Blog Topic: Public Health

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  The App Doctors Want You to Delete

  October 06, 2017

  Debbie Cohen, MD, director of the Clinical Hypertension Program at Penn Medicine, doesn’t mince words when talking about the smartphone apps and kiosks in malls and pharmacies that take blood pressure. “People shouldn’t be using them,” said Cohen. “The readings can be completely inaccurate.”

  Big Data General Interest Public Health
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  Saving Our Sox for the Homeless

  August 21, 2017

  Anyone who’s ever been a patient in a hospital is most likely familiar with nonslip socks. Some patients take the socks home with them — but, most often, the socks are left behind and then thrown out after just a single wear. A new initiative at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is slowly changing that scenario, repurposing the socks for the homeless.

  Penn CAREs Public Health Community
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  Identifying Food Insecurity, Even in Pennsylvania's Wealthiest County

  July 26, 2017

  Chester County is the wealthiest county among all 67 counties in Pennsylvania — and yet, more than 25,000 county residents received over $3 million in SNAP (food stamp) benefits because they do not have enough money to consistently put food – let alone healthy food – on the table each night.

  Public Health
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  Tracking the Motivational Power of Wearable Technology

  July 14, 2017

  As debate swirls around the utility, necessity and accuracy of fitness trackers - about half of the current wearable-tech market - Penn researchers are examining whether such technologies and other approaches can bring about behavioral changes that improve a patient’s health and well-being.

  Behavioral Health Public Health Obesity Weight and Eating Disorders
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  Summer Break: Time to Learn or Time to Let Kids Be Kids?

  July 12, 2017

  Summer is becoming a time during which certain children are prone to experience summer learning loss — the loss of academic skills and knowledge over the summer months – and parents are desperately fighting to prevent their children from falling behind. When it comes to keeping their kids academically focused over the summer, Penn Medicine's Martin Franklin says some parents might be overdoing it.

  Education Psychiatry Psychology Public Health
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  Resident Physician Magazine Breaks Silence and Stigma through Creative Expression

  July 07, 2017

  When he was approached by a colleague about writing for a magazine with the theme “unspeakables and ineffables,” Lary Campbell had one idea for a personal essay that kept coming to mind. He had doubts about sharing it, though. The colleague, Lisa Jacobs, knew Campbell was an accomplished playwright and filmmaker who would be a talented contributor to the second issue of the magazine she had founded, Penndulum. She didn’t know that Campbell was HIV positive.

  Psychology Public Health LGBT Infectious Disease
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  When Push Comes to Nudge

  July 03, 2017

  Imagine if health care costs could be dramatically reduced, and outcomes improved without any heavy lifting – no bills would need to be passed, no policies approved, and no major restructuring required. What if we could simply will people to make decisions that resulted in better care and a healthier population?

  Behavioral Health Public Health Health Care Quality and Safety
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  “Science in the Service of the People”

  June 30, 2017

  “Are you unhappy with your environment?” asked the flyer for a Town Hall meeting at the Faith Temple Holy Church in Chester, PA held earlier this month.

  Public Health Pulmonary Medicine
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  How HIV Positive Men Safely Become Fathers

  June 28, 2017

  Last year, Helen Koenig, MD, an infectious disease expert at Penn Medicine, met a married couple faced with an uncommon fertility challenge they wanted to safely overcome: The husband is HIV positive and the wife is not. Every day, 400 babies are born HIV positive around the world, but with newer technologies and discoveries, having healthy, HIV-free children has become a reality for more and more couples.

  Infectious Disease Public Health
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  Addressing Adherence: PrEP’s Achilles Heel

  June 09, 2017

  Prevention is still our best weapon against HIV. One prevention method that has gained a lot of public attention in recent years is pre-exposure prophylaxis, also known as PrEP. Daily PrEP use can lower the risk of getting HIV from sex by more than 90 percent and from injection drug use by more than 70 percent—but the challenge with PrEP, like many other daily medications, is adherence. That’s where Penn Medicine's Helen Koenig and recent Perelman School of Medicine graduate Giffin Daughtridge come in.

  Basic Science Research Public Health Infectious Disease