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What do variants and vaccines mean for COVID-19’s ‘new normal’?
people standing outside in a line wearing masks

What do variants and vaccines mean for COVID-19’s ‘new normal’?

The first of this fall’s Perry World House ‘The World Today’ series featured a conversation on the future of the pandemic with experts in vaccines, viruses, and public health.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Ensuring a safe learning, research, and working environment on campus
two people walking down locust walk wearing masks

Alongside COVID-19 vaccination requirements, Gateway testing, and other public health guidelines, Penn has been working to ensure that its public health guidance and facilities are ready as students, faculty, and staff reconvene on campus.

Ensuring a safe learning, research, and working environment on campus

Penn Today provides information on current public health guidelines and measures in place around ventilation, filtration, and housekeeping to promote a safe and healthy fall semester.

Erica K. Brockmeier

Coding the emotions that anti-tobacco ads evoke
A person sitting outside on a silver metal bench wearing a black and white skirt, a white shirt, and blue blazer. Plants are visible to the right and to the left. Junior Gabriela Montes de Oca from Houston has a background working on public health issues and supporting marginalized populations as part of Penn’s United Minorities Council, as a member of the First-Generation, Low-Income Dean’s Advisory Board, and through her role as a Penn Civic Scholar. This summer, in addition to interning in the lab of Andy Tan, she worked on Covid-19 testing and vaccinations at Sayre Health Center.

Coding the emotions that anti-tobacco ads evoke

Sophomore Oulaya Louaddi and junior Gabriela Montes de Oca interned this summer with Annenberg’s Andy Tan, helping the research team design and test culturally appropriate anti-smoking campaigns for young women who identify as sexual minorities.

Michele W. Berger

In-person requirements decreased WIC participation during the pandemic
Sign in grocery store windows indicating that SNAP is welcomed there.

In-person requirements decreased WIC participation during the pandemic

Prior to the pandemic, only about half of all eligible families received WIC benefits. In a recent study in JAMA, Penn Medicine researchers examined one way in which these burdens may have worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

From Penn LDI

How to connect communities to colorectal cancer screening
A pair of hands holding a cancer screening kit vial in one hand and paperwork in another extended to a person standing in a park.

A FIT Kit comes in an envelope and includes instructions, a prepaid return mailing envelope, and a small tube to contain a probe that the user will insert into a stool sample to capture a tiny particle. In the lab, the small sample is tested for signs of blood in the stool, which may not be visible. (Image: Penn Medicine Service in Action)

How to connect communities to colorectal cancer screening

Penn Medicine has been on a multiyear journey to both raise the rates of screening for colorectal cancer and increase uptake of follow up care, with the goal of driving down colorectal cancer death rates and addressing inequities

From Penn Medicine Service in Action

HIPAA at 25 remains a work in progress
Folders full of alphabetized medical records on a shelf.

HIPAA at 25 remains a work in progress

Anita Allen argues that while HIPAA has delivered meaningful benefits to consumers, it still needs updating to address new and emerging privacy challenges.

From the Regulatory Review

Long-term COVID and the ADA
microscopic view of coronavirus
  • Q&A

    • Long-term COVID and the ADA

    Jasmine Harris, a disability law expert, shares her thoughts on President Biden’s announcement that long-term COVID sufferers could be protected under the Americans With Disabilities Act

    Kristen de Groot

    Medical anthropologist Fran Barg reflects on three decades at Penn
    A person standing along a black iron fence, one arm hanging over the fence. In the background are trees and a blurred out mural.

    Fran Barg spent more than 30 years at Penn, conducting research that fell at the intersection of medicine and anthropology. Though she technically retired in June 2021, she plans to remain connected to Penn, to the mentoring and research that has enriched her career.

    Medical anthropologist Fran Barg reflects on three decades at Penn

    She spent her career studying the culture of medicine. Through collaborations with colleagues in medicine and anthropology, she’s pinpointed why it’s so crucial to see serious medical problems from both a scientific perspective and a patient one.

    Michele W. Berger