MPH News

Female health care workers were more likely to leave or intend to leave the profession compared to male health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report published recently in the journal PLOS ONE. The study analyzed survey data from the Healthcare Worker Exposure Response and Outcomes (HERO) registry,… Read More

David Stevenson Jr., PhD, MS, professor of Health Policy, has been named interim chair of the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He succeeds Melinda Buntin, PhD, Mike Curb Professor and founding chair of the department, who has joined Johns Hopkins University to establish a Center for… Read More

Second-year Vanderbilt Master of Public Health student Joshua Woods has earned a 2023 David A. Winston Health Policy Scholarship. The program recognizes students’ outstanding early-career contributions to health policy. Awardees demonstrated deep interest in and commitment to health policy in addition to academic achievement. Woods, a… Read More

Krystal Tsosie, MPH, PhD, is a historical figure of sorts. She is Arizona State University’s first Indigenous geneticist in human biology and is one of the top quoted professors by the media at the university, receiving coverage by outlets as The New York Times, PBS NOVA, Washington Post, NPR, The Atlantic, Forbes and… Read More

The Safe Stars youth sports safety rating system is expanding to include private schools and community youth sports organizations participating on public property. Safe Stars is a collaboration between the Vanderbilt Youth Sports Health Center and the Tennessee Department of Health and was originally aimed at public schools statewide when… Read More

Family-based treatment (FBT) in primary care settings prevented children with overweight and obesity from gaining more excess weight over time, the randomized PLAN trial found. In kids ages 6 to 12 years, there was a significant 6.21% (95% CI -10.14 to -2.29) difference in percentage above median body mass index… Read More

Damage or removal of calcium-regulating parathyroid glands during endocrine surgery can put children at risk for poor growth and slow mental development. Preserving the often rice-sized organ in children is vital, but not always easy. In a first-of-its-kind study in children, researchers at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt… Read More

Aptly named, the Clostridioides difficile (C. difficile) bacteria is hard to kill and hard to cleanse from the hospital environment. Recent stewardship efforts have driven a small but significant decline in cases. Pediatric gastroenterologist Maribeth Nicholson, M.D., M.P.H., has focused much of her career on finding ways to help children win the fight against C. difficile infection (CDI). Read More

Mayur Patel, MD, MPH, associate professor of Surgery and Ingram Chair in Surgical Sciences, has been named chief of the Division of Acute Care Surgery in the Department of Surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. An internationally renowned trauma surgeon-scientist, Patel has been a member of the VUMC faculty since… Read More

The expected course of a patient’s cancer prognosis has traditionally been judged by its type, stage and microscopic aggressiveness, but patients with the same presentation can still have widely divergent outcomes. Researchers from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center have discovered that differences in tumor mutation burden are a major reason for this… Read More