Public Health On Call

Latest Episodes:

360 - Book Club: Gender Bias On Women's Health Aug 18, 2021

Show notes

Public Health On Call producer Lindsay Smith Rogers speaks with Elinor Cleghorn, author of the book Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World. The book covers how misogyny and mythology were baked into western medicine and has attributed to gender bias on women's health, how some of these biases remain today and what needs to be done to create a more equitable health system for all people.

359 - The Back-to-School Episode Aug 16, 2021

Show notes

It's back-to-school time and the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging in many places. Stephanie Desmon talks to Keri Althoff and Elizabeth Stuart of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health about how important it is for K-12 students to get back into the classroom, how safe it is to do so right now, how to navigate masking for kids too young to be vaccinated and how to talk to your kids about any worries they may have about returning to in-person learning.

BONUS - Treating Addiction in Jails and Prison Aug 13, 2021

Show notes

2020 marked a historically high number of overdoses with more than 93,000 deaths in the United States. A particular risk for overdose is recent incarceration, yet few people who are incarcerated have access to effective, life-saving treatment. Dr. Brendan Saloner, talks to Dr. Josh Sharfstein on the urgency of jails and prisons providing needed care.

358 - Are Hospitals Breaking the Law? Aug 13, 2021

Show notes

Overdose death rates in the U.S. reached record highs during the pandemic. Stephanie Desmon talks to Sika Yeboah Sampong about a recent report from the Legal Action Center about the role of emergency departments in saving lives from overdose. Clinicians can screen for and diagnose addiction, provide life-saving therapy, and refer to ongoing care. Many emergency departments, Yeboah Sampong argues, are failing to provide care backed by evidence -- and could be in legal jeopardy as a result. Read the full report here: https://americanhealth.jhu.edu/addiction-emergency

357 - The Link Between Evictions and Rising COVID-19 Cases Aug 11, 2021

Show notes

Recent research led by Craig Pollack of Johns Hopkins and Kathryn Leifheit of UCLA suggests that more than 433,000 excess cases and 10,700 excess deaths from COVID-19 in 2020 were associated with the lifting of eviction moratoriums in various states. They talk to Stephanie Desmon about the impact of a recently reinstated eviction moratorium, the staggering amount of back rent owed in the United States, and how much the pandemic has exposed larger problems in the housing market.

356 - Climate Disruption and Our Health Aug 09, 2021

Show notes

With a string of massive climate crises seemingly ever-present in the news, Dr. John Groopman, an environmental epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, talks to Public Health on Call Producer Lindsay Smith Rogers about their link to climate change and aging infrastructure, the history of how we got here and why there are reasons for optimism.

BONUS - How Worried Should the Vaccinated be About Delta? Aug 06, 2021

Show notes

With so much news about the Delta variant and calls for many vaccinated people to mask up again, Gigi Gronvall of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security talks with Stephanie Desmon about what we know right now about breakthrough COVID-19 infections and how worried the vaccinated should be about getting sick from COVID-19. "The more people who get vaccinated, the fewer chances the virus that causes COVID-19 has to mutate into an even deadlier virus," Gronvall says.

355 - COVID-19 in the Land Down Under Aug 06, 2021

Show notes

In the early days of the pandemic, Australia kept COVID cases low by closing its borders and instituting rigorous public health measures like contact tracing. Now, however, low vaccination rates and the delta variant have forced communities back into lockdown. Dr. Patricia Davidson, vice chancellor of the University of Wollongong—and former dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing—talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the COVID-19 experience of Australia, how it is similar in some respects and different in others from that of the US.

354 - A Public Health Official Is Fired in Tennessee Aug 04, 2021

Show notes

Until recently, Dr. Michelle Fiscus served as the Medical Director for Immunization Programs at the Tennessee Department of Health. But after sending out a factual memo explaining the law about vaccinating teenagers caused a backlash among conservative lawmakers, Fiscus was fired. Dr. Fiscus talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about her background in public health, her recent painful experiences, and her next chapter. This interview was recorded on July 21, 2021.

353 - How Delta and Low Vaccination Rates are Feeding a Deadly Surge of COVID-19 in Missouri Aug 02, 2021

Show notes

After a drop in COVID hospitalizations and deaths over the spring and early summer, hospitals in southwest Missouri are at capacity again. Steve Edwards, president and CEO of Cox Health which has six hospitals in the region, talks with Stephanie Desmon about why things are so much more extreme now than they were last winter, how the politicization of public health has choked efforts to make vaccines more accessible, and why this fight is so personal for him.

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