Preventive Pros

Razanne Mihtar and Nicole Tang recently traveled to Kenya with the USC GRIT Lab run by Heather Wipfli, PhD. Hear about their experience implementing a youth ambassador training program with local youth.Mihtar is a sophomore in the BS in Global Health program, with minors in natural science and cinema-television for health professions. Tang is a junior in the BS in Global Health program with a minor in data science, and is a progressive degree student in the MS in Public Health Data Science program.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Lida Chatzi, MD, PhD is professor of population and public health sciences in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at Keck School of Medicine of USC. She has more than 20 years of experience in environmental health research and a track record of research productivity in multi-disciplinary translational settings (R01s, R21s and U01) focusing on the influence of environmental chemical exposures on health outcomes by integrating human population data and experimental study designs. She has demonstrated her leadership skills as Director (USC Center for Translational Research on Environmental Health) and Deputy Director [NIEHS-funded P30 Southern California Environmental Health Science Center (SCEHSC)] in centers featuring novel bench to population team science, community engaged solution-based research, and training/career development at all stages.As a physician, epidemiologist and public health researcher, Chatzi leads an interdisciplinary program of research focused on advancing our understanding of how exposure to environmental chemicals affect metabolic health. Overall, her investigations have focused on the health effects of environmental toxicants classified as endocrine disruptors, including perfluoroalkyl substances, organochlorine pesticides, phenols, phthalates, and metals, on long-term youth health, especially, obesity, type 2 diabetes, and fatty liver disease. As Director of the USC Center for Translational Research on Environmental Health (USC-R-TEN), she is focused on understanding the influence of environmental pollutants on health outcomes by integrating human population-data and multi-omics methods to develop and comprehensive understanding of exposure risk and disease development.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Ans Irfan, MD, EdD, DrPH, ScD MPH, MRPL, associate professor of population and public health sciences in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at Keck School of Medicine of USC, examines the role society and policies play in climate change, the need to confront the big questions, and how we might adjust our approach to improve humanity's outcome.Irfan’s research questions things that are normalized within neoliberalized academy by applying the decolonial lens to re-think existing global environmental research, teaching, and practice paradigms; especially within the climate justice context. Irfan developed and teaches  PM 599: Social Dimensions of Climate Change in a Sustainable World, which introduces students to a wide range of climate health areas, including the foundations of climate science, climate justice, climate coloniality, climate vulnerability, politics of climate change, geoengineering, and climate ethics, and climate communications. His mission is for students to actively contribute to social mobilization around climate change by developing climate and science communications skills and generating public scholarship to raise awareness and mobilize climate action.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Shohreh Farzan, PhD is an environmental epidemiologist, with a background in molecular biology and toxicology. Farzan’s research focuses on the impact of environmental contaminants on maternal-child health, with a special interest in cardiometabolic health. Much of Farzan’s work focuses on the role of environmental exposures in altering preclinical indicators of cardiovascular and metabolic disease risk, particularly during vulnerable lifestages, such as childhood and pregnancy. Within the Maternal and Developmental Risks of Environmental and Social Stressors (MADRES) study, a NIMHD-funded Center of Excellence on Environmental Health Disparities Research, she focuses on the role of prenatal air pollutants and psychosocial stressors on maternal postpartum cardiometabolic health. Farzan also leads multiple studies of the impacts of toxic metals and air pollutants on preclinical biomarkers of cardiovascular dysfunction in children and adolescents, both as PI of a NIEHS R01 to investigate the role of air pollutants in the development of atherosclerosis in the transition from childhood to young adulthood and as MPI of the ECHO LA DREAMERs study. She is also MPI of a NIEHS Research to Action R01 that established the Children’s AIRE cohort to investigate environmental contributors to children’s respiratory health in a rural border region of California to inform community-engaged public health actions and the recipient of a NIEHS K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award.Connie Valencia, MPH, CHES, PhD is a Sustainability Solutions Community Engagement Fellow in the Environmental Justice Research Lab in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences in the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Valencia is a first-generation college Latina, born and raised