Health Sciences In The Media

Arizona has seen daily case and hospitalization numbers decline, though deaths are still on the rise, climbing from an average of about 61 a day last week to almost 79 as of Tuesday. "We have reason to be hopeful, but we are by no means out of the woods," tweeted Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD, a professor of epidemiology at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health.

Researchers at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health are partnering with organizations across the state to implement interventions aimed at protecting Arizonans from heat hazards with $2 million in funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Researchers at the University of Arizona are working on a promising treatment to reduce the risk of dementia in patients who have had a stroke. Kristian Doyle, associate professor of immunobiology, University of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson, said they are investigating a drug that helps the brain safely store cholesterol after a stroke without provoking an inflammatory response.

SARS-CoV-2 has given scientists a plethora of vaccines to evaluate. The response after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, for instance, elicits a weaker immune response than the mRNA vaccines initially, “and then it actually starts to get better over time,” says Deepta Bhattacharya, PhD, a professor and immunologist at the College of Medicine – Tucson.

University of Arizona Health Sciences researchers discovered a potential treatment to reduce the risk of post-stroke dementia, which may be influenced by the immune response to dead brain tissue left in the wake of a stroke, according to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

The two poison centers in Arizona have seen a significant increase in poisonings related to fentanyl from illicit M30 tablets. These counterfeit pills are very dangerous and can be so toxic they cause death. Steve Dudley, PharmD, DABAT, clinical toxicologist and director of the UArizona Poison and Drug Information Center, is quoted.

This free service is part of a research project on fatty liver, particularly non-alcoholic, at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman Arizona College of Public Health, which seeks to estimate the presence of scarring and fat in the liver of Hispanic inhabitants of Southern Arizona.

The U.S. healthcare industry is poised to grow tremendously over the next decade, but that doesn't mean its workers will reap the benefits. Not even doctors are safe from the crushing weight of debt anymore. Daniel Derksen, MD, a professor of public health at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, said he's seen doctors in his state flock in greater numbers to places like Phoenix and Tucson, where the pay is greater.

The former director of the FDA suggests starting to lift pandemic-related restrictions, including mask wearing. Shad Marvasti, MD, associate professor of family and community medicine at the College of Medicine in Phoenix – disagrees. Dr. Marvasti says the lifting of mask requirements is one of the reasons why that approach led to Arizona being the second highest in deaths per capita nationally.

Mask-wearing in childcare programs is linked with fewer COVID-19-related program closures, new data released suggest. Paloma Beamer, PhD, a professor in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, has a 3-year-old son who wears masks at daycare and works closely with his school to train kids how to wear their masks.