An initiative to diagnose and help children who have developmental delays after lead exposure is in progress.
Best physicians of 2016: Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha leads the Pediatric Public Health Initiative, a multidisciplinary task force that works to diminish the harm done to children in Flint, Mich.
More than a year after alarmingly high levels of lead were found in Flint’s water supply, the city has opened a free all-day early childhood center for children 2 months to 5 years of age.
When Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha heard rumors about lead in the water, she researched her hospital’s records and found an irrefutable correlation between the switch to Flint River water and spiking diagnoses of lead poisoning in children.
Many believe the events leading to the lead poisoning of Flint’s drinking water began in April 2014, when it started drawing from the Flint River.
Gov. Rick Snyder has announced the appointments of 18 members to the Public Health Advisory Commission, including MSU College of Human Medicine faculty, Mona Hanna-Attisha and Debra Furr-Holden.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha was primed from the start for her heroic role in uncovering problems in Flint’s city water system that resulted in the lead poisoning of roughly 10,000 children.
In a local effort, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine (MSU) engaged each part of its tripartite mission to respond to the effects of a lead-contaminated water supply on the residents of Flint.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha will be in the “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” hot seat 3 p.m. Thursday on CBS in Detroit for “Hometown Heroes Week.”
Kent Key, director of the Office of Community Scholars and Partnerships at Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine and another panelist, connected his work in vetting the numerous researchers entering Flint to the University of Michigan community in his talk.
While the children in Flint, Mich., still do not have water they can drink, they now have access to a full complement of health, nutrition, education and transportation services to help support their development and mitigate effects of lead poisoning.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha was awarded Medical Marketing & Media's Platinum Award for Outstanding Contribution to Healthcare in 2016.
Michigan State University Extension was honored by the United States Department of Agriculture for the organization’s quick and comprehensive response to the residents of Flint affected by lead-contaminated drinking water.
The American Public Health Association today announced the 2016 winners of its prestigious national awards, which recognize individuals for leadership, innovation and excellence in the field.
From poverty to education, the Academy has created a roadmap designed to guide the next U.S. president on issues that will impact children’s health and well-being. AAP leaders and other experts gathered Monday to discuss the plan Blueprint for Children.
I write this as we approach the first anniversary of my involvement in the Flint Water Crisis, an ongoing catastrophe and basic failure of government accountability that will soon approach three years.
The Flint water crisis quickly morphed into a political scandal this year when it became clear that government officials had endangered the health of thousands of adults and children.
Health Care Connect interviews Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha
For Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha the work has just begun.
You've seen Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha in the news for her role in helping to expose the Flint water crisis. She's a Michigan educated and trained pediatrician at the Hurley Medical Center who also teaches at Michigan State University.
Local groups are pushing to change that outcome. Flint's Hurley Children's Hospital and Michigan State University have formed a pediatric public health initiative to help address the lead exposure problem.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician who helped expose the lead problem in Flint and is director of the Michigan State University and Hurley Children's Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative, said families want to know whether the lead-contaminated water caused issues they are seeing.
For Hanna-Attisha, discovering high levels of lead in Flint's water supply turned her into an instant activist. She said she had no choice but to speak out on behalf of children and their parents.
The AAP last released a policy statement on lead exposure diagnosis and management in 2012, prior to the updated CDC recommendations. While not involved with the research, Kenneth Rosenman, MD, of Michigan State University called the policy "worth reading by all practitioners," not just those who care for children.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, the pediatrician who first drew attention to elevated levels of lead in Flint children’s blood, was to speak Wednesday.
Flint families will have better access to healthy food, thanks to a partnership between the NBPA, FlintNOW and the MSU-Hurley Children's Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative.
Mona Hanna-Attisha, a local pediatrician, has been studying the lead levels in children in the community for years and helped draw attention to the crisis by publishing a paper finding children in Flint had significantly higher lead levels than their counterparts in surrounding areas after the water source was changed.
The city of Flint has been selected by Reinvestment Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to take part in a new Invest Health initiative and Michigan State University is helping to lead the way.
Mona Hanna-Attisha, M.D., the physician who first drew attention to elevated levels of lead in Flint children's blood, will give a "Mackinac Moment" speech on June 1.
Rite Aid Pharmacies presented a check of $100,000 last Thursday, May 5, toward the Hurley Foundation’s Hospital longtermpediatric efforts in intervening on the damaging effects of Flint’s water crisis.
