Public Health United

Learn about COVID19 directly from virologist Andy Pekosz. Andy is a professor in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and is the former President of the American Society for Virologists. Last week he presented to Congress on the pandemic and has been a great source of information on social media. Listen to the full podcast to learn more about COVID19 from Andy Pekosz.

Ms.Guerrero- Vazquez, Executive Director of Centro Sol, is a U.S. immigrant and combines both her lived experiences and professional skills to advocate for and empower Latinx communities in Baltimore city. Dr. Sarah Polk, Faculty Co-Director of Centro Sol, is a pediatric physician who identified the gap in quality of care at Johns Hopkins based on cultural barriers and was pivotal in the creation of Centro Sol. Dr. Polk says that “As [ healthcare providers] our insights into solutions are limited by our perspective... So we are blind to the potential solutions, and we are also blind to why some solutions would not be particularly helpful.” Listen to the full podcast to learn more about Centro Sol and how they are using community-based research and a research framework that emphasizes cultural competencies to advance the health of Latinos. 

Dr. Sacoby Wilson is Director of the Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health (CEEJH) lab at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Wilson is a strong advocate for critically understanding the role that racism and other social determinants play in health outcomes. At his lab, Dr. Wilson empowers communities through thoughtful engagement in science. Dr. Wilson says that “Yes, I have a Ph.D., but I’m not the only person to be a scientist, anyone can be a scientist.” Listen to the full podcast to learn more about Dr. Wilson and his two-part approach to community-driven and community-based research.

Dr. Paul Yi and Dr. Haris Sair are both radiologists that co-direct RAIL, the Radiology and Artificial Intelligence Lab, which is a part of the JHU Malone Center for Engineering in Healthcare. The purpose of this lab is to use innovations in machine and deep learning, to advance the field of radiology and improve doctor's caseload. Dr. Paul Yi describes the concept of “transfer learning” that they use in RAIL as “basically using algorithms that were used to train googles algorithms for image recognition, and then we apply that to radiology images.” Listen to the full podcast to learn more about how artificial intelligence is connecting doctors and engineers!

Mike Morrison is a current doctoral candidate in industrial- organization psychology at Michigan State University, where he has worked to reshape how we present posters at conferences. When speaking on how people interact with science, Mike Morrison explains that "information foraging says that when we pursue information, we go to a website, it seems like it's going to have the information we are looking for we pick through it a little bit and then when we determine its not going to give us that strong information sense, those berries, we just abandon it and go to another website.” Listen to our full podcast to learn more about #betterposter, and check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org/podcast.

Dr. Johannes Urpelainen is the Director and Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Professor of Energy, Resources and Environment at the Johns Hopkins Kreiger School of Advanced International Studies, as well as, the Founder Director of the Initiative for Sustainable Energy Policy. He is an author of books and peer-reviewed literature on energy policy, environmental governance, and global governance. He also aims to equip the next generation of leaders, through classes where instills in them analytical skills, as well as best practices in impactful international policy work. Dr. Urpelainen said that "We can always do more research on what is an optimal policy or an efficient policy or something like that, but in practice, policymakers face concrete decisions in a certain environment." Listen to the full podcast to learn more about translating research into effective policy. Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at PHUscicomm.

Dr. Gundula Bosh, Dr. Artuto Casadevall, and Brian Klaas are changing the way scientists learn with their R3 initiative. R3 is a Johns Hopkins graduate science initiative that stands for “rigor, responsibility and reproducibility” in scientific practice. Dr. Bosh says that “[ R3 teaches] a certain way of philosophical thinking about science in a very approachable and tangible manner. So that people also really know what to do with it. So it’s not just some abstract thinking, it’s really something that enables you and in the end what is philosophy? Philosophy is critical thinking.” Listen to the full podcast to learn about how R3 is advancing scientists education through teaching valuable skills such as science communication! Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org/podcast and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at PHUscicomm.

Alex Nathanson is spearheading an innovative approach to teaching communities about solar power, energy and aesthetics through Solar Powered Art. During this podcast, he explains how Solar Powered Art can be used in STEAM education, as well as, an equitable way to get people thinking about climate change solutions. Alex says that “to be able to address [ the different ways climate change will impact communities ] we need to be able to provide tools that are accessible for people to actually engage with resources and the experience of climate change in a local way.” Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at PHUscicomm.

Astrid Caldas is a climate change scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists. During this podcast episode, she explains some of the best practices to get communities and politicians engaged and listening about climate change. In this episode, Astrid says that" [ We ] need to talk science in ways that speak to people, like about people's health, people's pocketbooks, people's core values, there's always something that will touch people." and check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram Facebook at PHUscicomm and drscicomm.

The Food Project is a hub in South West Baltimore aimed to empower youth through opportunities to learn, eat nutritious food, and develop practical life skills. Michelle Suazo is the Executive Director for The Food Project, and Dominic Nell is a farmer and educator who runs BeMoreGreen, a STEM program based out of The Food Project. Dominic Nell in the interview said: "These little humans, are going to be larger human later, and out investment or non-investment in them is going to affect us in some way shape or form." Listen to the full podcast to learn more about all of the inspiring work, being done at the food project.

