The Houston Academy of Medicine and Harris County Medical Society awarded William Schaffner, M.D., professor of Preventive Medicine, with the 2016 John P. McGovern Compleat Physician Award last week.

Higher taxes and prices for cigarettes are strongly associated with lower infant mortality rates in the United States, according to a new study from Vanderbilt University and the University of Michigan released Dec. 1 in the journal Pediatrics.

Use of opioid analgesics is associated with an increased risk of hospitalization for serious infections among patients with rheumatoid arthritis, according to a Vanderbilt study published in Arthritis & Rheumatology.

William Schaffner, M.D., professor of Preventive Medicine, is this year’s recipient of the American Public Health Association’s (APHA) 2015 John Snow Award, a longstanding award given in recognition of “enduring contributions to public health through epidemiologic methods and practice.”

More than half of hospitalizations due to influenza pneumonia could be prevented by influenza vaccination, according to a study led by investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Infants diagnosed with drug withdrawal symptoms at birth, also known as neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), are nearly 2.5 times as likely to be readmitted to the hospital in the first month after being discharged compared with full-term infants born without complications, according to new Vanderbilt research released in the journal Hospital Pediatrics.

Stephen Patrick, M.D., MPH, assistant professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy in the Division of Neonatology with the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, recently testified before congress about the rise in neonatal abstinence syndrome.