Mona Hanna-Attisha of Michigan State University College of Human Medicine delivers the Spring 2016 commencement address. Hanna-Attisha and her team helped prove the children of Flint had been poisoned by lead-contaminated water.
Raise your hand. That was the message that Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha delivered Friday to the Class of 2016 during commencement ceremonies at Michigan State University.
A doctor credited with bringing Flint’s crisis with lead-tainted drinking water to the public’s attention after state agencies initially dismissed her concerns is the speaker at Michigan State University’s undergraduate commencement ceremony.
Physician Mona Hanna-Attisha of MSU's College of Human Medicine and her team helped prove the children of Flint, Michigan, had been poisoned by a lead-contaminated water supply.
Aron Sousa, MD, interim dean at MSU’s medical school, said that a community participatory infrastructure had been in place before the crisis.
Flint community partners and three major Michigan university campuses have announced a new partnership to help address, through coordinated research efforts, the current and future status of residents and their health.
Aron Sousa, MD, interim dean, MSU College of Human Medicine said of Hanna-Attisha: “Her science and advocacy demonstrate why public intellectual institutions like hospitals and universities are important to the health and safety of Americans. "It definitely goes much higher."
TIME has named Mona Hanna-Attisha, director of the Michigan State University and Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative to the 2016 TIME 100, its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Until then, tests of the Flint water had produced some results that were worrisome but not conclusive enough to grab the world’s attention.
The Pediatric Public Health Initiative brings together experts in pediatrics, child development, psychology, epidemiology, nutrition, toxicology, geography and education, and includes the Genesee County Health Department, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and MSU Extension.
Final votes are being cast forTime Magazine's 100 most influential people list, with a Flint doctor who informed the public of elevated lead in children in the running for the recognition.
“Genesee County has poverty, but it also has had the deterioration of its infrastructures and institutional services because of what’s happened economically,” says Dr. Aron Sousa, interim dean at Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine.
Inspired by Edwards’ example, though, another academic collected more crucial data. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, director of the pediatric residency program at Flint’s Hurley Medical Center and an assistant professor at Michigan State University, did an independent study on lead levels in Flint children.
The Mott Foundation has provided nearly $23 million in support since 2011 to Flint's growing health-and-wellness district.
The United Dairy Industry of Michigan and Kroger has started an initiative to provide 1 million glasses to milk to families in Flint to try and combat the potential health consequences associated with the city's water crisis.
The level of lead in the blood of children in Flint probably will rise over the next few months, not because of continued problems with the city's drinking water supply, but because of high levels of lead in the soil.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is an assistant professor of pediatrics at the MSU College of Human Medicine whose work in Flint helped to expose an ongoing public health crisis. She will address MSU graduating seniors during spring convocation on May 6.
What's even more frustrating is that the contamination was discovered months before the tragic situation in Flint, but authorities in Michigan are already using maps that pinpoint children's blood levels and help target neighborhoods for water sampling, bottled water, filters and lead line replacement.
Families here are traumatized; faith and trust in government have evaporated. State and federal agencies responsible for protecting them failed miserably. Much has been written about the roots of the Flint water crisis: misguided fiscal austerity, inequality, racism, environmental injustice, poverty, deindustrialization.
The Community Foundation of Greater Flint has announced the eight-member advisory committee that will handle grants for money donated to the Flint Child Health & Development Fund.
The whistleblowing doctor that informed the world of elevated lead levels in children's blood in Flint amid the water crisis has been nominated for a prestigious recognition.
I had been texting with my daughter during the game and at this point was telling her how awful it felt that the Spartans lost. And then, in all her wisdom (when did she get so smart?) she texted me back this photo she happened across in a magazine at the moment I texted her.
The long-term health effects project will focus on an integrated approach, according to a press release. A team of experts from the School of Public Health, UM-Flint’s School of Health Professions and Studies, and Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine will look into the medical, psycho-social, developmental and economic impact of lead poisoning by monitoring a group of affected residents over time.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha will speak about "Health Risks of Children Growing Up in Poverty" at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 23, in Room 101 of the college's Towsley Lecture Hall.
A trio of MSU researchers gathered yesterday in Lansing to discuss aspects of the Flint water crisis. In its monthly public policy forum, the university’s Institute for Public Policy and Social Research gave guest speakers a chance to discuss the responsibilities of state and local governments in addressing the water emergency and the work being done regarding the health of Flint residents.
Three miles away pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha, M.D., 39, was seeing rashes in her patients too. Then she heard reports that the city's tap water might be contaminated—a General Motors plant had stopped using it, fearing it would corrode their car parts—and those allegations nagged at her.