in Boyle Heights. She earned her BS in Psycho-bio with a minor in Chicano Studies from UCLA; Master’s in Public Health with an emphasis in Environmental Health and Community Health from Cal State University Fullerton (CSUF) and PhD from the University of California Irvine (UCI) Program in Public Health. Her research is focused on understanding the role that neighborhood resources have in engaging residents in discussions on environmental health disparities through qualitative research methods. She also assess the protective role of neighborhood institutions on air pollution exposure among Hispanic/Latino ethnic enclaves through quantitative research methods. She is currently collaborating on the Imperial Valley Respiratory Health & the Environment (AIRE) study.Learn more about the USC Children's AIRE StudyLearn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Jane K. Steinberg, PhD, MPH is an Associate Professor in the Department of Population Sciences and Public Health in the Keck School of Medicine at USC. Trained as a behavioral scientist, her research focuses on determinants of multiple risk behaviors (alcohol/drug use, tobacco and cannabis use) among youth, and the development of effective programs and policy responses to reduce health risks and achieve health equity. Dr. Steinberg also serves as the Director of Public Health Practice for the department. She is currently a co-investigator on a HRSA workforce development grant to develop a career pipeline for MPH students into public health sector careers through scholarships, workforce training, mentorship and career placement opportunities. Dr. Steinberg received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, Davis, and her MPH and PhD in Community Health Sciences from the University California, Los Angeles.Learn more about Trojan Scholars for Advancement in Public HealthMore than a typical scholarship, Trojan Scholars for Advancement in Public Health is a merit-based scholarship and mentorship program that is aimed at training Master of Public Health students to attain knowledge and competencies that will enable them to secure positions in public health organizations that address health disparities and inequities among residents of Los Angeles County.The program will provide full scholarship to select recipients that covers up to 42 units of tuition required to complete MPH training. Scholarship recipients will participate in an academic and career building mentorship program focused on core public health functions and social determinants of health.As part of their training, MPH students will complete an applied practice experience (practicum) in one of the partner organizations that serve areas of Los Angeles County with high proportions of health disparities and underserved residents.Learn more about the Master of Public Health ProgramLearn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Jesse Goodrich, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Environmental Health at the University of Southern California. His research combines data on environmental exposures with information on molecular-level biological processes to understand the effects of environmental pollutants on the risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. He is particularly interested in examining these questions in children and adolescents because they may be more susceptible to the adverse health effects of environmental pollutants.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Zhanghua Chen, PhD is an environmental epidemiologist and biostatistician with multidisciplinary expertise in environmental health, biostatistics, epidemiology, clinical medicine, obesity and diabetes pathophysiology, genomics, metabolomics, and data science. She has a strong track record in environmental health research with particular interests in the health effects of early-life environmental exposures in children and adults, the epidemiology of diabetes and obesity, and methods of multi-omics studies.Chen aims to contribute her research to early prevention and treatment of complex diseases. She is creative, collaborative and highly productive. She is establishing a novel research area in environmental epidemiology by leveraging the advanced metabolomics and multi-omics approaches. Chen is the principal investigator on the NIEHS-supported K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award: “Metabolomic Signatures Linking Air Pollution, Obesity and Diabetes”. She has also published many papers in well-received medical journals such as Diabetes Care and American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Her accomplishments in environmental health research have received wide media attention from national and international news agencies, e.g., Reuters and Xinhua News Agency.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Mariana Stern, PhD is a professor of clinical population and public health sciences and urology, and the Ira Goodman Chair in Cancer Research. Stern is co-lead of the CoGENES program along with Lourdes Baezconde Garbanati, and associate director for population science at USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Stern obtained her undergraduate training in Biology at the University of Buenos Aires, School of Sciences, in Argentina with a focus on molecular and evolutionary genetics. She obtained her PhD in Cancer Biology at the University of Texas-MD Anderson Cancer Center and pursued postdoctoral training in molecular epidemiology at the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health. At USC, she is currently Director for the MS in Applied Biostatistics and Epidemiology program and teaches undergraduates and graduate students. Her overall research interests cut across the following main themes: diet and cancer, clinical epidemiology of prostate cancer, and cancer health disparities in Latino populations.