Charles J Vukotich

• MS
• Manager at University of Pittsburgh

Background Household transmission studies inform how viruses spread among close contacts, but few characterize household transmission of endemic coronaviruses. Methods We used data collected from 223 households with school-age children participating in weekly disease surveillance over two respiratory virus seasons (December 2015 to May 2017), to d...

Background Children are important in community-level influenza transmission. School-based monitoring may inform influenza surveillance. Methods We used reported weekly confirmed influenza in Allegheny County during the 2007 and 2010-2015 influenza seasons using Pennsylvania's Allegheny County Health Department all-age influenza cases from health f...

Background Information on the etiology and age-specific burden of respiratory viral infections among school-aged children remains limited. Though school aged children are often recognized as driving the transmission of influenza as well as other respiratory viruses, little detailed information is available on the distribution of respiratory infecti...

Background Children are important in community-level influenza transmission. School-based monitoring may inform influenza surveillance. Methods We used reported weekly confirmed influenza in Allegheny County during the 2007, and 2010-2015 influenza seasons using Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County Health Department all-age influenza cases from health f...

Comparisons of the utility and accuracy of methods for measuring social interactions relevant to disease transmission are rare. To increase the evidence base supporting specific methods to measure social interaction, we compared data from self-reported contact surveys and wearable proximity sensors from a cohort of schoolchildren in the Pittsburgh...

Background: Information on the etiology and age-specific burden of respiratory viral infections among school-aged children remains limited. Methods: We conducted a cohort study to determine the etiology of ILI (influenza like illness) among 2,519 K-12 students during the 2012-13 influenza season. We obtained nasal swabs from students with ILI-relat...

Background Information on the etiology and age-specific burden of respiratory viral infections among school-aged children remains limited. Methods We conducted a cohort study to determine the etiology of ILI (influenza like illness) among 2,519 K–12 students during the 2012–13 influenza season. We obtained nasal swabs from students with ILI-related...

Background: Information on the etiology and age-specific burden of respiratory viral infections among school-aged children remains limited. Though school aged children are often recognized as driving the transmission of influenza as well as other respiratory viruses, little detailed information is available on the distribution of respiratory infect...

Students attending schools play an important role in the transmission of influenza. In this study, we present a social network analysis of contacts among 1,828 students in eight different schools in urban and suburban areas in and near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States of America, including elementary, elementary-middle, middle, and high scho...

The effect of school-based non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) on influenza A and B transmission in children's households has not been estimated in published literature. We use data from a large school-based cluster randomized trial of improved hand and respiratory hygiene measures to explore the secondary transmission of influenza A and B in h...

Calls for more public health education for medical students date back at least 150 years. In recent years, medical schools have increased their required coursework in core public health topics such as epidemiology, biostatistics, and behavioral determinants of health. Some schools have created more in-depth alternatives, including combined or concu...

Rapid influenza testing (RFT) allows for a rapid point-of-care diagnosis of influenza. The Quidel QuickVue Influenza A+B test (QuickVue) has a reported manufacturer's sensitivity and specificity of 73% and 96%, respectively, with nasal swabs. However, investigators have shown sensitivities ranging from 22% to 77% in community settings. The QuickVue...

Although proposals for more public health education go back to 1855, the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) landmark report, The Future of Public Health (1988) set the modern stage for reform of medical student education regarding public health. The momentum to improve and increase public health education has grown over the last several decades. The aut...

The Pittsburgh Influenza Prevention Project (PIPP) has previously shown that school-aged children in grades K-5 can learn hygiene-based, nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and persist in these behaviors over the duration of an influenza season. The purpose of this study was to determine whether age (as estimated by grade) plays any role in this...

The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent school-aged children can learn hygiene-based nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and persist in these behavioral changes over the duration of an influenza season. If this can be done successfully, it may be a preferable pandemic mitigation strategy to much more disruptive strategies such...

In June 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a request for applications to identify, improve, and evaluate the effectiveness of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to mitigate the spread of pandemic influenza within communities and across international borders (RFA-CI06-010) (1). Eleven studies (Table 1) were funde...

In June 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a request for applications to identify, improve, and evaluate the effectiveness of nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)-strategies other than vaccines and antiviral medications-to mitigate the spread of pandemic influenza within communities and across international borders (RFA...

Public health departments often miss the opportunity to both learn from outbreaks and disasters and share any 'lessons learned' with other public health partners. These missed opportunities inhibit the public health system's ability to improve, change and adapt in an organized way. In 2003, Western Pennsylvania experienced the largest documented he...

The QuickVue Influenza A+B Test (Quidel) was used to test nasal swab specimens obtained from persons with influenza-like illness in 3 different populations. Compared with reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, the test sensitivity was low for all populations (median, 27%; range, 19%–32%), whereas the specificity was high (median, 97%; ran...

Schools act as "amplifying sites" for the spread of infectious diseases, outbreaks, and pandemics. This project assessed which nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are most acceptable to parents and teachers of school children in grades K-5 to K-8 in Pittsburgh public schools. During the spring of 2007, the Pittsburgh Influenza Prevention Project...

Nationally, environmental public health programs have been struggling to find ways to measure their capacity to carry out the 10 essential public health services. The ability to make this kind of measurement is crucial to showing the benefits of local, state, and federal funding of environmental public health programs, It is also crucial to the con...

Lack of trust is an issue in doing research with schools. A School-Based Research and Practice Net-work was established by the University of Pittsburgh to create a regional research agenda. Over the past two years, Network staff held meetings with school staff in 43 districts to determine specific research needs, interests, and concerns. The most c...