Valerie Pham, a PhD candidate at the UCI Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, has been selected to receive the Public Impact Fellowship to study efforts to reduce the incidence of tuberculosis.
Pham’s doctoral dissertation is “Assessing the Public Health of CDC Guidelines for Green Card Applicants with Latent Tuberculosis Infection (LTBI).”
Individuals with latent TB infection have inactive TB bacteria in the body, but they are not sick and not contagious. However, LBTI can advance to active TB disease when the immune system compromised.
Her dissertation will examine the reach and effectiveness of the Center for Disease Control (CDC)‘s new LBTI screening guidelines for green card applicants (GCAs).
Under the guidelines, if an applicant tests positive for LTBI, the applicant must be informed of their status, be provided with LBTI education and the result must be reported to the local health department.
Currently, little is known about how well these guidelines are correctly followed.
“This fellowship validates the significance of my research and acknowledges my contribution to knowledge to move the needle forward,” says Pham, noting that treatment of LTBI has faced many challenges, including poor completion rates.
The fellowship supports doctoral students whose research has the potential to significantly improve or enrich the lives of others, whether locally, nationally or globally.
Pham is moved to study TB because it’s the world’s most lethal infectious killer. In the U.S., 13 million people have LTBI, which can serve as a breeding ground for TB disease to develop.
Of the total number of TB cases reported, non-U.S. born individuals accounted for roughly 70% of cases. In Orange County, that number rises to 90%.
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