Health Sciences In The Media

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released new guidance making it easier for more medical professionals to prescribe a common medication to treat opioid abuse. "It seems like less than a fifth of people with opioid use disorder are on methadone or buprenorphine or have access to it," said Dr. Melody Glenn, an assistant professor in the College of Medicine – Tucson's Department of Emergency Medicine. According to Benjamin Robert Brady, a researcher with the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health, a little more than 2,300 providers had received their waivers to administer buprenorphine in Arizona.

Mexican-American children north of the U.S.-Mexico border generally live in cleaner, healthier homes than those to the south. And yet, they have much higher rates of asthma. Scientists at the University of Arizona Health Sciences think exposure to some kinds of bacteria may be a good thing when it comes to asthma. They’re recruiting mothers and babies in Tucson and Nogales to test that idea, called “the hygiene hypothesis.” Interview with Dr. Fernando Martinez, director of the Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center.

The colorectal oncology team at the University of Arizona Cancer Center and Banner-University Medicine has earned accreditation from the National Accreditation Program for Rectal Cancer.

Health researchers are calling for more training and workflow improvement processes to ensure improved equity in the nation's system that manages organ transplants. "These are areas that need more study," said Dr. Khadijah Breathett, assistant professor with the College of Medicine – Tucson. "We need to initiate evidence-based bias reduction and anti-racism programs that lead to consistent change in the way that we do things. We have to figure out how to avoid subjective assessments, so we can start to make this process more equitable."

Second-year College of Medicine – Tucson student Gabrielle “Gabi” Mintz has been awarded the Shirley D. Curson Medical Student Scholarship from the UArizona Hillel Foundation.

With COVID-19, the American paradox has just found a new illustration in Arizona, as in other states of the country elsewhere, where the supply of vaccine now greatly exceeds demand. "For many reasons, many of those who are eligible for vaccination choose to wait or refuse the vaccine completely," says Joe Gerald, associate professor of public health policy and management at the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. "Some, for fear of side effects or on principle. There is also a strong partisan bias among many of the reluctant. But to get out of it, we have to convince them to get vaccinated."

Kacey Ernst, a professor of epidemiology at the College of Public Health, acknowledges that breakthrough transmission risks outdoors are much lower than indoors, but “not all outdoor spaces are the same.” Ernst added, "Some are very sparsely populated — think hiking trails in remote areas. Others are much more crowded — outdoor festivals, concerts."

Anecdotal reports of people with prolonged COVID-19 symptoms improving after getting the vaccine are encouraging, but scientists say more evidence is needed to prove any connection. What complicates the anecdotal reports that some long-haulers are getting better after the vaccine is the fact that some long-haulers' symptoms have been improving and even resolving over time, said Dr. Marilyn Glassberg, chief of the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine at the College of Medicine – Phoenix.

Dr. Murtaza Akhter, an emergency physician at the College of Medicine – Phoenix, is interviewed about mask mandates and ways to stay safe amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

A more relaxed definition of herd immunity is more achievable, one where enough natural infections and vaccinations prevent massive surges in COVID-19 cases, said Dr. Joe Gerald, an associate professor with the College of Public Health. By this measure, herd immunity is possible, he said. “I think there are enough people who are either naturally immune or vaccine immune that we’re just not gonna see the same size and scale of outbreaks.”