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 study

Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcast

Stay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.

Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube

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/podcast

Stay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.

Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube

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/podcast

Stay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.

Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube

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/podcast

Stay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.

Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube

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/podcast

Stay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.

Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube

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 story

Learn more about this episode and others at keck.usc.edu/pphs/podcast

Stay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.

Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube

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/podcast

Stay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.

Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube

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/podcast

Stay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.

Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube

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/podcast

Stay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.

Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube

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/podcast

Stay in the loop - subscribe to the Preventive Dose newsletter for monthly news straight to your inbox.

Follow us on social - find us at @uscpphs

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• X
• YouTube