October 27, 2022 - Ron's Supercourse

October 20, 2022 - Exciting Opportunities in EpidemiologyThinking Big like Ron 

October 13, 2022 - A Community Engaged Approach to Cancer Health Equity

September 22, 2022 - Epidemiologic Research of Traumatic Brain Injury for 30 years with Prof. Ron LaPorte

September 15, 2022 - Internet and Global Health

September 8, 2022 - WHO Diamond Study/Type 1 Diabetes Epidemiology

September 1, 2022 - Introduction: An Intrepid Investigator and International Inspiration

Remembering Ron LaPorte. FORUM:

From: oadsag
To: Supercourse Help <supercoursehelp@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Super11] Remembering Ron LaPorte

2022 Fall Seminar Series honoring Ronald E LaPorte Newsletter

2021 Newsletters:

Ron's Legacy  (November 5, 2021)

Dear Colleagues, 

It is with great sadness that we pass on the news that Ron LaPorte, Ph.D., Former Director, WHO Collaborating Center, and Professor Emeritus, Uni. Pittsburgh,  passed away peacefully October 30, 2021

                     Please find below the funeral arrangements for Ron:

Arrangements will be provided by Schellhaas & Sons Funeral Home at 1600 Stone Mansion Drive in Sewickley.  Visitation will be on Monday, November 8 from 6-8 PM and on Tuesday, November 9 from 2-4 PM & 6-8 PM.  A memorial service will be on Wednesday, November 11 at 11 AM.  The full obituary and guestbook are available here: https://www.schellhaasfh.com/obituary/dr-ronald-laporte. Photos can also be uploaded at this link.

Supercourse developers will continue work with Supercourse and additionally will post Ron's Legacy materials at Facebook and at Youtube

Please share this newsletter with your colleagues as widely as possible as Ron always stated in his newsletters...

Forum for Ron's Legacy Newsletter:

I stress that the passing of Ron is only in the physical world. At an emotional level, his memory is now part of us, and for our community, his creativity will be part of the fabric of our Community Culture.

In Memoriam:

Ron Laporte

30 October 2021

Always smiling, always brimming with new ideas, always questioning why we could not make this a better world.  Always laughing at the boldness, not to say the craziness, of his own ideas. Ron always had the confidence that, somehow, by working together we could make it happen…

Endless energy. He would write emails at all hours. 24/7.  Always inventing something new to do, always reaching out to friends, old and new.

Ron Laporte was a much-loved friend for me and for many of those who got to know him and a teacher for others.  He embraced you and, only to a slightly lesser extent, the whole world, and made you and the whole world feel like family…  He would take you to his beloved Jan and their home in Pittsburgh, which was, as he said, his favorite place in the whole world. And I was flattered to know that he considered the Library of Alexandria his second favorite place in the world!

Ron passed away on the 30^th of October…

May he rest in peace, and our thoughts and prayers to Jan. 

To all his extended family of friends all over the world, I know that, like me, you will always keep his presence alive in your heart and in your mind.

Ismail Serageldin

...Ron was leading some terrific work called the Global Health Network. The Q&A in Pittsburg inspired Ron and me. Ron believed research was critical to gaining the data we need to solve the world’s biggest health challenges. Ron wanted The Global Health Network to drive faster progress by sharing more effectively. I was able to confirm his view the Internet would be the key to make this happen. I got the chance to meet some wonderful and creative people who were collaborating to improve the health of the world....John Patrick

I am terribly sorry to hear about Ron’s passing.  I did not know him well, so I read his obituary with great interest and enjoyed viewing the video tribute.  What I do know about Ron is that he show great interest in our health literacy innovation, and was most gracious in offering assistance to complete strangers for one override purpose—to help mankind.  He also demonstrate a selflessness in his desire to help you in your endeavors, in a far off land. 

I wish we could have gotten to know one another better, and I extend my deepest condolences to you and all of Ron’s colleagues, friends and family.

Jeff Greene medencentive.com

Dear Friends and Family of Ron LaPorte,

We are so sorry to hear of the loss of Ron LaPorte.

