Category: Public Health

Delaware Medical Legal Partnership: Attorneys Collaborating with Clinical Teams to Address Social Determinants of Health

Patients challenged with social determinants of health are more likely to incur higher health care costs due to their inability to adhere to prescribed medical recommendations and their inefficient use of health care resources. Some of these challenges can be resolved with legal intervention. The Medical-Legal Partnership (MLP) model has demonstrated positive impact on improving […]

Preventing Perioperative Cardiovascular Complications: The Conundrum Continues

Perioperative cardiovascular complications or major adverse cardiovascular events (MACEs), including all-cause death, myocardial infarction (MI), cardiac arrest, stroke and repeat revascularization either by PCI or CABG, remain the leading cause of postoperative complications and death among the aged patients (≥ 45 years old) undergoing major noncardiac surgery. Meanwhile, based on the ACC/AHA guidelines on perioperative […]

The Translational Informatics Infrastructure in South Carolina

The Biomedical Informatics Center (BMIC) at MUSC was established as a program in 2008 as part of research infrastructure development and investment by MUSC and Health Sciences South Carolina (HSSC). The BMIC includes a dedicated team of Informatics faculty and staff who work on research and operations projects across the state. The team has been […]

Health Policy at the Ground Level: The Impact of Marketplace Guides on Healthcare Utilization

In response to provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that became effective in 2014, Christiana Care Health System (CCHS) hired 12 market place guides (MPGs) to assist eligible uninsured individuals with enrollment in insurance and provide referrals to meet patients’ healthcare needs. Policy experts predicted that new insurance coverage would lead […]

Faculty Mentoring in Challenging Times

These are challenging times in academic medicine – faculty are under enormous pressure to generate more revenue through clinical care or grant funding in very competitive environments at the same time that administrative demands and regulatory requirements keep increasing. This has made it increasingly difficult for faculty to find time to teach and maintain scholarly […]

Kids Safe and Smokefree: A Multilevel Intervention Model to Address Child Tobacco Smoke Exposure and Parental Smoking in Underserved Communities

Low-income and underserved populations have higher smoking rates, greater challenges in quitting smoking, and bear greater tobacco-related morbidity/mortality risk than the general population. More intensive interventions are needed to address this ongoing public health priority. This presentation will describe a recently completed trial that combined a pediatric systems-level intervention with a pragmatic, individualized intervention. We […]

Smoking Cessation and Relapse Prevention during Pregnancy and Continuing Care Postpartum

In spite of the well-established negative health implications of tobacco smoking during pregnancy on mother and unborn child, 15.4% of pregnant women report smoking in the past month. Approximately one-third of women who smoke prior to pregnancy quit spontaneously during pregnancy, but up to 60% relapse within the first six months postpartum. This presentation will […]

Research in Diet, Nutritional Status, and Energy Balance in Infancy

Increasing evidence indicates there are sensitive periods in life during which nutrition and growth may have a programming or long lasting effect on later life health outcomes; one such period is infancy. This presentation will focus on diet composition, nutritional status, and measures of energy balance in infancy, and their effect on growth, in both […]

Healthy Food Access: Intervention Trends and Research Findings

From the establishment of state and national financing programs that support the development of supermarkets in low income communities to improving corner stores’ inventory to promote health, innovative approaches to change the food environment to influence public health are gaining momentum nationally. This talk will review the history of the “movement” and will include an […]

Dietary Sodium and Health: More Than Just Blood Pressure

Sodium is essential for cellular homeostasis and physiological function. Excess dietary sodium has been linked to elevations in blood pressure (BP). The mechanisms underlying sodium-induced increases in BP are not completely understood but may involve alterations in renal function, fluid volume, fluid-regulatory hormones, the vasculature, cardiac function, and the autonomic nervous system. Recent pre-clinical and […]