Mike Reese is the Director of the Center for Educational Resources at Johns Hopkins University. Kelly Clark is the program manager for the Teaching Academy at Johns Hopkins University. Together they will explain some best practices and tips based on research in education to create classrooms with better learning outcomes. Mike in the interview said, “when you have students engaged in discussion and activities in class time, they tend to learn more and retain it longer.” Listen to the full podcast to learn more from Mike, Kelly, and Nina!

Dr. Naor Bar-Zeev is a pediatric infectious disease physician and statistical epidemiologist, currently working at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a part of the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC). Vaccines are now a hot button topic in the news with the recent rise in vaccine-preventable diseases, so this podcast comes at a perfect time for those interested in communicating science, and specifically vaccine science to others. Though vaccine creation is a highly technical field Dr. Naor Bar Zeev speaks to the interconnected roles of different fields, and perspectives that are critical in shaping both vaccine research and dissemination. Dr. Naor Bar Zeev in the podcast says “words are really powerful things and words can give life, and words can take away life.” Listen to the podcast for the full story between Dr. Naor Bar Zeev and Dr. Nina Martin.

Euan Adie is a former genetics researcher with a passion for science communication. This interest in science communication lead Euan to previous roles as a project manager at Nature Publishing group, and later to Digital Science before he founded Altmetric in 2011. Altmetric is a data analytics company that works to reshape how scholars gain feedback and interact with the content they have created, going beyond just citations! Listen to Euan describe his career in science communication as well as the development of the field of Almetrics. For more information check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at PHUscicomm and drscicomm

Episode 66 with Dr. Mark O. Martin. Mark answers Nina's question: "If you were to give advice to a scientist whose main focus has not been teaching students, maybe they teach a course maybe they don’t, what would be your advice to them to improve engagement with students, and more broadly the public?" Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at PHUscicomm and drscicomm.

Less than five minute clip from Episode 66 with Dr. Mark O. Martin. Mark answers Nina's question: "If you were to give advice to a scientist whose main focus has not been teaching students, maybe they teach a course maybe they don’t, what would be your advice to them to improve engagement with students, and more broadly the public?" Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at PHUscicomm and drscicomm.

"Everything starts with trust. If you are just starting to build trust during an outbreak, very difficult to accomplish anything." During times of [Ebola] outbreak, multiple public health players come together to fight off disease and save lives. But what happens when the community that you are trying to help revolts against the health officials? Dr. David Peters, Chair of the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, recounts the last 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak and how community engagement, along with acceptance of aggressive fluid treatment, was key to ending this massive epidemic.  Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at PHUscicomm and drscicomm.

There are few individuals that I meet who I can say with 100% certainty have saved millions of lives through their rigorous scientific work. Dr. Stanley Plotkin is world renowned for his pioneering research and development of rubella vaccine, which is used almost exclusively around the world, including in the MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) combined vaccine. In our latest episode, Dr. Plotkin reminisces about his contributions to vaccine development both in academic and industry, as well the fierce scientific competition between scientists to develop vaccines in the 20th century through today.  Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at PHUscicomm and drscicomm.

A recent national survey in Nigeria revealed that only 33 percent of children received all three doses of the pentavalent vaccine (which include vaccines for Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, H. influenzae and Hepatitis B), well below the global World Health Organization goal of 90 percent. For comparison, the global average for children who have received all three doses is 85 percent. Kyla Hayford, PhD, is an Assistant Scientist at the Johns Hopkins International Vaccine Access Center who works on improving surveillance of the effectiveness of vaccines and how to improve coverage rates in countries like Nigeria. In this podcast, we talk about better tests for estimating the effectiveness of vaccination (i.e. serological surveillance), the causes of lower coverage rates in Nigeria, and how to translate research into interpretable and useable material for policymakers. Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at PHUscicomm and drscicomm.

When I was at the bench doing science experiments, bioethics tended to be an afterthought for me; in public health--which is basically deciding for communities how to best promote well-being--bioethics is (or should be) at the core. Dr. Travis Rieder, our latest podcast guest, is a bioethicist at the Berman Institute for Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University and emphasizes that we should not be making public health policy without bringing in ethical and moral discussions. Using abortion as an example, Nina and Travis discuss how we can move policy and discussions forward in a respectful way in our deeply pluralistic Democracy and society, which tend to oversimplify public health issues into black and white camps that demonize the other viewpoint. We as a society need to move past these debates to find common ground so we can move forward and make progress. What's the common ground? Listen to find out! Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at PH

Although some listeners may be new to thinking about science communication, it's not at all a new field. Our latest podcast guest, Dr. John Durant, puts current science engagement practices in its historical context. John has been involved in science communication science the 1980's and is an expert in formulating and measuring best practices for science communication as Director of the MIT Museum in Boston. He has led the charge on many science engagement practices, including founding the International Science Festival Alliance and being the founding Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed publication, "Public Understand of Science". Check out our show links at www.publichealthunited.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook at PHUpodcast.