Dr. Deborah Lawlor is the First Woman Awardee of the Richard Doll Prize

The International Epidemiological Association (IEA) awarded Dr. Deborah Lawlor the 2024 Richard Doll Prize. The Association's highest honor, the Richard Doll Prize is named after a British physician and epidemiologist whose pioneering contributions to the field included linking smoking to deleterious health outcomes and characterizing the relationship between asbestos and lung cancer. The IEA established the Richard Doll Prize in 2007 and awards it every three years to an epidemiologist who has “advanced our understanding of the determinants of a disease of importance for health in populations through a body of research,” often over a series of studies. This year is the first time this honor has been given to a woman epidemiologist.

Dr. Lawlor’s work centers on perinatal and reproductive health, and she has also made pivotal contributions in triangulation of evidence to improve causal inference. She co-authored “Triangulation in Aetiological Epidemiology,” an article which effectively defined triangulation of evidence as “The practice of strengthening causal inferences by integrating results from several different approaches, where each approach has different (and assumed to be largely unrelated) key sources of potential bias.” Within reproductive and perinatal research, randomized control trials are often not possible, which makes triangulation of evidence critically important. Her research in Artificial Reproductive Technology has helped to identify the optimal number of embryos for transfer in women of differing age groups (i.e., under vs. over 40 years of age). Dr. Lawlor’s achievements will be honored in the opening session of the World Congress of Epidemiology, to be held September 24-27, 2024 in Cape Town, South Africa.
 

National Public Health Week and The Invisible Shield Docu-Series

National Public Health Week kicks off April 1, and in that spirit, one of the things we’re looking forward to is watching The Invisible Shield. This four-part documentary (streaming March 26 on PBS) looks at the history, purpose, scope, and future of public health. It addresses the public health achievements we have come to take for granted, and discusses how under typical circumstances public health functions unseen, and how that invisibility was lost, perhaps indefinitely, during the pandemic. The documentary also covers the outdated American public health system which is in need of repair, how the erosion of public trust compromises the effectiveness of public health, and how after years of progress we are beginning to see a decline in life expectancy.
 

“Ready or Not” Public Health Preparedness Report Released

In mid-March, Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) released their report “Ready or Not: Protecting the Public’s Health from Diseases, Disasters, and Bioterrorism,” which gauges preparedness and strength of public health systems. TFAH was founded in 2001 to be a “nonprofit, nonpartisan public health policy, research, and advocacy organization that promotes optimal health for every person and community and makes the prevention of illness and injury a national priority.” This is the 21^st edition of “Ready or Not,” one of their annual publications since 2002. TFAH aims to track indicators over several years for consistency, primarily based on National Health Security Preparedness Index (NHSPI) measures as well as state public health funding trends external to the NHSPI.

The evaluation criteria for “Ready or Not” include nine indicators (nurse licensure compact; accreditation (indicators 2 and 3); public health funding; community water system safety; access to paid time off; flu vaccination rate; patient safety in hospitals; public health laboratory surge capacity). Performance in these indicators led to three readiness levels (high, middle, and low). The District of Columbia and 21 states including Colorado, Kansas, and Tennessee were scored in the high-performance tier. Thirteen states scored in the middle-performance tier, and 16 states in the low-performance tier including California, Kentucky, and Texas.

Some points of interest included the following:

♦         Public health funding increased or remained stable in 37 states.

♦         All but four states (California, Missouri, Utah and Virginia) have written plans for six- to eight-week lab-testing surge capacity in response to an outbreak or public health emergency.

♦         The report found just 25% of US hospitals received an average “A” grade for patient safety, meaning these facilities are well-prepared in measures like intensive care capacity, prevention of hospital-acquired infections, error prevention, and their ability to navigate public health emergencies.

♦         The report also included a special feature on extreme heat health impacts and higher risks for specific sub-populations such as pregnant people, the elderly, and those living in public housing.

In light of findings, the report outlines seven priority areas for policy action at the federal, state, local, and territorial levels: (1) stable and sufficient funding for public health security; (2) effective leadership and coordination; (3) prevention and response to outbreaks and pandemics; (4) resilient communities and health equity in preparedness; (5) accelerate development and distribution of medical countermeasures; (6) healthcare system response and recovery; (7) prepare for environmental threats and extreme weather.
 

Plague and Measles

In early March, New Mexico reported a death from plague. The U.S. annual average is seven cases of plague, with a range of 1 to 17. The two regions most commonly reporting plague cases are in the southwest (Northern New Mexico, northern Arizona, and southern Colorado) and the west (California, southern Oregon, and far western Nevada).

Thus far in 2024 we’ve had 64 measles cases reported across 17 states from California to Florida. As reference points, in all of 2023 there were 58 cases, and in all of 2022 there were 121 cases.  
 

On the Lighter Side…

We’d like to leave you with this meme from the fantastic Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Instagram account, which we have been greatly enjoying.

Source: @johnshopkinssph Instagram account

Captioned: “Here for the Victorian Era memes, not the Victorian Era diseases? Unfortunately, the latter have cropping back up recently…”