Better Off

Dry cleaning is an industry that dates back to the 1600s—when turpentine was used to clean fabrics. But now it's an industry in transition amid growing demand for dry cleaning solvents that are less harmful to humans and the environment. At the center of this is a push to replace perchloroethylene (PERC), which is the most commonly used dry cleaning solvent. A range of new chemicals have come on the market, but there are risks because scientists are rarely able to assess a solvent's long-term health effects before it's used commercially. In this week's episode we speak with Diana Ceballos, research scientist at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. We'll discuss why new dry cleaning solvents pose challenges for the industry and regulators, and what the U.S. can learn from Europe when it comes to chemical safety.

In this week's podcast we explore a new discovery in the fight against tuberculosis(TB). It's a disease that infects more than 10 million people a year—killing nearly two million. And while TB is preventable and curable, treatment for the disease can take several months. In this episode we speak with Eric Rubin, Irene Heinz Given Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases in the Department of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, about new research that could one day open the door to much faster treatment of the disease.

It's now been more than a year since the Zika virus gained global attention, sickening a million people in dozens of countries. The epidemic began in early 2015 and was declared a public health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO) in February 2016. WHO declared an end to that emergency in November 2016, but concerns over Zika have lingered, even as new cases have waned. In this week's episode, we speak with Marcia Castro, associate professor of demography in the Department of Global Health and Population at Harvard Chan School. With Castro's help, we’ll take a look at the lingering impact of Zika, what we’ve learned about the virus, and the likelihood of new cases as we enter summer in the United States.

June 1, 2017 — Health officials in Minnesota are now grappling with that state’s largest measles outbreak in several decades. As of May 31, the Minnesota Department of Health had confirmed 70 cases of the disease. The outbreak is being blamed in part on anti-vaccine groups who targeted Somali-Americans, leading to a sharp drop in the number of children receiving the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. In this week’s podcast, we get perspective on the outbreak from childhood vaccine expert Marie McCormick, Sumner and Esther Feldberg Professor of Maternal and Child Health, at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. We spoke with McCormick about the roots of the anti-vaccine movement, as well as communications strategies to ensure that children receive critical immunizations.

Deepali Ravel, PhD '17, studies the malaria parasite and believes biology can be a powerful tool for addressing global health problems. In this week's podcast we speak with Ravel about the challenges scientists face in eradicating malaria—and why she believes that teaching basic biology at an early age is so critical.

May 18, 2017 — Pedro Lamothe-Molina, PhD ’17, is an HIV researcher, aspiring physician-scientist, and an accomplished triathlete. He's also one of the hundreds of future public health leaders who will graduate from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health on May 25, 2017. In this week's podcast, we sit down with Lamothe-Molina to discuss his research, which focuses on a lingering question surrounding HIV: Why do some people with the virus never get sick?

In this week's podcast we share an in-depth interview with Gina McCarthy, former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and currently a Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. During her nearly four years at the helm of the EPA McCarthy helped spearhead the Obama Administration’s efforts to address climate change and increase use of renewable sources of energy. McCarthy has become a vocal advocate for the need to address climate change—and has called on scientists to be more outspoken on the issue. We spoke with McCarthy about the EPA’s critical role in protecting the public’s health, the challenges the agency faces in protecting our water and air—especially in the wake of Flint’s water crisis, and why we should view climate change as an opportunity for innovation.

Structural racism is often called an invisible evil because it's so pervasive, but also hidden in some ways. It involves interconnected institutions—housing, education, health care—that foster discrimination against racial groups. And this structural racism can play a role in health disparities across the United States. In this week's podcast we speak about structural racism and its health effects with Zinzi Bailey, ScD, '14, director of research and evaluation in the Center for Health Equity at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Bailey was recently co-author on a paper in the Lancet, that explored the history of structural racism and health inequities in the United States, and also ways to combat this discrimination moving forward.

In this week's podcast we bring you two stories of disturbing human rights abuses: one developing in real-time, and another that's been lingering for centuries. In the first half of the episode, we speak with Vasileia Digidiki, research fellow at the FXB Center for Health & Human Rights, and Jacqueline Bhabha, director of research at the center, about a disturbing report showing that refugee and migrant children in Greece are turning to prostitution to escape dangerous conditions. And in the second half of the podcast, Bhabha will tell us about a renewed push to address centuries of racism and discrimination targeting the Roma in Europe.

We're now in the midst of a golden era of data. and scientists are constantly finding news ways to harness this information with applications across health care, the environment, commerce, urban planning, finance, and more. In this week's podcast we speak with Francesca Dominici, professor of biostatistics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and David C. Parkes, George F. Colony Professor and area dean for computer science at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Together they will lead Harvard's new Data Science Initiative, applying the theories and practices of statistics and computer science to extract useful knowledge from complex and often messy information sources. Dominici and Parkes will explain how the field of data science has grown, where it’s going, and how it will affect our lives in vast ways over the coming years.