Please accept my heartfelt condolences.

The Greek Chapter

Professor Emeritus E. J. Yannakoudakis

 

Jibril Ibrahim Moussa Handuleh	Fri, Nov 5, 2021, 11:20 PM
RIP

 

Grieved to learn about the sad demise of Prof Ron Laporte. Please accept my heartfelt condolences and sympathies on his death. I am positive his contribution will be remembered for a long time.May his soul rest in peace. Prof Shridhar Sharma 

 

I am very sorry.  Alessandro Martelli

 

Dear Dr. Dorman and the Supercourse team,

I am so sorry to hear of the passing of Ronald LaPorte.

He was a great contemporary epidemiologist, and his contributions, over many years, have been memorable and remarkable. His founding of the Supercourse, to share free lectures from volunteers worldwide, was extraordinary. His exceptionally kind and generous nature stood out in all his correspondence. How lucky to have been one of his graduate students.

He will be greatly missed by everyone who had the slightest personal knowledge of him.

Anthony R. Mawson, MA, DrPH

 

That's so sad. 

Such a great man, and mentor.

He will be missed!  J. Irani 

Dear Colleagues, a great inspirator, researcher and collaborator across boundaries has sadly – but peacefully – passed away. But his ideas and spirit will remain with us. Yours Ib Bygbjerg

Very sad news, 

Dr Ron was very Kind man. He worked hard for spreading of science and research around the word through supercourses portal. His soul rest in peace.

Regards

Dr Mohammad Asif Alokozai 

 

Dear Supercourse colleagues, my name is also Ron and I'm from Costa Rica, currently living in Paris and working for the OIE. Please transmit to Ron's family my deepest sympathies during this very difficult time. Because of his vast legacy, I'm sure his flame will not be easily extinguised throughout the years. I'm really sorry for this terrible loss and I will keep everyone close to Ron in my prayers. For those who believe, there's hope beyond death. 

Keep doing a great job, this is the best possible way to honor him. 

Cordially,

Ronald Mora

 

he will be missed ….andrea

 

May his soul rest in peace. He was a good man. I never met him but the
impact he had on me was very great. I will really miss him especially
his advice and encouragements he always provides in term of networking
and writing proposals.
Erhabor Igbinosa Norris
University of Benin, Nigeria.

Ron Laporte leaving us physically.

It is a very sad news for us. He was an era in epidemiology and public health. Salute to him.

I am crying. My heart Is painful. In the glory Is Ron. Nicolas

Season's Greetings

Dear Friends,

The Supercourse developers would like to wish you a Happy holiday season and a very productive new year. This is the first holiday season the Supercourse network is spending without Ron. Thanksgiving and Christmas were Ron’s favorite holidays when he wrote some of his most creative newsletters. Right before COVID-19 pandemic began, Supercourse team was exploring innovative ways to deliver the Supercourse content in multiple languages. New AI developments are bringing us closer to Ron’s dream of sharing science in all languages of the world. As of November 2021, Google Translate supports 109 languages at various levels.

As everybody knows, Ron always called the Library of Alexandria in Egypt his favorite place to be after his home in Pittsburgh. The Library of Alexandria houses very impressive internet archives that Supercourse members got to see over the years. Recent article describes the efforts to archive the internet and some of the current challenges of these efforts

https://www.techradar.com/news/the-story-of-the-fight-to-archive-the-internet

Ron was really proud of his work with the Library of Alexandria and he was always proud of his students. If you would like to train with any of Ron’s students, please contact the Supercourse team.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Mita, Faina and Eugene for Supercourse Team 

Please share this newsletter with your colleagues as widely as possible as Ron always stated in his newsletters together with Supercourse 2022 Calendar available at https://sites.pitt.edu/~super1/Calendar2022d.pdf and main Supercourse page https://sites.pitt.edu/~super1/ 

Season's Greetings Forum:

Thank you for the holiday greeting.

Thank you and have a Merry Christmas!

Jaakko

Thanks guys!  This really keeps Ron alive!

Thanks again!

