Events
CCB 08-031, 8th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Health Policy Research Seminar: Jisung Park, PhD, MSc
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2026-11-12 10:00:00
2026-11-12 11:00:00
America/New_York
Health Policy Research Seminar: Jisung Park, PhD, MSc
"Local Labor Market Conditions and Adaptation to Climate Change: The Role of Workers' Outside Options."
Extreme heat is a growing occupational health hazard, yet little is known about what determines whether workplaces adapt to it. Using administrative data on 15 million workers' compensation injury claims and measures of workers' outside options in more than 17,000 local occupational labor markets, this talk shows that a day above 90°F raises workplace injuries by 9 percent, and that plausibly exogenous improvements in workers' outside option wages substantially reduce this effect: a one standard deviation increase in outside option wages lowers the heat-injury relationship by 46 to 64 percent, including in many indoor settings. The findings suggest that local labor market conditions shape how well workers are protected from environmental health risks, and who bears the costs of adaptation.
Dr. R. Jisung Park is an environmental and labor economist interested broadly in how environmental factors shape economic opportunity. Prior to joining Penn, he was a member of the faculty at UCLA, and a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard. Dr. Park’s research combines data, quasi-experimental methods, and economic analysis to better understand the implications of environmental change for human flourishing, and how effective policy responses may be designed. For instance, his work on heat and learning uses data from millions of test scores to understand how the physical environment in which learning occurs may affect educational achievement gaps, how climate change may influence economic inequality, and what this might imply for public policy regarding climate mitigation and adaptation. Ongoing work examines such topics as the effects of extreme heat on workers and labor market inequality, the consequences of natural disasters for human capital, and the process by which workers and firms adapt to a changing environment. Dr. Park received a PhD in economics from Harvard University, where he was an NSF Fellow, and master’s degrees in Environmental Change and Management (MSc) and Development Economics (MSc) from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. His work has been published in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, the Journal of Human Resources, Nature Human Behavior, Nature Energy, and the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, and is widely cited in such media outlets as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the Washington Post, the BBC, the Guardian, the Financial Times, and NPR. Dr. Park has also advised policymakers and practitioners including in the form of Congressional Testimony for the U.S. House of Representatives, and briefings for the United Nations, the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Labor, the California State Legislature, the United Kingdom Department for International Development, United Technologies, UBS, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
CCB 08-031, 8th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 8th Floor (Hybrid via Zoom)
MEHP Lecture: "Are Imputed Genotypes Personal, Identifiable Information?" - Lucas J. Matthews, PhD
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2026-11-12 12:00:00
2026-11-12 13:00:00
America/New_York
MEHP Lecture: "Are Imputed Genotypes Personal, Identifiable Information?" - Lucas J. Matthews, PhD
Are Imputed Genotypes Personal, Identifiable Information?
Lucas J. Matthews, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Health Humanities and Bioethics
University of Rochester Medical Center
In recent years, geneticists have developed a novel method for recovering missing genetic information from large-scale genomic studies. Known as Mendelian imputation, this statistical technique allows researchers to infer the genotypes of individuals who have not directly participated in a study using genetic data provided by their biological relatives. This raises important ethical and legal questions about the nature and status of imputed genetic information. Are imputed genotypes personal, identifiable information? What obligations, if any, do researchers have toward individuals whose genetic information can be inferred without their knowledge or consent? This informal workshop presentation will introduce Mendelian imputation, examine its ethical, legal, and social implications, and explore directions for future bioethical research, including a potential grant proposal aimed at addressing these emerging challenges.
Lucas J. Matthews is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester Medical Center. He earned his PhD in philosophy of science from the University of Utah in 2016, completed a postdoctoral fellowship in human behavior genetics at the University of Utah in 2019, and a second postdoctoral fellowship in bioethics at Columbia University and The Hastings Center in 2021. His research integrates conceptual approaches from analytic philosophy with mixed-methods empirical research to examine the ethical, legal, and social implications of advances in human genetics.
Streaming available via Zoom.
