Season 13 • Episode 1000

1000 - Celebrating 1,000 Episodes of Public Health On Call

Jan 22, 2026

28:59

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COVID-19 Public Health

Episode Description

About this episode:

It started as a time-limited series of interviews with public health experts at the start of a global pandemic. Over nearly six years, Public Health On Call expanded to a wide range of topics, including humanitarian health, aging, and vaccines, becoming a home for nuanced public health discussions and analysis. In this episode: Hosts Stephanie Desmon, Josh Sharfstein, and Lindsay Smith Rogers reflect on 1,000 episodes of the show, the challenges of covering complex health topics, and what issues they want to focus on next. Note: This episode is also available as a video on YouTube.

Guests:

Stephanie Desmon, MA, is a former journalist, author, and the director of public relations and communications for the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.

Dr. Josh Sharfstein is distinguished professor of the practice in Health Policy and Management, a pediatrician, and former secretary of Maryland's Health Department.

Lindsay Smith Rogers, MA, is the producer of the Public Health On Call podcast, an editor for Expert Insights, and the director of content strategy for the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Episodes mentioned:

001 - Global Preparedness, Misinformation and Community Transmission—March 2020
060 - The Epidemic Within the Pandemic: Opioids and COVID-19—April 2020
064 - How COVID-19 Has Changed a Baltimore Public School—May 2020
132 - The Enemy of the People, by Henrik Ibsen and Parallels to the COVID-19 Pandemic—August 2020
169 - Online Learning with Baltimore Public School Principal Matt Hornbeck—September 2020
285 - COVID-19 and the Arts Part 2: Performing Arts and the Pandemic with Marin Alsop—March 2021
311 - A Baltimore Public School Reopens—May 2021
401 - School in the Time of COVID: A Tour Of Hampstead Hill Academy—November 2021
465- A Special Mother's Day Episode—May 2022
653 - Back to School: How One K-8 School Is Getting Ready for the Fall—August 2023
751 - The New Federal Regulations Aimed Making Methadone More Accessible—And Less Stigmatizing—April 2024
823 - Special Episode—The Fight For A Swimmable Harbor in Baltimore—November 2024
862 - The Misinformation Around Seed Oils—March 2025
891 - B'More For Healthy Babies: A Look Back at 15 Years of Infant Mortality Reduction in Baltimore—May 2025
953 - Interpreting the Data on Tylenol, Pregnancy, and Autism—September 2025
967 - An Update on Baltimore's Swimmable Harbor and the Pistachio Tide—October 2025
973 - Baltimore's Record Low in Homicides—November 2025
979 - Why Are More People Choosing Not to Vaccinate Their Pets?—November 2025

Transcript information:

Looking for episode transcripts? Open our podcast on the Apple Podcasts app (desktop or mobile) or the Spotify mobile app to access an auto-generated transcript of any episode. Closed captioning is also available for every episode on our YouTube channel.