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Fangqi Guo, PhD is a postdoc in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences. Guo's current research focuses on environmental determinants of cardiovascular diseases and the individual-level behavioral and physiological processes that partially explain these environmental-health links. Her PhD research focused on the promotion of early detection of congenital heart disease among infants in underdeveloped areas. More recent analyses investigate childhood psychosocial stress and its long-term effects on cardiovascular health in adulthood. Her research takes a lifespan approach, comparing environmental-health links across life stages.Learn more about work happening in the Division of Environmental Health in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Marlena Schoenberg Fejzo, PhD is a medical scientist whose research focuses on conditions and diseases that primarily affect women. As part of a team of researchers from the United States, United Kingdom and Sri Lanka, she has collected extensive evidence showing the cause of pregnancy sickness: a hormone known as GDF15. Fejzo received a PhD in Genetics from Harvard University in 1995. Currently she works in the Center for Genetic Epidemiology at the University of Southern California and Materna Biosciences, Inc. She has published peer-reviewed scientific articles on ovarian cancer, breast cancer, multiple sclerosis, and discovered the first genes associated with uterine fibroids, nausea and vomiting of pregnancy, and hyperemesis gravidarum. Fejzo is a science advisor and board member for the Hyperemesis Education and Research Foundation, an extensive resource for patients and providers.Resources for mothersResources for friends and familyResources for providersRead the press releaseFejzo has been named one of Time magazine's 2024 'Women of the Year'Support Dr. Fejzo's researchLearn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Arbor Quist, PhD is an environmental epidemiologist interested in community-driven research that addresses climate and environmental injustice. Quist recently completed her PhD in epidemiology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her dissertation examined how hurricane flooding and industrial swine operations, separately and jointly, affect acute gastrointestinal illness. Her research has focused on the ways in which climate change-related disasters exacerbate health disparities. Quist has also worked with communities after hurricane flooding to examine well water contamination and mold concerns in North Carolina to promote community resilience and preparedness. She has also worked on projects examining the neurobehavioral effects of oil spills. Currently, Quist is examining the health effects of oil drilling in South Los Angeles and metal mixture exposure patterns in residents near oil wells.Learn more about the studyLearn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Ricky N. Bluthenthal, PhD is the Associate Dean for Social Justice and a professor in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at Keck School of Medicine of USC. His research has established the effectiveness of syringe exchange programs, tested novel interventions and strategies to reduce HIV risk and improve HIV testing among injection drug users and men who have sex with men, documented how community conditions contribute to health disparities, and examined health policy implementation. His current studies include an observational cohort study of how cannabis legalization impacts use patterns and health outcomes of cannabis and opioids among people who inject drugs and a randomized controlled trial to test the efficacy of a single session intervention to reduce injection initiation risk behaviors among established people who inject drugs. Bluthenthal has authored or co-authored over 180 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals such as the American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, The Lancet, Addiction, and Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research among others.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Jennifer Tsui, PhD, MPH is a health services researcher and cancer population scientist. Her research focuses on disparities in cancer care delivery and cancer outcomes, particularly among racial/ethnic minority and low-income populations. Tsui leads a five year study funded by the American Cancer Society to investigate health care organizational and delivery factors that impact care transitions among breast and colorectal cancer patients with Medicaid coverage. Her other areas of research focus on HPV vaccination and barriers to uptake in low-income minority communities as well as disparities in cancer screening in racial/ethnic minority populations at the local, state, and national levels. Tsui's work utilizes cancer registry information, population-based surveys, geographic/spatial data, and administrative health care data to understand multilevel influences on patterns of care and care quality for cancer patients.