Tulane to lead new CDC center for public health emergency preparedness across South Central US
The Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at Tulane University joins Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and six other leading universities as the site of one of a series of new regional centers the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is establishing around the country to help regions better prepare for future pandemics and other public health emergencies. The Region 6 Center for Health Security and Response Readiness will address critical gaps in crisis preparedness in public health systems across Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, and 68 federally recognized tribal nations. Funded by a $4 million, five-year CDC grant, it is one of 10 regional centers to be established nationwide to advance and implement new evidence-based strategies and interventions. Keep reading >>
Is climate change stressing us out? New study aims to find out
Tulane University has been awarded $1 million from the National Academy of Sciences’ Gulf Research Program to investigate how climate-induced factors impact mental health outcomes in five Gulf South states: Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Over the next three years, the project will assess this by mapping which communities are most vulnerable to several climate-induced factors – heat, air pollution, tropical cyclones, power outages, precipitation, drought, and relative humidity – and comparing that to reported mental health-related emergency room visits among Medicare and Medicaid patients. Keep reading >>
Can a newly developed drug cure a common, yet little known, STI?
Researchers at Tulane University are leading a groundbreaking study to seek a more effective treatment for trichomoniasis, an infection that, despite being the most common curable sexually transmitted infection (STI) worldwide, continues to fly under the radar. The five-year, multi-center study is funded by a $9.2 million National Institutes of Health grant and will compare the effectiveness of a recently approved medication, secnidazole, against the current standard treatment, metronidazole, using a 1,200-person cohort across Louisiana, Alabama, and Florida. Despite decades of use as the primary trichomoniasis medication, treatment by metronidazole continues to have a 10% breakthrough rate. Keep reading >>
