CPH Student Research

Public health doctoral candidate’s dissertation awarded in university-wide Three Minute Thesis competition

Taylor Thomas — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 14:56:30 +0000

Public health doctoral candidate’s dissertation awarded in university-wide Three Minute Thesis competition Taylor Thomas Mon, 12/08/2025 - 09:56

Rooshna Mohsin, a PhD in public health student, was this year’s third-place winner in �鶹��Ƶ’s annual Three Minute Thesis (3MT) competition, a research communication competition for PhD candidates across the university. Competitors are judged on their ability to present the significance of their dissertation or thesis research using a single slide and within a strict three-minute time limit.

Rooshna Mohsin. Photo provided.

Mohsin offered a compelling presentation on dietary and social exposure to PFAS (Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), commonly known as forever chemicals, among Hispanic children.

“I found that animal-based foods were associated with higher levels of some PFAS, while taking part in free/reduced school-based meal programs were associated with lower levels. When analyzing associations between PFAS and vitamin D, we found some PFAS were associated with higher levels of vitamin D, which may imply interference of PFAS in vitamin D metabolism in the body,” Mohsin explained of her research’s key findings.

Her full work is entitled Balancing the Risks: Dietary and Social Predictors of PFAS Exposure and Associated Health Outcomes in Hispanic Children.

Mohsin intends to build upon her findings next steps by evaluating the associations between PFAS and cardio metabolic measures (blood pressure and cholesterol) in Hispanic children, which are pediatric measures of heart disease later in life.

The competition took place on November 7, 2025, and was organized by the Graduate Division of the Provost’s Office. PhD students from the College of Education and Human Development, College of Engineering and Computing, College of Humanities and Social Science, College of Public Health, and College of Science participated. A panel of eight judges evaluated the presentations on a diverse range of topics, including the integration of Gen-AI in K-12 classrooms and novel approaches to combating bacteria and biofilms.

Congratulations to all 3MT winners!

Topics

PhD in Public Health

College of Public Health

Is AI more helpful than humans in health care?

Taylor Thomas — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 13:35:18 +0000

Is AI more helpful than humans in health care? Taylor Thomas Thu, 04/11/2024 - 09:35

The use of artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly expanding to increase productivity and quality in both personal and professional settings, performing tasks previously thought only humans were capable of completing. Like other industries, health care is implementing this technology to enhance patient experiences and improve health outcomes, specifically using conversational agents like chatbots and AI-based conversational large language models (LLM), such as ChatGPT. Conversational agent apps have been developed for personalized health coaching, blood pressure monitoring, medication reminders and motivational coaching for healthy eating and physical activity to name a few.

The eHealth market relies on a direct-to-consumer business model that avoids costly regulatory compliance studies that assess their effectiveness. Chatbot apps offer the potential to improve consumer uptake and treatment adherence leading to a stable business revenue base. However, research conducted by Public Health PhD candidate Kevin Cevasco and colleagues concluded that despite popular claims, there is not enough evidence to conclude chatbots have better patient uptake and adherence than non-chatbot apps, such as in addressing anxiety and depression care.

“It is unclear if chatbots improve patient experiences or if trends to include chatbots in electronic health applications are due to technology hype cycles and pressures to innovate,” said Cevasco. “The real impact of chatbot-enabled applications is largely unknown.”

Cevasco and team reached these conclusions after conducting a systematic literature review and meta-analysis which sought to confirm if publications proclaiming the efficacy of electronic health (eHealth) chatbots provide measures for user engagement, adherence, and working alliance.

“We selected studies where chatbot applications were patient-facing with health education, monitoring, or treatment-related purposes. We selected studies with primary measures that were focused on the user’s health outcomes and engagement with the applications,” said Cevasco.

After thorough screening, Cevasco and team discovered that there are very few randomized controlled trials on eHealth chatbot applications. From the small sample of publications available, the documented evidence suggests that patient engagement with chatbot eHealth applications is not conclusively better than human interventions or apps without conversational agents.

“The small number of studies available suggests researchers should include methods for measuring patient uptake, engagement, and working alliance in their ongoing conversational agent research.”

Despite the few research studies that support the claims of AI’s effectiveness in health care settings, Cevasco and colleagues’ work expands on the future implications of the clinical applications of LLMs. Currently, 50% of patients do not adhere to their prescribed medication regimens, and Cevasco is optimistic about the potential for AI to improve patient care if developed and implemented correctly.

“Although chatbots have the potential for improving personalized medicine by increasing health literacy and providing easily available and understandable health information, it is important the applications have the capacity to address the complexity of different health challenges,” said Cevasco

Contributing authors include College of Public Health MPH in Epidemiology alumna Rachel Morrison, PhD in Health Services Research student Rediet (Redd) Woldeselassie, and Seth Kaplan, professor of Psychology in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

“Patient engagement with conversational agents in health applications 2016-2022: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis" was published online April 10, 2024, in the Journal of Medical Systems.

Topics

digital innovation

Patient Experience

PhD in Public Health

public health research

Tech Talent Investment Program (TTIP)

Artificial Intelligence

CPH Student Research

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in menstrual products including tampons, pads, and liners

Mary Cunningham — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 16:18:54 +0000

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals found in menstrual products including tampons, pads, and liners Mary Cunningham Fri, 12/15/2023 - 11:18

In This Story

Anna Pollack, PhD, MPH

Joanna Marroquin, a �鶹��Ƶ PhD in Public Health student

The average menstruator will use more than 11,000 tampons or sanitary pads in their lifetime. Vaginal and vulvar tissue that touch pads and tampons is highly permeable. Through this permeable tissue chemicals are absorbed without being metabolized, which makes endocrine-disrupting chemicals potentially dangerous when found in menstrual products. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals can interfere with human hormones and cause medical issues, including gynecological conditions such as endometriosis and uterine fibroids.

