Public Health On Call

Louisiana was hit early and hard by COVID-19 but, over the past three months, the statewide response has strengthened. Now, Louisiana health officials are using the lessons they learned from the outbreak's early days to ensure that they are prepared to weather the surge in cases throughout the American South. Dr. Alexander Billioux, assistant secretary of health for the Louisiana Department of Health's Office of Public Health, joins Dr. Josh Sharfstein to discuss the strategies that have worked, the underlying realities the pandemic has exposed, and the vast amount of work that's still left to be done.

Vaccine challenge trials, in which healthy volunteers are infected with a pathogen to determine whether a vaccine works, can be done faster and with fewer participants than traditional efficacy studies. But there are downsides: challenge trials require young, healthy participants which may not help produce a vaccine that would protect older populations at risk for severe COVID-19 disease. There are also serious ethical considerations. Volunteers would be infected with a virus for which there is no cure, and so much is still unknown about why this coronavirus can cause severe disease in people without any known risk factors. Johns Hopkins vaccine researcher Dr. Anna Durbin talks with Stephanie Desmon about this method of getting to a COVID-19 vaccine, her experience with a dengue challenge trial, and what we know so far about whether COVID-19 antibodies confer immunity.

COVID-19 is causing disruptions in health services around the world and new data shows that 18 million children across 68 countries are at risk of not getting vaccinated. Dr. Chizoba Wonodi, the Nigeria Country Director for the International Vaccine Access Center, and Dr. Anita Shet, a pediatric disease specialist, talk with guest host Dr. Sara Bennett about the impact of disrupted vaccines and how maintaining these systems are critical for avoiding preventable deaths and maintaining trust for when a viable COVID-19 vaccine is available.

Why has the US had a harder time with the virus than Europe? Why does contact tracing seem to be working in some places but not others? Does it make sense to wear face coverings outside? Can COVID-19 be killed in the freezer? Can I get COVID-19 from a pool? What about in an elevator? Dr. Tom Inglesby of the Center for Health Security and Dr. Josh Sharfstein address your questions submitted to publichealthquestion@jhu.edu

COVID-19 has seen unprecedented harassment of state and local health officials. In a bonus episode, Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the threats facing public health officials in the pandemic.

Public health's focus on the root causes of disease and injury mean the intersecting crises of COVID-19 and racism provide a critical opportunity for the field. Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the sector's reckoning with reality around naming, defining, and addressing racism as a critical public health problem.

With vacations and camps upended, families with young children are struggling with making summer plans—especially when there's often confusing or conflicting guidance. Biostatistician Dr. Elizabeth Stuart and epidemiologist Dr. Keri Althoff return to the podcast to talk with guest host Dr. Colleen Barry about their decision-making framework for assessing risk to address questions like childcare, visiting with older relatives, and "quaranteams" with other families. Stuart and Althoff also break down how to make sense of COVID-19 data at the community level and what families can do to still have a joyful, memorable summer.

Several Latin American countries are seeing a wave of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Dr. Carlos Castillo-Salgado, who has trained hundreds of epidemiologists in Latin America, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about what's going wrong, what's going right, and what needs to change fast on the continent to save lives.

The rapid pace of reopening the US without the public health capacity to contain the virus has Dr. Leana Wen worried. Wen talks with Stephanie Desmon about the current state of the pandemic, what we did and didn't learn from the surge in New York, what individuals can do to reduce their risks, and what policy makers should be doing to prevent another 100,000 deaths and countless suffering.

A year ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a landmark statement about the impact of racism on child and adolescent health. Dr. Maria Trent, the lead author of this statement, talks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about the many ways that racism undermines health over a lifetime. Trent also discusses how to give pediatricians, teachers, parents, and caregivers the language and tools they need to address racism's impacts on children's safety and wellbeing.