An advisory committee has been put together to target nonprofit organizations where grants will go to areas targeted by lead mitigation strategies developed through Michigan State University's Pediatric Health Initiative being led by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, founding donor of the fund.
Last fall, most people in the state of Michigan were closely following two storylines: the Spartans football team’s run for the Big Ten crown, and new Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh’s restoration of that program to glory. But football wasn’t the most important thing on the mind of Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha.
And it was research from Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, assistant professor of pediatrics at Michigan State University’s College of Human Medicine, that initially blew the lid off this story. As a local resident and the director of the Public Health Initiative led by MSU and the Hurley Children’s Hospital in Flint, she frames this challenge in personal terms.
Community members, civic leaders, and federal elected officials will join the Chaldean American Chamber of Commerce to honor business and community leaders at the 13th Annual Awards Dinner including Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, director, Pediatric Residency Program at Hurley Medical Center, as Humanitarian of the Year.
The Flint doctor that's become a nationally-known name and face in the midst of the city's water crisis is set to receive another award for her work inuncovering high lead level results in children of the community.
The doctor and Flint mother who were at the center of exposing the city's water crisis have been honored with the 2016 PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award. LeeAnne Walters and Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha were announced Friday, March 4, as the winners of the award.
MSU College of Human Medicine professor Rick Sadler was among the partners helping developers connect with future app users.
Michigan State University recognized the city's public health needs back in 2012 and expanded its presence in Flint to meet those needs. The College of Human Medicine has doubled its number of third and fourth-year medical students in Flint-area hospitals to 100 in recent years and partnered with Hurley Children's Hospital to start a new Pediatric Public Health Initiative earlier this year.
This is the first installation of a three-part series entitled “Ten Lessons from Flint” in which Northeast Ohio Medical University student Katherine Joyce, MPH, speaks with Professor Marc Edwards of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha of Hurley Children’s Hospital and Michigan State University, and interim Dean Dr. Aron Sousa of Michigan State University.
Flint pediatrician Mona Hanna-Attisha and researchers at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine are mapping the rise in blood lead levels in Flint children found the highest percentages of children with elevated levels in the Fifth Ward, which contains part of Flint’s downtown that has seen recent redevelopment but also streets with boarded-up houses near a vast former General Motors complex.
Forum speakers include MSU researchers with insights into community management, utilities and pediatric health, including the doctor who publicly sounded the alarm about the health of children exposed to high levels of lead, Mona Hanna-Attisha.
Michigan State University and Hurley Children's Hospital have announced a new Pediatric Public Health Initiative to address the Flint community's population-wide lead exposure and help all Flint children grow up healthy and strong.
Hundreds gathered in Flint for a fundraiser for the Pediatric Public Health Initiative, a joint effort by Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and Hurley Children's Hospital.
Rick Sadler, a public health professor at the Flint campus of Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, first interviewed shoppers at the Flint Farmers' Market in 2011, seeking to understand the demographics of its customers.
Efforts to resolve the water crisis in Flint, Mich., continue, with HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell touring the city yesterday and announcing $500,000 in funding to help two area health centers.
Michigan State University is tackling the hurdles facing Flint families in the wake of the water crisis, with a particular focus on nutrition as a way of combating lead poisoning in the city’s children.
Michigan State University leaders are continuing to try to help kids affected by lead poisoning in Flint. Last night, experts from their College of Human Medicine and a number of other organizations weighed in.
MSU formed a pediatric public health initiative to assess, monitor, and reduce the impact of lead on Flint and its children. The Dean of the College of Human Medicine in Flint says the school is uniquely positioned to help.
Health officials and experts with Michigan State University College of Human Medicine say the crisis in Flint highlighted a much larger public health issue in the city.
Michigan State University has been helping with the crisis as well. Officials from their Flint division will announce how their research into the health emergency is coming along.
Concern about lead exposure in her pediatric patients thrust Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, director of the pediatric residency program at Hurley Medical Center in Flint, Michigan, into the eye of a growing public health scandal surrounding lead contamination in Flint’s water supply.
Tune in live at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, where Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha will take part in a live stream to provide updates on the joint MSU College of Human Medicine and Hurley Medical Center public health initiative she launched after releasing data in September 2015 showing elevated blood lead levels in Flint's children.
A new initiative from Michigan State University hopes to help the city move beyond the lead water crisis. Researchers are looking to find solutions to reduce the health effects of lead exposure.
