Today we’re sharing an episode of the show Trending Globally, from our friends at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. In our last episode we talked about the new safe injection site coming to Rhode Island this summer. Trending Globally released an episode earlier this month about the new safe injection site as well, and we wanted to share it with you. In this episode, Trending Globally’s host Dan Richards talks to Colleen Daley Ndoye, the executive director of Project Weber/RENEW, the organization running the new site, and to Brandon Marshall, a School of Public Health faculty member researching substance use and harm reduction.

If you like Trending Globally, you can find more episode of their show at trending-globally.captivate.fm or by searching "Trending Globally" wherever you get your podcasts.

Providence, Rhode Island is set to become the location of the first state-sanctioned safe injection site in the country. Professor Brandon del Pozo, who spent over two decades serving as a police officer, has researched the impact these sites have had on the neighborhoods in New York City where two centers opened in 2021. He discusses what he found and how he envisions police and public services can work in coordination to improve public health.

Professor Jennifer Nuzzo, epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health, joins host Megan Hall for a timely update on the recent outbreaks of H5N1 Bird Flu.

Different countries around the world have very different ways of providing health care. In order to learn from these varied systems—each with its own unique goals and priorities—and to compare their outcomes, researchers must devise new methodologies of working with highly sensitive data to overcome not only language differences, but vast organizational, operational and infrastructure differences between countries.

Brown’s new Center for Health System Sustainability (CHeSS), led by Professor Irene Papanicolas, aims to standardize data from across global health systems, then compare them in order to inform policy choices and improve health care value and patient care.

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MPH student Rosemelly Jimenez Medal comes from a family of truckers—her father has worked as a short-haul trucker for over 25 years. The cab of a commercial truck can be a noisy place, and she noticed that her father was having trouble hearing conversations at the family dinner table. Could there be a link between his job and his hearing loss?

To find the answer, Jimenez Medal teamed up with her father and noise researcher Erica Walker, RGSS Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Brown University, to conduct hearing screenings on short-term truckers in her home state of California.

Host Megan Hall interviews Jimenez Medal and Walker to discuss their project and their findings.

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Join host Dan Richards as he talks with experts about some of the world’s most pressing public policy challenges, and how to fix them .Subscribe to Trending Globally wherever you get your podcasts.

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Liz Tobin-Tyler is a public health lawyer. She works on reproductive rights, maternal and child health, domestic violence and poverty—and the health policies around those issues—from a legal point of view. Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court is deciding whether or not firearms should be restricted for people convicted of domestic abuse. Professor Tobin-Tyler talks us through the public health implications of this decision, and those leading up to it. She also explains why there should be a lawyer in every hospital, and discusses the important role of storytelling, in the courts and in public health.

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And one last thing! If you enjoyed today’s episode, text a friend and let them know about the show.

When humanitarian catastrophes erupt around the world, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by the scale of suffering. How do aid workers navigate the immense challenges in order to jump into action—juggling safety, equipment and logistics? Emergency doctors Craig Spencer and Adam Levine, veterans of public health disasters across the globe, join host Megan Hall to explain how this kind of aid works, and to demystify the humanitarian response in Gaza today.

We all understand the dangers of smoking—but the debate over vapes, nicotine pouches and other tobacco alternatives rages on: Can vaping really save lives? Or are nicotine alternatives a slippery slope: a dangerous gateway to lifelong substance use? Professors Jasjit Ahluwalia and Jennifer Tidey have spent their careers researching and fighting the global scourge of tobacco-related diseases and fatalities. The two public health professionals discuss their takes on a harm reduction and how it applies to the modern nicotine landscape.