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Roksana Karim, PhD, MBBS is an epidemiologist researching women's health, particularly the impact of menopause and sex hormone concentrations on atherosclerosis/cardiovascular disease and other age-related chronic inflammatory outcomes including bone density and cognition. Karim also has vast interest in HIV-associated endocrine and cardiovascular complications in women and children. Karim has over 60 publications from NIH-funded studies and has received multiple awards and recognition for her research.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Genevieve Dunton, PhD, MPH is a professor of population and public health sciences and psychology, and chief of the Division of Health Behavior Research in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at Keck School of Medicine of USC. Dunton's research examines health behaviors related to chronic disease risk in children and adults, with a focus on physical activity and nutrition. Dunton is the Director of the USC REACH (Real-Time Eating Activity and Children's Health) lab, whose goals are to develop, test, and apply real-time data capture methodologies and applications, using smartphones and wearable sensors, to better understand the effects of psychological, social, and environmental factors on eating and physical activity. She is the PI on numerous studies funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society, author of over 250 peer-reviewed publications, and past Chair of the American Public Health Association Physical Activity Section. Dunton is also past Chair of the National Physical Activity Plan Public Health Sector Committee and past member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Implementation of Physical Activity Surveillance Strategies. Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Adam de Smith, PhD is an assistant professor of population and public health sciences in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at Keck School of Medicine of USC. He is a member of the USC Center for Genetic Epidemiology and the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. de Smith is a genetic epidemiologist with a research focus on identifying the causes of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), the most common childhood cancer. He leads studies investigating the role of common and rare genetic variants in ALL etiology, with a particular interest in elucidating the increased ALL risk in Latinos. He also leads a study of leukemia in children with Down syndrome, the International Study of Down Syndrome Acute Leukemia (IS-DSAL), investigating genetic and epigenetic variation associated with risk of DS-ALL. In addition, de Smith utilizes whole genome sequencing of tumors to examine potential causative agents such as DNA mutational signatures as molecular footprints of environmental exposures.Read the storyLearn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Olivier Pernet, PhD is an assistant professor of research pediatrics at Keck School of Medicine of USC. He is a virologist with over 15 years of research experience in the field of emerging zoonotic viruses, with a special attention on bat related diseases such as Nipah Virus, Ebola Virus, SARS-CoV-1, and SARS-CoV-2. Pernet's work focuses on host-virus interactions and how to use them for biomedical applications like outbreak preparedness, surveillance, high-throughput serology, drug discovery, and gene therapy.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Albert Farias, PhD is an assistant professor in the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. His research is devoted to helping eliminate racial/ethnic disparities in cancer outcomes by furthering the understanding of how the provision of medical care contributes to racial/ethnic disparities in cancer incidence and outcomes. Farias has applied his academic training with a unique perspective as a first-generation college graduate to explain the existence of racial/ethnic health disparities and identify health inequities in cancer care.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Daniel Stram, PhD, is a professor of population and public health sciences. His research is on general biostatistical issues in epidemiology, and he is a long time collaborator on a number of important prospective (cohort) studies of cancer and other diseases. These include the Atomic Bomb Survivors Study, the Multiethnic Cohort Study, and the Children's Health Study.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube

Rachel Carmen Ceasar, PhD is an assistant professor of clinical population and public health sciences and a medical anthropologist. She leads the USC Maternal Cannabis Lab, where qualitative and quantitative research is conducted to document the historic and systematic inequities people face when they use cannabis during pregnancy. The goal in this work is to partner with maternal health providers, patients, and cannabis dispensaries to develop person-centered and harm reduction-based curriculum and education that supports--rather than criminalizes—parents.Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcastStay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs InstagramTikTokFacebookLinkedInXYouTube