Access to clean water hasn't been the only health issue facing Flint. Since 2008, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine public health expert, Rick Sadler, has been mapping out areas of the city that have had almost no access to healthier food options and evaluating solutions that could help remedy the problem.
What's ahead for the Pediatric Public Health Initiative and Flint public health research
Many are calling Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha a hero—but the pediatrician, professor, and whistleblower behind the water crisis insists she's only doing her job.
Dr. Hanna-Attisha is a pediatrician in Flint, Michigan. She grew up in a suburb of Detroit. She graduated from the University of Michigan before attending medical school at Michigan State University.
Mona Hanna-Attisha, MD, the pediatrician who first discovered the lead-laced water in Flint, Mich., is having a surreal year.
A mobile medical clinic unit has been deployed to Flint to help bring medical care to Flint children who may have been exposed to lead from Flint's water.
As blame, debate and federal investigations continue into the water crisis in Flint, Mich., Mona Hanna-Attisha, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, remains focused on the care of the city’s children.
The pediatrician who exposed rising blood lead levels in young children in Flint and the state of Michigan are separately investigating whether pregnant women who drank the city's tainted water had abnormally high miscarriage rates.
Dr. Mona has melded her calling as a doctor (complete with an hour-long commute from Oakland County to Flint) with her new role as spokeswoman for a tragedy.
Mona Hanna finished her studies at the University of Michigan, then went to medical school at Michigan State University. She married a fellow pediatrician, had two daughters and built a career in Flint.
Hanna-Attisha took her first environmental health classes at Michigan as an undergraduate and studied public health policy as a master's student in U-M's public health school.
“In order to help Flint children who are at risk for developmental delays from lead-leached water, we must support and expand Head Start programming to intervene early and minimize any long-term damage,” said Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, Director of Pediatric Resident Education, Hurley Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine.
It wasn't until after Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at Hurley Medical Center and assistant professor at Michigan State University, sounded the alarm about lead poisoning in Flint children that local officials warned residents to stop drinking the water on Oct. 1, 2015.
Local philanthropic groups have set up a charitable fund with the goal of improving health outcomes for children exposed to lead, including through Dr. Hanna-Attisha’s project, the Pediatric Public Health Initiative.
Independent researchers, not affiliated with the government, would be a good resource, he said –“having someone from the outside review these claims and pressure and examine them dispassionately.”
Going forward, Dr. Hanna-Attisha's mission is to help the people in Flint who will have irreversible damage from lead poisoning. She launched the Pediatric Public Health Initiative, which is an effort by Michigan State University, Hurley Children's Hospital and the Genessee County Health Department.
Mona Hanna-Attisha, assistant professor of pediatrics in the College of Human Medicine and director of the pediatric residency program at Hurley Medical Center, has been named a member of Gov. Rick Snyder’s Flint Water Interagency Coordinating Committee.
"Everything has gone for infrastructure and water," Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, head of the pediatric residents program at the city-owned Hurley Medical Center and pediatrics and human development professor at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, said in a conference call Tuesday afternoon.
The tragic events in Flint, Michigan, over the past 18 months have played out in homes, hospitals and halls of power. But it would be a serious mistake to overlook the role of universities in preserving the public welfare in the city.
It took only two days for the institutional review board at Hurley Medical Center, a city-owned hospital in Flint, to approve the research plan presented by Mona Hanna-Attisha, a Hurley pediatrician, to test children she thought might be exposed to lead poisoning through Flint’s water supply.
Dean Sousa speaks with KCBS Radio in San Francisco about the Pediatric Public Health Initiative and interventions for Flint children exposed to lead.
Dr. Hanna-Attisha is leading a collaboration between Hurley Medical Center, Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine and other community organizations in the fight to combat the effects of lead exposure in children and other Flint residents who drank or cooked with the tainted water.
Six months later, outside experts concluded the water was lead poisoned. “When [my team and I] saw that it was getting into children and when we knew the consequences, that’s when I think we began not to sleep,” Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, associate professor in pediatrics at Michigan State University, told CNN in September.
"If we don't do something now to build this model public health program, we will see lifelong consequences," Dr Hanna-Attisha told Medscape Medical News.
But in late September, Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician at Hurley Medical Center, a city-owned hospital in Flint, announced tests she conducted showed up to 9,000 children in Flint were being exposed to double and even triple the average blood lead levels from the water.