Registration required; Lunch provided
3600 Civic Center Blvd, 8th Floor (Hybrid via Zoom)
Penn Medical Ethics
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8-031 (hybrid)
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Public Health, Ethics, and Repetitive Brain Trauma in Youth Sports" - Kathleen Bachynski, PhD, MPH
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2026-11-17 12:00:00
2026-11-17 13:00:00
America/New_York
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "Public Health, Ethics, and Repetitive Brain Trauma in Youth Sports" - Kathleen Bachynski, PhD, MPH
Public Health, Ethics, and Repetitive Brain Trauma in Youth Sports
Kathleen Bachynski, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor, Public Health
Muhlenberg College
Many popular youth sports in the United States involve exposure to repetitive brain trauma, raising major ethical challenges. Kathleen Bachynski will discuss youth tackle football as a case study, drawing on research from her book No Game for Boys to Play: The History of Youth Football and the Origins of a Public Health Crisis. When and how can foreseeable brain injury risks in sports be ethically justified, and what are our goals for youth sports programs?
3600 Civic Center Blvd., 8-031 (hybrid)
Penn Medical Ethics
VIRTUAL, via Zoom
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "A Call to Decommodify Health Care" - Kevin Fiscella, MD, MPH
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2026-12-01 12:00:00
2026-12-01 13:00:00
America/New_York
Penn Bioethics Seminar (PBS): "A Call to Decommodify Health Care" - Kevin Fiscella, MD, MPH
A Call to Decommodify Health Care
Kevin Fiscella, MD, MPH
Professor, Family Medicine
Co-Director, Research Division
Department of Family Medicine
University of Rochester
Twenty-five years ago, bioethicist Edmund Pellegrino warned against treating health care as a commodity. Today, corporatization, consolidation, the shift from physician-owned practices to physician-employed practices, and AI increasingly shape American medicine through commodification and dehumanization that undermine therapeutic relationships, equitable access, health and flourishing. Decommodification grounds health care as a common good and human right, while emphasizing whole-person care and relationships that support autonomy, competence, and relatedness based on the principle of proportionate universalism. Using a systems change framework, Dr. Fiscella organizes decommodification strategies across six interdependent conditions: mental models, policies, practices, resource flows, power dynamics, and relationships. Priorities include aligning payment with health and well-being, strengthening primary care and community partnerships, addressing corporate power, and expanding patient participation in governance. Health professionals, patients, communities, and partners beyond health care must take concerted, sustained action to place dignity, equity, and human potential at the center of care.
Streaming available via Zoom.
VIRTUAL, via Zoom
Penn Medical Ethics
CCB 08-031, 8th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Health Policy Research Seminar: Maggie Lowenstein, MD, MSHP
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2026-12-03 10:00:00
2026-12-03 12:00:00
America/New_York
Health Policy Research Seminar: Maggie Lowenstein, MD, MSHP
"Beyond Overdose: Shifting Consequences of the Opioid Crisis in the Face of a Dynamic Drug Supply."
U.S. overdose deaths have declined by approximately 40% from their 2023 peak, marking the largest reduction in decades. Yet these gains have been uneven, and the overdose crisis continues to evolve as the illicit drug supply changes, including increasing adulteration of fentanyl with sedatives such as xylazine and, more recently, medetomidine.Drawing on national mortality data and clinical research from Philadelphia, an epicenter of the U.S. opioid epidemic, this talk will highlight emerging trends in drug adulterants, their associated health complications, and the implications for health care delivery. Dr. Lowenstein will conclude with a discussion of health system and policy strategies to address these challenges, as well as opportunities to leverage acute care encounters to support long-term recovery and sustained health outcomes.
Margaret (Maggie) Lowenstein, MD, MSHP, is a general internist, addiction medicine physician, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. Dr. Lowenstein’s research focuses on novel strategies for implementing evidence-based treatment and harm reduction interventions for opioid and other substance use disorders. She is interested in the delivery of substance use care in general medical settings as well as developing and studying low-barrier treatment models for substance use disorder. Dr. Lowenstein also co-chairs the Opioid Use Disorder Workgroup of the Penn Medicine Opioid Task Force and collaborates with partners in Philadelphia to disseminate best practices for opioid use disorder care. She currently practices integrated addiction medicine and primary care at the University of Pennsylvania and attends on Penn’s inpatient addiction medicine consult service. Dr. Lowenstein received her undergraduate degree at Williams College, a Master’s degree in Biology and Biological Anthropology at the University of Cambridge as a Herchel Smith Fellow, and her medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. She completed her residency training in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco in the UCSF primary care program and then a fellowship in health policy with the National Clinicians Scholars Program at Penn.
CCB 08-031, 8th Floor, 3600 Civic Center Blvd. (Note: Virtual attendees can join by accessing this link: https://upenn.zoom.us/j/95740259034.)
Penn Medical Ethics
To be added to MEHP's events listserv, please contact lisa.bailey@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.