Epidemiology Counts from the Society for Epidemiologic Research

The coronavirus outbreak is now a global pandemic and the US is ground zero for the COVID-19 crisis. Drs. Justin Lessler from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Michael Mina from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Heath are back to discuss the latest developments with host Bryan James. They address whether social distancing is helping to “flatten the curve” and why we have turned to more drastic measures such as work-from-home orders and school closings to really drop “the hammer” on the spread of the virus, as well as where we are at with a testing and masks. How long do the experts think we need to continue these mitigation measures, and do we have a plan for what to do when they end to prevent a second peak?

Infertility is increasingly common, and it is likely you know someone who has experienced infertility or may have experienced this yourself. Given that this is a very stressful time for couples and that treatments can be very expensive, couples often try everything they can to improve their fertility. There is a lot of advice out there for what you should and should not be doing to improve fertility. But what does the actual science say? What are the things proven to help couples get pregnant? What should be avoided? What about supplements? At what point should you see a doctor? What usually happens at the initial infertility treatment workup? In this episode, host Bryan James is joined by two experts to provide both the epidemiological and clinical perspectives on this topic—Drs. Enrique Schisterman and Jessica Zolton from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Twenty days after releasing episode 12 "Coronavirus", host Bryan James follows up with two experts in infectious disease epidemiology, Dr. Justin Lessler, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Dr. Michael Mina, Assistant professor of Epidemiology and Immunology at Harvard School of Public Heath, and a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The following links are resources referenced by Dr. Lessler and Dr. Mina on the episode: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: www.cdc.gov World Health Organization: www.who.int Real time numbers on confirmed cases and deaths: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 Blog post on how to prepare for this pandemic: https://virologydownunder.com/past-time-to-tell-the-public-it-will-probably-go-pandemic-and-we-should-all-prepare-now/

By nearly any metric, Black and brown Americans are disproportionately policed, arrested, convicted, and incarcerated compared to white Americans. One in 3 Black boys born in America in 2001 can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. Furthermore, Black Americans are more likely to be physically injured and killed at the hands of the police—a reality that manifested in the dramatic response to the killing of George Floyd and other high profile cases, leading to Black Lives Matter protests around the nation and the world. Racialized policing is rooted in our country’s history and legacy of systemic racism, and has substantial negative effects on the health and well being of communities of color. Living under constant threat of surveillance takes a toll on mental and physical health and can lead to and exacerbate racial health disparities. In this episode, Bryan James is joined by John Pamplin, a Provost’s postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Urban Science & Progress at New York University, as well as the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, as well as Roland Thorpe, professor in the department of health, behavior, and society at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. They discuss the historical and structural causes of racialized policing, its effect on health, the “myths” used to justify it, and end with some ideas on what we can do about it.

In honor of the Society for Epidemiologic Research 2020 Meeting, the hosts of four epidemiology podcasts came together to record the first ever “crossover event” to talk about their experiences recording our shows and what podcasting can bring to the table for the field of epidemiology. Join the hosts of Epidemiology Counts (Bryan James), SERiousEPi (Matt Fox, Hailey Banack), Casual Inference (Lucy D’Agostino McGowan), and Shiny Epi People (Lisa Bodnar) as they engage in a fun and informative (we hope!) conversation of the burgeoning field of epidemiology podcasting, emceed by Geetika Kalloo. The audio podcast will be released on some of our pod feeds, and the video recording will be available to watch on the SER website.

COVID-19 is surging as the United States heads into winter, with 100,000 new cases reported in a single day for the first time on the day of this podcast recording. The presence of this virus is a constant in our lives and our communities, and more and more of us have been tested for the coronavirus or are considering it. But how do you know when to get tested, which test to get, and how to interpret the results? With so much discussion of false negatives and false positives and the correct timing of testing, even the savviest of us can find it very confusing. And with the holidays approaching, some of us want to know if testing can be used to see family safely. Our infectious disease experts, Justin Lessler and Michael Mina, are back to provide their expertise on COVID-19 testing on this latest episode.

Maternal mortality is a key indicator of population health. While the leading causes of maternal death vary from place to place, most of these deaths are preventable; accordingly, most wealthy countries have reported steady declines in mortality rates over time. However, recent reports from the US suggest that maternal mortality is on the rise, prompting an abundance of concern (and media coverage) about the quality of maternal healthcare in the US. What’s behind these numbers? Is the US really in crisis? More generally, how do we make pregnancy and childbirth safer for women? In this episode, host Bryan James is joined by Nichole Austin, postdoctoral fellow at McGill University, along with Dr. KS Joseph, Professor in the Departments of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and the School of Population and Public Health, University of British Columbia and the Children’s and Women’s Hospital and Health Centre of British Columbia.

Hurricane and fire seasons are affecting communities across the US and globally. Over 5 million acres have burned in the Western US. Smoke from these fires reached all the way to New York and Washington DC. Natural disasters are made worse by climate change, but climate change is more than just disasters. Climate change can affect our health in a range of different ways. In this episode, host Bryan James is joined by Anna Pollack to understand how climate change affects health, along with epidemiologist and climate change expert, Dr. Brooke Anderson, Associate Professor at Colorado State University.

