As 2015 comes to a close, we’re taking a walk down memory lane. Public health headlines included Listeria in ice cream, the Animas River mine waste spill, continued Ebola response and recovery, and the loss of too many public health colleagues. Dedicated public health professionals were as busy as ever.
This was also the year we updated our blog with a more dynamic homepage and more subscription options! We hope you’ve enjoyed reading our posts. Many thanks to the APHL staff, members and partners who wrote and contributed to these stories; and thank you to our readers who keep coming back.
Here are the most popular APHL blog posts of 2015:
10. University of Oregon outbreak highlights collaboration between public health and clinical care – As a meningococcal disease outbreak struck this college campus, the public health and clinical care systems had to work quickly and closely to stop this rare but serious disease.
9. From The Lorax to the Laboratory – Vanessa Burrowes shared her story of struggling to find the right career path, discovering public health and feeling like it was the one field that would allow her to “have it all.”
8. Q&A with NewSTEPs: Bringing routine CCHD newborn screening to every state – The Newborn Screening Technical assistance and Evaluation Program (NewSTEPs) is a program of APHL in collaboration with the Colorado School of Public Health that, among other things, supports states that are adding critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) screening to their newborn screening program. But CCHD screening isn’t a laboratory test… So why is APHL involved?
7. The Tenacity of Tuberculosis: MDR-TB – Tuberculosis is the second largest cause of mortality of any single pathogen behind HIV. As the world tries to move toward elimination of this disease, public health faces the next major obstacle to tuberculosis control: multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB).
6. It is never just a cold – Did you know there are more than 200 viruses behind the common cold? What are they and why are they so difficult to control?
5. Newborn Screening: This Tiny Test is a Big Job That’s Always Improving – APHL’s executive director, Scott Becker, responded to the growing concerns about newborn screening timeliness and how newborn screening programs are working to improve.
4. Lab sciences grad program brought me from the yogurt factory to public health – On a whim, Joe Shea decided to check out a seminar on public health grad programs. It was there that he first learned about the Wadsworth Center’s (New York’s state public health laboratory) Master of Science in Laboratory Sciences (MLS) program. Attending that seminar would change the course of his entire career.
3. Newborn screening saved these babies. How are they doing now? – Remember all of those adorable babies we featured on our blog during the 50th Anniversary of Newborn Screening in 2013? We checked back in with some of those families to find out how they’re doing.
2. Dear Dr. Hunt: This female scientist has something to say. And it isn’t that she loves you. – After hearing the sexist comments made by a Nobel Prize winning biochemist, APHL’s director of membership and marketing, Linette Granen, had some choice words to offer in response. As she said, “[W]e can and we have – and we hope to inspire the next generation to do the same.”
And the most popular blog post of 2015…
1. 5 Things You Didn’t Know (but Need to Know) about Listeria – After a few high profile Listeria outbreaks earlier this year, we decided it was time to share some important information about this serious bacteria. Did you know Listeria can grow on foods even while in the cold temperatures of a refrigerator? Yeah… you should probably read this post.
