Dean's Lecture Series

The public health/health care system response to the COVID-19 pandemic in Pennsylvania

Dr. Esther Chernak, Director of the Center for Public Health Readiness and Communication and Associate Clinical Professor at Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health, discusses Pennsylvania's health care system response to COVID-19.

This presentation provided a comparison of data on the epidemic in Pennsylvania vs. other states, offered a framework for the theoretical range of public health/health care response options, highlighted some response strategies from other parts of the country/world, and focused on the public health/healthvcare response in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

The COVID-19 pandemic: Lessons learned from the China experience 

Yuanli Liu, Ph.D., Dean, School of Public Health, Peking Union Medical College will provided a comprehensive review of the major interventions undertaken in China in response to COVID-19 and extracted lessons that can be learned from China by other countries.

Simple principles for interpreting complex models: How to make sense of COVID-19 projections

David Dowdy, Associate Professor of Infectious Disease Epidemiology (Affiliate Infections Disease Dynamics Group), Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, outlined a series of simple principles that can be applied in a matter of minutes to make heads or tails of the latest model-based projections (regarding how many people will get sick, how many ventilators we will need, the impact of different control measures, etc.) related to the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Mental Health and the COVID Pandemic

Presented by Dr. M. Danielle Fallin, Sylvia and Harold Halpert Professor and Chair, Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD.

Uncertainty is a natural stressor, and adverse psychological symptoms can be amplified during a time of crisis, especially among those with chronic mental and behavioral health conditions. This pandemic is also pairing stress with measures of social distancing that can contribute to feelings of isolation and add challenges of sharing time and space with family members. This session summarized recent findings on the psychological effects of the pandemic, as well as offered some strategies for prevention and intervention as the pandemic, and its after-effects, continue.