Sleep is essential for wellbeing and overall health.  We spend up to a third of our lives asleep and the general state of “sleep health” is an important question throughout our lifespan.  The CDC has estimated that 1 in 3 American Adults do not achieve the recommendation of at least 7 hours of sleep each night for adults aged 18–60 years. Inadequate sleep has been associated with an increased risk of developing chronic conditions such as cancer, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and dementia.  Bryan James and Rachael Stolzenberg-Solomon host a discussion with Neil Caporaso, a Senior Investigator in the Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute about the epidemiology and science of sleep and health.

Cell phones outnumber people globally and they have become an important conduit through which we interact with our world, both personally and professionally. Day or night, it’s rare that our cell phone is not by our side, and yet it’s likely that you’ve been told to do precisely the opposite, due to concerns that cell phones might increase your risk of developing cancer. These concerns are partly grounded in the decisions of health authorities, including the classification of the electromagnetic fields emitted by cell phones as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Whether cell phones put our health at risk is an epidemiologic question that has been hotly debated for well over a decade. In this episode, host Bryan James is joined by Arijit Nandi and special guest Dr. David Savitz, a Professor of Epidemiology at Brown University, to distill this evidence and discuss some of the most recent recommendations regarding the health effects of cell phone use.

Our infectious disease epidemiology experts, Justin Lessler from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Michael Mina from the Harvard School of Public Heath, are back for a special Q&A episode of the podcast! Host Bryan James relays a compilation of your fantastic questions to the experts leading to a very insightful conversation on how to navigate the “new normal” of life during the time of COVID-19 as the lockdowns end and the US begins to reopen. We address questions related to the safety of daycare and school reopening, summer camps, swimming pools, travel, and other activities. We also address the latest on what is known on asymptomatic spread and other trends, and finally: where are we at with that vaccine?

Drs. Justin Lessler from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Michael Mina from the Harvard School of Public Heath are back for a fourth episode to discuss the coronavirus pandemic with host Bryan James. Between our first podcast in early February 2020 and this recording, the pandemic has grown from 11 cases of COVID-19 in the US to over 1.3 million known cases and 84 thousand deaths in the US. After 2 months of shelter-in-place lockdown measures throughout most of the country, many states and cities are beginning to reopen their economies, raising concerns of a second wave of the pandemic. This discussion focuses on how to reopen the country safely; the significance of both virology and serology testing for surveillance; and some helpful advice on how to keep yourself and your family safe during the pandemic.

Depression and anxiety disorders remain among the most common and destabilizing health conditions worldwide. As the COVID-19 epidemic progresses, mental health has emerged as a principal concern, given the increase in social isolation, trauma exposure, and grief and bereavement, among other exposures. Today, Bryan James hosts a discussion with we talk with Katheleen Merikangas, Senior Investigator and Chief of the Genetic Epidemiology Research Branch in the Intramural Research Program at the National Institution on Mental Health, and Kerry Keyes Associate Professor from the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, for a discussion of depression and anxiety – what these concepts mean, how and when they are clinically useful, and how we anticipate that COVID-19 will change the landscape of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30929042 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18768940 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31242010 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30540352

The novel coronavirus outbreak originating in Wuhan, China has sickened tens of thousands of people and the number of cases is growing as of this recording. The World Health Organization has declared a global health emergency and countries around the world have enacted travel restrictions and public health measures to contain the outbreak. The situation is changing rapidly and the public is understandably concerned. We recorded this podcast to provide the most timely information on what is known about the novel coronavirus outbreak including: How infectious is the virus? How deadly? How does it compare to other recent outbreaks such as SARS? What are reasonable precautionary measures to keep ourselves safe? Host Bryan James speaks with two experts in infectious disease epidemiology, Dr. Justin Lessler, Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and Dr. Michael Mina, Assistant professor of Epidemiology and Immunology at Harvard School of Public Heath, and a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Screen time has been blamed for health issues ranging from sleep disturbances, to depression, and obesity. But how much do we actually know about how media use affects health? Are some people more at risk than others? What role does the content of what we watch play in these health outcomes? Can screen time be beneficial? In this episode, host Bryan James is joined by Anna Pollack to explore this topic, along with media time expert Dr. Jenny Radesky, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Michigan.

As the new year approaches, many people (epidemiologists included!) will resolve to begin exercising more. Making a renewed commitment to exercise is among the most common New Year’s resolutions. Although almost everyone knows they should be exercising, there is a lot of confusion about how much exercise we really need to stay healthy. Does the amount or type of exercise you need depend on whether you’re exercising to lose weight or exercising to stay healthy? Should you be adding a fitness tracker to your gift list? Are you ever ‘too old’ to lift weights? In this episode, new host Bryan James is joined by Hailey Banack to explore these, and other, interesting topics with physical activity expert Dr. Peter Katzmarzyk of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center.