�鶹��Ƶ researchers Joanna Marroquin, a PhD in Public Health student, and Anna Pollack, an associate professor in the College of Public Health, reviewed studies conducted since 2103 that measured chemicals in menstrual products and that measured human biomarkers of chemical exposure and determined that endocrine-disrupting chemicals were found in menstrual products including tampons, pads, and liners.

“Identifying chemicals in menstrual products that menstruators regularly use is important because exposure through these products can impact menstruators’ reproductive health,” said Marroquin, the paper’s first author.

Associate Professor Anna Pollack

The study found that menstrual products contain a variety of endocrine-disrupting chemicals including phthalates, volatile organic compounds, parabens, environmental phenols, fragrance chemicals, dioxins and dioxin-like compounds.

This issue is even more relevant thanks to the Robin Danielson Menstrual Product and Intimate Care Product Safety Act of 2023, which was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in October 2023. The Act would establish a program of research regarding the risks posed by the presence of dioxins, phthalates, pesticides, chemical fragrances, and other components in menstrual products and intimate care products.

This literature reviewed 15 papers published between 2013 and 2023 that tested menstrual products in the United States, Japan, and South Korea. The researchers note that there are few publications available that measure chemicals in menstrual products.

Additionally, though forever chemicals (PFAS) have been found in menstrual underwear, there is a lack of peer-reviewed research on menstrual underwear and other newly-popular-in-the-U.S. products such as menstrual cups and discs.

Chemicals in menstrual products: A systematic review was published in BJOG, an international journal of obstetrics and gynecology in September 2023. Additional authors include Marianthi-Anna Kiomourtzoglou from Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University and Alexandra Scranton from Women's Voices for the Earth.

The research was supported by Pollack's National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences R01ES31079 award.

Topics

Women's Reproductive Health

Endocrine disrupting chemicals

Building support for endometriosis, the invisible condition that will affect 1 in 10 biological females

ckearney — Thu, 29 Sep 2022 15:06:18 +0000

Building support for endometriosis, the invisible condition that will affect 1 in 10 biological females ckearney Thu, 09/29/2022 - 11:06

In This Story

Jhumka Gupta, ScD

Anna Pollack, PhD, MPH

In 2014, Julia Mandeville was informed that she had stage 4 endometriosis. Just two years later, she co-founded the organization Barbados Association of Endometriosis and PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) to raise awareness, support, and research efforts toward the condition.

“When I started my PhD, I was determined to find out more about endometriosis and how it affects Black women.”

Originally from Barbados, Mandeville immigrated to the United States in 2019 and started as a doctoral student in public health at �鶹��Ƶ in 2021.

Julia Mandeville. Photo provided

“I’ve been diagnosed with this condition, and I recognize that a lot of people around me don’t know about it,” said Mandeville. “It’s important to not only educate my friends and family, but the community at large. These conditions are chronic. There’s no cure, but what can help is having a supportive community around you.”

Endometriosis is an enigmatic condition, she explained, that is typically defined by the presence of “endometria-like” cells found outside the uterus. The disease usually emerges between ages 11 and 16.

“If we can educate persons in that age group regardless of gender, that would hopefully be able to flow through our community,” Mandeville said.

Mandeville conducted educational outreach in her Barbados community with BAEP. “Barbados is very small so it’s really easy to go around the community and to a majority of the secondary schools to educate people there,” she said.

But she still had to break through knowledge barriers. “It was originally thought to only affect ‘career women,’ non-Hispanic White women, and Asian women,” said Mandeville. “That created a lot of barriers for diagnosis and treatment. Now we know better.”

Although it was considered a gynecological disorder and, in some instances, does impact gynecological function, it can be found anywhere in the body.

“It doesn’t just affect cis-women, it can also affect trans men, and there are a few case studies where it’s been found in men who have undergone hormonal therapy and their cells have changed.”

The only way to diagnose endometriosis is through exploratory surgery; the cause of the condition is unknown. Mandeville is developing theories for the cause of the disease with �鶹��Ƶ researchers Jhumka Gupta and Anna Pollack of the College of Health and Human Services.

Pollack is an environmental epidemiologist who looks at chemical exposures and sexual reproductive health outcomes associated with them.

Julia Mandeville (right) speaking with attendees at an event in collaboration with ENDO Black. Photo provided

“Working with Julia is delightful,” Pollack said. “She’s amazing at putting together a team that has complimentary expertise to address a specific topic or health-related issue that she wants to tackle,” said Pollack.

Pollack explained two studies Mandeville is leading. In one, they are collecting pilot data to learn whether survey participants would be willing to provide biospecimen to the researchers. Those would then be analyzed for chemical exposure. “This is formative research, which when done that next step will be to add that chemical component,” said Pollack.

Mandeville’s research on “social aspects such as race and stigma helped to bridge my and Dr. Pollack's research as well,” said Gupta.

Mandeville also collaborates with the executive director of ENDO Black, Lauren Kornegay. She connected with Kornegay, head of the Black-women-led organization that advocates for BIPOC individuals affected by endometriosis, via social media before she moved to the United States.

Mandeville said she wants to emphasize the importance of educating all communities on endometriosis.

Of Mandeville’s dedication, Pollack said, “This is something that I think as a future researcher is incredibly rare.”

Mandeville submitted an abstract of her research to the American Public Health Association (APHA), which was accepted and will be presented at the APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo in November.

“I think we’re going to be reading a lot more about Julia in the years to come,” said Gupta.

Topics

Students

College of Health and Human Services