Dr. Aron Sousa, Interim Dean of the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, has similar concerns. He leads a team through the Michigan State University-Hurley Pediatric Public Health Initiative, more than 20 experts working to allay results of lead exposure in Flint ranging from water testing, environmental studies to securing public health infrastructure and nutrition education.
Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha will lead a partnership between Flint, Mich.-based Hurley Medical Center and Michigan State University's College of Human Medicine tasked with researching and taking action to treat and mitigate the exposure of Flint's children to high levels of lead in the city's water supply.
Hanna-Attisha, who also is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Michigan State University, is leading a committee of experts to develop a strategy that would mitigate the impact of lead exposure on thousands of children under age 6.
Michigan State: The university’s College of Human Medicine announced a partnership with Hurley Children’s Hospital for a Pediatric Public Health Initiative aimed at addressing the lead exposure in Flint by providing assessment, research and monitoring, and interventions.
“The creation of this Pediatric Public Health Initiative will give Flint children a better chance at future success,” Hanna-Attisha said. “This initiative will bring in a team of experts to build a model pediatric public health program which will continue to assess, monitor and intervene to optimize children’s outcomes.”
But, reading the article on childhood lead poisoning by Hanna-Attisha et al.4 in this issue of AJPH reminded me that GM not only tried to defeat its workers but also the environment in which they, and all of us, live. The latter never had chance to organize and resist.
Mona Hanna-Attisha and Allison Champney Schnepp are with Hurley Children’s Hospital/Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, Department of Pediatrics and Human Development, Flint, MI. Jenny LaChance is with Hurley Medical Center Research, Flint. Richard Casey Sadler is with Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, Division of Public Health, Flint.
The Michigan State University College of Human Medicine has launched an initiative to treat nearly 27,000 Flint children exposed to lead in the city’s water, the Detroit News reported. The effort will be led by -- you guessed it -- Hanna-Attisha.
“We cannot sit back and wait 20 years to see the consequences of lead poisoning in our schools and in our criminal justice system,” said Mona Hanna-Attisha, director of pediatric residency at Hurley Children’s Hospital, who in September led a group of doctors urging Flint to stop drawing tap water from the Flint River after finding elevated lead levels in the blood of young children.
The newly-launched Pediatric Public Health Initiative is an effort by Michigan State University, Hurley Children’s Hospital and the Genessee County Health Department. The project’s leader is Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who tells WDET’s Annamarie Sysling about the trajectory of her work, as she tries to restore hope among the residents of Flint.
Current State talks about the Pediatric Public Health Initiative with Hurley pediatrician Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha and Associate Dean at the MSU College of Human Medicine Dr. Dean Sienko.
I want to talk more about the health crisis with Dr. Dean Sienko, of Michigan State University. He's spearheaded an initiative to treat the estimated 27,000 children exposed to the toxic lead in Flint's water. "What we're focusing on now is, what can we do to help the children. We're looking at helping them through education. There's been talk about universal pre-K, talk about universal Head Start. We're trying to improve their nutrition so that they know of food nutrition they can do that will mitigate the effects of the lead exposure, and as well as health care, so that if we identify these children early on, we can get them into appropriate care."
As the water crisis continues, health experts said they are working to mitigate the long-term effects of lead exposure in the youngest residents, even if they can't reverse it. Hanna-Attisha along with others at the Hurley Medical Center are working with Michigan State University and the Genesee County Health Department as part of the Pediatric Public Health Initiative, announced last week. The initiative includes cooking classes and an information pamphlet from MSU aimed at helping parents give their children food that will protect them from lead exposure. That's because a diet rich in iron, calcium and vitamin C "can decrease absorption and increase excretion," of lead, said Dr. Dean Sienko, associate dean of prevention and public health at MSU's College of Human Medicine.
Dr. Dean Sienko from the MSU College of Human Medicine explained on NewsOne Now a team of experts is being assembled to monitor the children of Flint for the foreseeable future as a result of the Flint water crisis.
Michigan State University and Hurley Children's Hospital are teaming up to help children in Flint who have been exposed to lead in their water.
Michigan State University and a Flint hospital are putting a team together to keep a long-term eye on Flint's lead problem, from offering nutrition tips to residents to health monitoring. The effort will be led by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who is credited with sounding the alarm last year about high levels of lead in children.
Michigan State University and Hurley Children’s Hospital have announced a new Pediatric Public Health Initiative to address the Flint community’s population-wide lead exposure and help all Flint children grow up healthy and strong.
The latest research has been published by the American Journal of Public Health citing elevated blood lead levels in children associated with the Flint drinking water crisis.