We are in the midst of an opioid overdose epidemic. More American lives have been lost to drug overdoses than were lost either at the height of the AIDS epidemic, or during the Vietnam war. There has been a lot of recent debate about what has caused this epidemic, and to what extent is the pharmaceutical industry at the root of this problem. Yet a lot of questions remain about this issue. Why do we say we are in the midst of an epidemic, and how has this epidemic evolved? How has the opioid overdose epidemic affected US life expectancy? What factors have contributed to this problem, and what role has the pharmaceutical industry played? Are we seeing the same problem in other countries? What is being done to address the opioid overdose epidemic, and how effective are these different types of approaches? In this episode, guests Dr. Magdalena Cerdá, Director of the NYU Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy, and Dr. Noa Krawczyk, Assistant Professor of the NYU Department of Population Health, join Matt Fox to discuss these fundamental questions and to offer some thoughts on ways forward to address this critical public health problem.

Gun violence is endemic in the United States. It’s become a politically polarized topic and the discourse, which tends to focus on mass shootings, is replete with misinformation. Key questions underlying this debate are inherently epidemiological and population research can help separate fact from fiction. For example, what does the data tell us about trends in gun ownership and gun violence in the United States? To what extent are gun deaths attributable to mass shootings and murders versus gun suicides? What policy levers regulate gun ownership and use, and what do we know (and not know) about their impacts? In this episode, guest Dr. David Hemenway, Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, joins Matt Fox and Arijit Nandi in grappling with these fundamental questions, and tries to bridge the gap between the perceived and actual reality of gun violence in the United States.  

While cigarette smoking has declined in the US, vaping has increased dramatically—especially among younger Americans. While vaping may be less harmful to human health than combustible tobacco products like cigarettes, it still contains highly addictive nicotine and other potentially harmful but not well-understood chemicals. And yet many of us don’t really know exactly what vaping is and how it differs from cigarette smoking. Should vaping be seen as a less harmful alternative to cigarettes for smokers, or a gateway to nicotine and other addictions for teens and current non-smokers? How is vaping regulated and does this need to change? ​In the sixth episode of Epidemiology Counts, Bryan James and Matt Fox interview Dr. Craig Ross from the Boston University School of Public Health about the health effects and increasing rates of vaping, and whether this can be seen as a net benefit or harm to society.

Did you get your flu shot? Employers and other institutions that have a stake in our health, wellbeing and productivity have decided the flu shot is a worthwhile investment. However, many people seem ambivalent about the flu shot. What is behind these different perspectives? In the 6th episode, Matt Fox and Jennifer Ahern interview Dr. Arthur Reingold on the topic of influenza and the flu vaccine. In this episode we uncover some of the details behind the flu as a disease, its transmission, and learn about the flu vaccine to help everyone make better informed decisions for themselves and their families.

How do we know what’s really making us sick? And how to do we make it better?  If we read the newspaper, we might think it’s whether we follow a low fat diet, whether we took the stairs those two flights to our office instead of jumping on the elevator, and ditching cigarettes once and for all. But our guests today, Sandro Galea and Katherine Keyes, will argue that those decisions are all part of a broader picture of what drives health, and that intervening upstream of diet and cigarettes has a greater potential to affect the health of populations. We know that education, poverty, social injustice, and health care system organization have vast consequences for life and health; Galea and Keyes will discuss how these factors shape population health, and what we can do to re-prioritize research so that we maximize the potential to improve health for many.

Did you know there are 39 grams of sugar in a standard can of soda? That’s approximately equal to consuming 10 sugar cubes in one sitting! In the fourth episode, Matt Fox and Hailey Banack interview Dr. Barry Popkin on the topic of sugar sweetened beverages. In this episode we highlight the links between sugar sweetened beverages and obesity and discuss some ideas for public health policy to limit consumption of sugar sweetened beverages.

In the third episode, Matt Fox and Anna Pollack interview Leonardo Trasande, MD, MPP, professor at NYU Langone Health, on plastics. In this episode, we answer that nagging question as you microwave your lunch - should we microwave our food in plastic? Do plastics in consumer products reflect a health risk? If so, how could we change our habits to minimize that risk?

In the second episode, Matt Fox, Justin Lessler and Jennifer Ahern discuss the concept of herd immunity or community immunity. What is it? What has it accomplished? How do we know it works? What happens when we lose it? Interviews with Walter Orenstein, Elizabeth Halloran and Saad Omer, enrich the discussion by bringing historical, technical and social perspectives to understanding of this important phenomenon.

  Welcome to Epidemiology Counts from the Society for Epidemiologic Research! Each episode delves into a particular disease or health condition or something that we are exposed to in our daily lives that may affect our health, and bring you a look at what we currently know and don't know about each of these conditions or potential causes of disease. In this inaugural episode, Matt Fox, Hailey Banack, and Bryan James give a big picture look at why you should believe anything epidemiologists do and how you can digest all the health information you hear in a way that makes sense and will set the stage for future episodes that take on specific disease areas.