NIH grant bolsters childhood status epilepticus and epilepsy research in Nigeria

The Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH) has received a new research grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke and Fogarty International Center of the NIH to establish a large childhood status epilepticus (SE) cohort in northern Nigeria with key partners Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH) and Bayero University, and with the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa.

VUMC investigator expands HIV research into South Africa
Carolyn Audet, PhD, assistant professor of Health Policy in the Department of Health Policy and Institute for Global Health, has partnered with Ryan Wagner, PhD, a research fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, to develop a novel HIV testing strategy for individuals living in rural communities.

Vanderbilt, Zambia researchers find delirium in hospitalized patients linked to mortality, disability in Sub-Saharan Africa

“There is a driving unmet need to understand what happens with people’s brains in critical illness in low- and middle-income countries as well as with HIV in all settings. The necessity is now urgent because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Delirium has become the epidemic within the pandemic — and it’s the strongest predictor of long-term acquired cognitive impairment after critical illness. These are bread and butter issues people care about: will I live or die and if I live, what will I be like as a person?” said Wesley Ely, MD, MPH, co-director of the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship Center at VUMC and senior author.

Study incorporates genetics with smoking history to identify high-risk smokers for lung cancer screening
Wei Zheng, MD, PhD, the Anne Potter Wilson Professor of Medicine and director of the Vanderbilt Epidemiology Center, and colleagues incorporated a polygenic risk score they developed using GWAS-identified risk variants for lung cancer in the analysis of data from the UK Biobank, which collected data and biospecimens from approximately 500,000 people aged 40-69 from England, Scotland and Wales.

Preterm births in Tennessee decreased during pandemic
“Our study, coupled with similar studies from Europe, provide initial evidence that COVID-19 stay at home orders were associated with reductions in spontaneous preterm birth. While encouraging, we need to ensure other pregnancy complications, like stillbirth, did not increase during this time period,” said Stephen Patrick, MD, a neonatologist and director of The Center for Child Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.

2020 Tennessee Men’s Health Report Card: Overall improvement, work to be done
“Men’s health seems to be hidden in plain sight. We’ve known for more than 100 years that men have a shorter life span than women, but men’s health tends not to get the attention that the health profile suggests it deserves,” Derek Griffith, professor of medicine, health and society and founder and director of the CRMH, said. “This is not to take resources away from women’s health or maternal child health but to recognize that men’s health also is important to our families, communities and state.”