Health Policy and Management
School of Public Health

For four decades, Tina Micale has known everything happening in her department, sometimes before it even happens. In early September, friends, family and colleagues finally got something past her as they celebrated her 40 years at Pitt with a surprise party.

“When I became chair of the department, I had no idea how to be a chair. I had not done that before. It turned out not to matter. Because Tina taught me everything I needed to know,” said HPM Professor Emeritus Mark S. Roberts. “I'm a decision scientist. I study decision-making and how to make optimal decisions using fancy mathematical models. But for departmental decisions, I found a simple, non-mathematical solution. Just ask Tina. It always worked.”

“There’s a reason ‘Ask Tina’ is a department policy,” added HPM Project Coordinator Keri Kastner. “She doesn’t just know the answers; she’s spent 40 years sharing what she knows, mentoring staff and faculty and solving problems.”

See more from the big day

Professionally, few things are more stressful than being handed a big project on a tight turnaround. Every year, Baylor University’s Robbins Case Competition challenges students to succeed in that environment.

Two HPM students did so, bringing home individual awards from Waco.

An essential part of public health is advocating and raising awareness.

Each year, schools and public health programs through the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH) nominate students as ambassadors through the This is Public Health (TIPH) Ambassador program to elevate public health awareness.

This year, Dana Sakipova, MD, MS (MPH ’27), was nominated by Pitt Public Health and selected to serve as an ambassador, something she called “an honor and deeply personal milestone.”

Now in its third year, the SHPF program has named its largest cohort yet for 2026-27, with HPM Research Associate Professor Evan Cole joining six other researchers and clinicians from across the country.

“I’m excited and humbled to be selected for this fellowship,” said Cole, also director of the school’s Medicaid Research Center. “Health policy at the state level has been the focus of my career, and I look forward to expanding my knowledge and understanding of the policymaking and implementation process through this opportunity.”

Opioid use disorder is a major contributor to maternal morbidity and mortality in the United States, particularly in rural settings.

Undertreated comorbidities, like mental health conditions, also increase the risk of adverse outcomes. 

Novel treatments have emerged and proven effective but are often based in large, tertiary care centers.

HPM Professor Marian Jarlenski has received a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study how their programs perform in less-resourced areas.

UPMC sees more than 375,000 inpatient admissions across its 40 hospitals every year; if each patient is visited by the recommended two to three people, that adds up to many people passing through the doors each day.

An administrative resident at UPMC Magee-Women’s Hospital and second-year MHA student Katie Cooke has led a project to standardize the visitor experience across the entire system.

Natasha Shah never imagined where her career would take her.

The 2024 MHA alumna began her career in nonprofit development and fundraising before discovering her passion for health care administration.

She says that in a fast-paced, fluid environment, there's always something new to learn.

Nearly a million venous thromboembolisms (VTE) – a condition where blood clots form in the veins – happen in the U.S. each year.

VTE is most common among older people but can occur at any age. 30 to 70 percent of all VTE events occur during hospitalizations and in the three months immediately after discharge.

During her residency with AHN, Abby Serakowski led a major project to increase patient mobility and reduce VTE risk.

In 2016, Allegheny County saw 734 overdose deaths, with 602 from opioids. Since then, the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) has used CDC grants to fund addiction treatment and prevention initiatives, including harm reduction and education.

Second-year MPH student Sabina Shah spent the summer with ACHD’s Overdose Prevention Team assessing and updating its materials and connecting people with the department's resources in the community.

Much of HPM's work happens at the corner of Fifth and De Soto, but since our last dispatch, the department has been well represented at conferences and competitions across the country.

HPM Chair Julie Donohue, Assistant Professor Travis Donahoe and PhD students Stuart Case and Auti Johnson were in Salt Lake City in early October for the University of Utah's Addiction Health Services Research conference. AHSR brings together researchers, policymakers, and treatment providers to address inequities in access, effectiveness, and implementation of addiction services.

Meanwhile, a team of MHA students stood in the shadow of the Hollywood sign in California at the annual Everett V. Fox case competition during the National Association of Health Service Executives (NAHSE) conference.

On the other end of California, HPM Professor and Vice Chair for Practice Marian Jarlenski took part in panels at the Society for Family Planning’s annual meeting in San Francisco.

Even farther to the west, HPM Research Administrator Ali Pittman and several others from Pitt Public Health attended the Society of Research Administrators International’s annual conference in Hawaii.

Many of the most valuable lessons HPM alumni Pete Adams (MHA/MBA '21) has learned in his career have come not from a textbook but from observing experienced leaders, learning to work through difficult problems, and understanding how to influence change within complex organizations. Now, given the opportunity, he is doing that for students who were once where he was.

Keynote speaker Alex Jutca urged researchers to share their findings directly with local government, saying agencies like his often face problems without proven solutions during the annual Anne C. Sonis Memorial Lecture, and urged academics to contact officials.

“Government probably doesn’t know your work even when we should,” he said.

One of the biggest ways the federal government is paying for permanent tax cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is to cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid by 2034.

HPM professor and chair Julie Donohue joined the Healthy Dialogue podcast to discuss how the cuts will affect everyone, not just Medicaid recipients.

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