Invisible—Public Health Forces That Shape Our Lives Feb 08, 2023

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The Stoop Storytelling Series and Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health partnered last fall to present a night of storytelling by scientists, activists, and community members sharing personal stories about urgent public health issues. In part 1, Carolyn Sufrin, an obgyn and medical anthropologist, tells her story of how she began working in reproductive health care in prisons, and Cicely Franklin, an overdose prevention specialist with the Baltimore City Health Department, talks about the dual dynamic of working in harm reduction and having a family member with substance abuse issues. These stories were recorded on September 22, 2022 at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore.

570 - How to Be a Climate Change Advocate: Persistence is Key In Climate Change Action Feb 06, 2023

Show notes

In a two-part conversation that begins while facing down a tiny yet fierce migratory bird on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Refuge to a celebration on the south lawn of the White House, guest host Shelley Hearne, director of the Johns Hopkins Lerner Center for Public Health Advocacy, and David Kieve, president of the Environmental Defense Action Fund, discuss why the new climate bill is so critical, what it took to get this massive piece of legislation to the finish line.

569 - Literally Saving the Planet Feb 03, 2023

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Astronomer Andy Rivkin led the team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory that sent a rocket into space last year to change the trajectory of an asteroid. Stephanie Desmon talks to him about how this proof of concept launch could one day aid in the ultimate public health mission: To save humans from the fate of the dinosaurs.

BONUS - Tradeoffs: Can Creating New Career Pathways Solve Shortages in Long-Term Care? Feb 03, 2023

Show notes

Roughly 10 percent of long-term care workers have left their careers since the start of COVID-19. The shortage in staffing has led to nursing homes turning patients away, left caregivers at home struggling for help, and ultimately put patients at risk in the hands of workers who have been stretched thin. Tradeoffs host Dan Gorenstein talks about a San Fransisco non-profit home health agency looking to make changes in this sector and how providing long-term care workers with new career pathways could be part of the solution. If you like this episode, check out the Tradeoffs podcast at www.tradeoffs.org.

568 - A New Law To Enhance the Safety of Cosmetics Feb 01, 2023

Show notes

Howard Sklamberg, a former deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, talks to Dr. Sharfstein about legislation passed at the end of 2022 to improve the safety of cosmetics. On the agenda for discussion: inspections, manufacturing standards, recalls, and the answer to the trivia question of whether a combination of antiperspirant and deodorant is considered a cosmetic or a drug.

567 - How to Be a Climate Change Advocate: Bernadette Demientieff and the People of the Gwich'in Nation Want You To Know That We're All Connected Jan 30, 2023

Show notes

Guest host Shelley Hearne, director of the Lerner Center for Public Health Advocacy, brings us eight miles above the Arctic Circle to talk with Bernadette Demientieff, council member for the Arctic Refuge Defense Council and member of the Gwichyaa Zhee Gwich'in Tribe. They discuss the very real impacts of climate change on her community in their day-to-day lives and our global interconnectedness, including why it matters to all of us what's happening in a remote corner of the world.

566 - What is "Immunity Debt"? Jan 27, 2023

Show notes

Years of masking and distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic protected many of us from the common cold and flu, and isolation protected children from respiratory illnesses like RSV. So, why are so many kids getting sick this winter? In this episode, Stephanie Desmon talks to Dr. Mike Rose, a pediatric resident at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine about a concept called 'immunity debt' and why it could explain the recent increase in pediatric illness and hospitalizations.

565 - A New COVID Landscape in China Jan 25, 2023

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After years of using a ZERO COVID strategy in China, which led to many lockdowns and economic questions, the country has dropped all COVID restrictions in recent weeks. Dr. Amesh Adalja of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security joins Stephanie Desmon to discuss what has happened in China, what the consequences are now and what they will be in the future. Adalja says both policies were destined to fail and we could see China in 2023 look a lot like the United States in 2020.

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