Ismail

PS: Seasons greetings and a happy New Year to each of you and your families…

Dear Eugene, Faina et al

Thank you for such beautiful memories. Ron will always be in our hearts

I wish you all  Merry Christmas and a happy new year

Warmest regards

Soni

2020 Newsletters:

Covid-19 Newsletter, April 2020

http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/COVIDpandemic.htm 

The world is in fear of the silent killer known as Covid-19.  A group of us who are World Health Organization Collaborating Centres (WHO CC) have banded together to educate the world about Covid-19

World Health Organization collaborating centres are 800 global health leaders designated by WHO to help attain the goals of WHO and aid in national and international collaboration. Our center in Pittsburgh has been a WHO CC for 30 years, for example. The WHO CC have just recently been networked together.

 Coronavirus is threatening all countries. We have therefore built a Supercourse Coronavirus web site with state of the art lectures from WHO CC and global health leaders. We encourage that you tell teachers, faculty and students about this site. We have gathered over 350 lectures.  If you have a lecture on coronavirus, we would appreciate if you could share this with our WHO CCs and the world. (please contact Eugene Shubnikov, M.D. (eugene.shubnikov@gmail.com) .  All are top quality lectures and available for free

  http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/COVIDpandemic.htm 
 

This Collaborating Centre  Coronavirus web site consists of various components.

1.    Overview of research methods in epidemiology, infectious diseases and statistics

2.   PowerPoint lectures about Coronavirus for use in classroom setting

3.   Youtube presentations about Coronavirus

4. Materials about coronavirus from Africa

Please join our global health Coronavirus efforts

Ronald E. LaPorte, Ph.D. (ronaldlaporte@gmail.com) Pittsburgh, Ismail Serageldin, Ph.D. Library of Alexandria, Egypt, Eugene Shubnikov, M.D. Supercourse, Novosibirsk Russia

Covid-19 Forum:

Dear friends,

WHO CC letter, 5/3/2020

“I believe, we can create a better world, a better tomorrow, if we work together. Don’t you?” (Broast)

We have had a WHO collaborating centre for over 30 years.  It has been an incredible honor for us, as we are sure it has been for all of you. We became friends, and worked together to improve global health.

“Individually we are one drop; but together we are an ocean.” (Satoro)

Isn’t it about time that we  WHO CC join forces again.  Here we outline two potential WHO CC projects. We would like your thoughts and for you to propose other joint WHO cc projects

WHO CC What is health?  project 

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity” (WHO)

Здоровье является состоянием полного физического, душевного и социального благополучия, а не только отсутствием болезней и физических дефектов (in Russian)

When we asked medical and public health students in Pittsburgh for the Definition of Health, less than 20% could provide a definition.  Eugene and I took it upon ourselves to teach students the WHO Definition of health from August 2011, and every year we shared the definition with medical schools, nursing schools and public health schools world wide. All students in the field of health should know the WHO Definition, but most do not. Some of you may have already joined this effort.
Eugene Shubnikov, M.D. from Russia developed a beautiful multilingual poster which presents the WHO Definition.  Please share this with the members of your Collaborating Center.  http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/globalhealth/What is Health.htm

WHO CC Covid-19 web page  

We are very pleased as to the progress of the Coronavirus Web page  developed, by you and WHO Collaborating centres world wide.  We have close to 400 lectures. Here is an excellent example by Dr. Fernandez in Spain.

The Spanish Experience of COVID-19 lecture by Núria Fernandez (Infectious Disease), María José Soler (Nephrologist), Hospital del Vall d´Hebron, Barcelona, Spain. This is a wonderful lecture which describes the experiences of Covid-19 in Spain.  Please free to share this  http://www.pitt.edu/~super1/lecture/lec56531/index.htm

We will continue to collect powerpoint and youtube lectures from the directors of the WHO Collaborating centers. We would like to give exposure to your CC. Please send to Eugene (eugene.shubnikov@gmail.com) the URL for your WHO CC website.

