School Notes: School of Public Health
May/June 2018

An alternative vaccination strategy for meningitis

In sub-Saharan Africa, meningococcal meningitis results in sporadic epidemics. While all people are susceptible, young children are at the highest risk, and over 50 percent of those infected will die if not diagnosed and treated. An international team of scientists led by Reza Yaesoubi, assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health, created a novel mathematical model of meningococcal epidemics in Burkina Faso and found that the introduction of newer polyvalent conjugate vaccines into the routine immunization schedule—in combination with a catch-up campaign during which children and young adults were also given the polyvalent conjugate vaccine—was both cost-effective and potentially cost-saving.

Postdoc appears on Netflix science show

When YSPH postdoctoral associate Vincent Cannataro responded to a Twitter hashtag, #BillMeetScienceTwitter, created by scientists to enhance the work of well-known TV presenter Bill Nye, aka Bill Nye the Science Guy, he didn’t expect to meet the man himself. Yet a short time later, in mid-July, he was on his way to Los Angeles to film a segment for Nye’s Netflix series, Bill Nye Saves the World. In the program, real-world scientists team up with Nye to demystify a wide array of scientific topics for a general audience. Cannataro and Nye demonstrated the evolution of antibiotic resistance and the power of superbugs.

Positive attitudes about aging reduce risk of dementia in older adults

Older persons who have acquired positive beliefs about old age from their surrounding culture are less likely to develop dementia, a YSPH–led study in PLOS ONE has found. This protective effect was found for all participants, as well as among those carrying a gene that puts them at higher risk of developing dementia. Older persons with positive age beliefs who carry one of the strongest risk factors for developing dementia—the ε4 variant of the APOE gene—were nearly 50 percent less likely to develop the disease than their peers who held negative age beliefs.