“We can see that all the desirable experiences that we cherish or aspire to attain are dependent upon cooperation and interaction with other sentient beings.” – Dalai Lama. “

"Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller

Ronald LaPorte Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Former WHO CC Pittsburgh,   Ismail Serageldin, Ph.D. Librarian Emeritus, Library of Alexandra, Egypt,  Eugene Shubnikov, M.D., Supercourse, Novosibirsk Russia

Doomsday, Armageddon,  apocalypse, end of the world, judgement day (April 6, 2020 newsletter)

In the past few weeks we have heard Coronavirus likened to Doomsday, the end of the world, and that it could wipe humanity off the face of the world.  Many of our Epidemiologic colleagues have been very pessimistic. We see them on Television and in Magazines indicating that the virus will not be containable and that 70% of the world would be infected. It sounds like doomsday is right around the corner In the media, the greater the doomsday prediction, the greater the news coverage. Many in our field are “glass half empty” epidemiologist

We however, we are “glass half full epidemiologist”, where we do not believe that the apocalypse

First of all, what we are examining now probably is not a doomsday disease.  One should examine the 6 plagues that shaped the world where over 50 million people died.  Clearly we do not what any person to die, but Plague, Smallpox, 1918 influenza were indeed global doomsday plagues, but even these were not Armageddon for human existence. Up to 50 million died in the Plague for example. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics

Second, Diamond Princess cruise ship statistics

The Diamond Princess  and other Cruise ship are perfect petri dishs to study the behavior of the novel coronavirus.  Close interaction among people, inability to practice social distancing, and long time confined primarily elderly population. However, only 21% developed coronavirus under the most perfect conditions for infection spread. This may be the maximum to which we could a population infected under the ideal circumstances for infection spread. It is hard to imagine in the general population across the world would have these optimal  conditions for infection spread.  Therefore, it is likely that the maximum infection rate would be hovering at under 20%. Estimates of 70% of the world being infected appear to be inflated.

Third, The strange consistent epidemiology of Coronavirus. The NYTImes presented a fascinating set of data examining new cases by day of coronavirus in different countries across the world. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/03/world/coronavirus-flatten-the-curve-countries.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

Please examine this we would like your input.    First is the remarkable consistency of the infection curves.  Probably 80% of the countries started at about the same time, the peak was about 14 days later, then we are seeing for many a plateau and a decrease in cases.  These countries are wildly different, with different public health approaches, yet the pattern is virtually identical.

This has all the characteristics of a very interesting and amazing global common source epidemic.  In a common source outbreak epidemic, the affected individuals had an exposure to a common agent. If the exposure is singular and all of the affected individuals develop the disease over a single exposure and incubation course, it can be termed a point source outbreak. (CDC). What is fascinating is that the point source epidemic was world wide, starting for the most part within a day or two in each country.

Our optimism leads to the idea that all of our countries will go the same route as China and Korea, a few cases, a spike in cases a few days later, and then a rapid decline.  Disease with the most rapid spread likely will exhibit the most rapid decline

What can we do to help?  Eugene Shubnikov, M.D. was at WHO EMRO to discuss what we can do.  We recently updated our list of WHO Collaborating center directors (WHO has designated centers of global health excellent from around the world to help them.  We were a WHO Collaborating Centre for 30 years). We just recently contacted the collaborating center and are building a WHO Collaborating Centre Coronavirus web site, and we already a have 9 lectures from WHO CC centers and others.  This started with Dr. Chotani  and his just in time lecture. The wonderful just If you would like to join us in the search for great coronavirus lectures, please write to Ronald LaPorte (ronaldlaporte@gmail.com) and Eugene Shubnikov

April 5, 2020 Newsletter Forum:

A flaw in these predictions, especially the 20% rather than 70% infection rate, is that most countries have not pursued widespread testing. This makes it impossible to estimate the infection rate.

The cruise ship ‘experiments’ are problematic as ‘predictors’ for the general population because of the unique age of cruisers and the lockdown imposed on these ships that restricted contact between passengers. What the latter tells us is that, on board a ship, restricting predominantly seniors to their rooms, with only occasional, controlled time in more common areas, does not stop the spread.

Eleanor Maticka-Tyndale, PhD

2019 Newsletters: