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Chris Worsham

@chrisworsham.com
1K followers 161 following 33 posts

Christopher M. Worsham, MD, MPH is a pulmonary & critical care physician, faculty researcher at Harvard, co-author RANDOM ACTS OF MEDICINE www.chrisworsham.com www.randomactsofmedicine.com www.linkedin.com/in/chrisworsham

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Reposted by Chris Worsham
Ben Zipperer @benzipperer.org · 25/02/2026
US traffic fatalities increased 15% on the release days of the top 10 most-streamed albums. That's 18 more deaths per day new research from Patel @chrisworsham.com Liu & Jena
Plot with error bars of change in traffic fatalities versus day relative to album releasebar plot showing the number of traffic fatalities on "Non-album release days" and "Album release days"
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 02/10/2025
Need a reminder of what American science can accomplish? Go watch "Apollo 13" My latest essay with Bapu Jena for Random Acts of Medicine on some of the lessons readily gleanable from the classic film, now 30 years old www.randomactsofmedicine.com/p/need-a-rem...
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 07/08/2025
My thoughts in this feature from @medscape.com on what is lost when we cut biomedical research funding www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 09/06/2025
My latest with Bapu Jena for @time.com Ideas Series: time.com/7291563/big-...
time.com
Big Data Can Make America Healthier. How to Do It Right
Two Harvard doctors offer some guiding principles.
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Reposted by Chris Worsham
Death will not release you!𓅽 @7leaguebootdisk.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
For a written deep dive by the exceptional @kyracloudy.bsky.social Read “Apocalypse on the Runway: Revisiting the Tenerife Airport Disaster“ by Admiral Cloudberg on Medium: admiralcloudberg.medium.com/apocalypse-o...
admiralcloudberg.medium.com
Apocalypse on the Runway: Revisiting the Tenerife Airport Disaster
An attempt at a more thorough accounting of the deadliest air disaster in history.
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Reposted by Chris Worsham
Olly Benson @ollybenson.uk · 01/05/2025
Finally got around to finishing this rather fascinating book full of unusual research and findings in medicine. Very US-focussed, but particularly enjoyed the final chapters on public health and what can actually influence uptake etc. Random Acts of Medicine by @chrisworsham.com and Anupam B. Jena.
Book on coffee table. Front cover has a dartboard at the top and then text that reads Random Acts of Medicine / The hidden forces that sway doctors, impact patients and shape our health. / Anupam B. Jena M.D., PH.D. host of the podcast Freakonomics, M.D. & Christopher Worsham, M.D.
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Reposted by Chris Worsham
Charlie Bray @braycharles.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Proud of the work we did here exploring the effects of a quasi-random increase in gun availability on different varieties of gun violence, and thrilled to get a byline! Write-up in Times Ideas based on our study published BMJ:
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Reposted by Chris Worsham
The BMJ @bmj.com · 17/04/2025
The start of hunting season was associated with increased rates of hunting and non-hunting related firearm incidents in the US, finds this study, most plausibly because of the increased availability of firearms and ammunition www.bmj.com/content/389/...
A man hunting in the USA
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 17/04/2025
Our latest piece for TIME Ideas, based on our new study time.com/7277814/gun-...
time.com
Gun Injuries of All Kinds Go Up During Hunting Season
"The start of hunting season poses gun injury risks outside of hunting," write Christopher Worsham, Charles Bray, and Anupam Jena.
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 17/04/2025
Our latest out today in @bmj.com finds increases in firearm incidents during the beginning of deer hunting season in the U.S.--both hunting realted AND non-hunting related firearm incidents--using data from the Gun Violence Archive. www.bmj.com/content/389/...
bmj.com
Firearm availability and firearm incidents: quasi-experimental analysis using start of US hunting seasons
Objective To take advantage of the arbitrarily timed increase in firearm and ammunition availability brought on by the start of deer hunting seasons to study its impact on hunting, and importantly, no...
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Reposted by Chris Worsham
Avraham Cooper @avrahamcoopermd.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Very interesting and insightful perspective on whether zoster vaccines reduce dementia risk from @chrisworsham.com and Bapu Jena t.co/EBUyx3kRbT
t.co
https://time.com/7275048/shingles-vaccine-dementia-christopher-worsham-anupam-jena/
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 07/04/2025
"In an age where data are collected in nearly every aspect of our lives, troves of natural experiments in health care are waiting to be uncovered—as long as researchers have the opportunity and resources to find and analyze them." Our latest for TIME Ideas: time.com/7275048/shin...
time.com
Could the Shingles Vaccine Help Prevent Dementia?
The shingles vaccine may have a protective effect against dementia, write doctors Christopher Worsham and Anupam Jena.
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Reposted by Chris Worsham
Pascal Geldsetzer @pascalge.bsky.social · 02/04/2025
Shingles vax appears to prevent dementia! Our Nature paper is first of many from my group to show this. We use a really neat natural experiment to provide causal (not just correlational!) evidence. Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...; video (👏 @DrMayaAdam): bit.ly/4ciRfLh
bit.ly
Geldsetzer Lab Recent Discovery
Using unique natural experiments that avoid common biases, Pascal Geldsetzer and his team found that shingles vaccination has a large protective effect for dementia. The first study from his group was published in Nature in April 2025: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08800-x. His team is now trying to raise funds from private foundations and philanthropy to conclusively test this link in a randomized clinical trial. They want to trial a version of the old live-attenuated shingles vaccine, which is no longer being manufactured. If you are interested in helping to fund this effort, please reach out to pgeldsetzer@stanford.edu This video was directed by Stanford's Global Health Media Innovation Lab. Animation by Janine Van Schoor (janinevanschoor@gmail.com). Sound design by Misha Seeff @mishaseeff
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 27/03/2025
If the CDC plans to dedicate resources to do a vaccine safety study, it should do so in a way that results can be trusted by mainstream scientists & skeptics alike. I write with Bapu Jena in TIME Ideas about an approach called "adversarial collaboration" time.com/7272138/cdc-...
time.com
The New CDC Study on Vaccines and Autism Should Take a Radical Approach
"An adversarial collaboration on vaccines could serve as a model," write Drs. Christopher M. Worsham and Anupam B. Jena.
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 24/03/2025
Medicare's competitive bidding program for oxygen services brought down costs for pts with COPD, but the program is not a good fit for all oxygen needs, as I write in @jama.com Internal Medicine on the SOAR Act, a bill sponsored by @klobuchar.senate.gov & Bill Cassidy jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com
Medicare Competitive Bidding Program and the SOAR Act
To the Editor Duan et al presented results of an important quasi-experimental analysis1 of the impact of Medicare’s competitive bidding program (CBP) for oxygen supplies on Medicare beneficiaries with...
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 07/03/2025
Our latest piece for TIME Ideas, based on findings from a new study out in JAMA Internal Medicine about mortality among health care workers. TIME: time.com/7261514/fema... JAMA IM: jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
time.com
Women Live Longer Than Men—But Not in Medicine
"What could explain this mortality puzzle?" write Dr. Christopher Worsham and Dr. Anupam Jena.
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Reposted by Chris Worsham
ishaniganguli.bsky.social @ishaniganguli.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Congress must decide if it will extend Medicare telehealth coverage beyond March 2025. Our new JAMA IM study shows how this may benefit Medicare patients + taxpayers. TLDR: Telemedicine ⬇️ some low-value test use + spending (eg,onsite EKGs,blood tests) + ⬇️ total visit spending. shorturl.at/w6l5l
shorturl.at
Telemedicine Adoption and Low-Value Care Use and Spending Among Fee-for-Service Medicare Beneficiaries
This cohort study aims to quantify the association between telemedicine adoption and low-value testing among fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries.
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 24/02/2025
Physicians & most health care occupations carry lower mortality rates than the general population. Yet our analysis out today (led by Vishal Patel, link 👇), taking advantage of new data linking jobs to death records, revealed some surprising patterns among our ranks jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com
Mortality Among US Physicians and Other Health Care Workers
This cross-sectional study compares all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates among physicians, health care workers, and non–health care workers by sex, race, and ethnicity.
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Reposted by Chris Worsham
Dan Ly @meddly.bsky.social · 23/12/2024
🚨New paper🚨The emergency department (ED) is like a box of chocolates; you never know which doc you're gonna get. What happens when you get a doc that admits patients more often? Are you less likely to die? @stephencoussens and I explore this question in @JAMAInternalMed.🧵1/
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 21/12/2024
Check out our new piece (with video!) in @time-magazine.bsky.social, about how science is often used to justify someone’s values, rather than inform tradeoffs based on those values, in debate on health issues (More to come with @time-magazine.bsky.social Ideas, too!) time.com/7198764/scie...
time.com
Column: Why We Can't Rely on Science Alone to Make Public Health Decisions
Discussing the tradeoffs in public-health decisions might help us make better choices, write Dr. Christopher Worsham and Dr. Anupam Jena.
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 19/12/2024
I never would have thought that my love for both pulmonology and Christmas Vacation could overlap, but thanks to the Osterland family of Wadsworth, Ohio, they do! A tribute to the classic movie that supports cystic fibrosis research www.nytimes.com/2024/12/19/u...
nytimes.com
‘It’s a Beaut, Clark!’ What’s It Take to Light Up the Griswold House? (Gift Article)
The blinding light display in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” dazzled the Griswolds and nearly broke the power grid. What would it cost, and how much power would it really need?
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 18/12/2024
Check out this great writeup in @planetmoney.bsky.social by @elliswonk.bsky.social about our working paper and the types of cognitive biases that might be affecting medical care surrounding various holidays--or really any day www.npr.org/sections/pla...
npr.org
How the holidays could be affecting your medical care
A new study suggests that holidays can affect your provider's decision making.
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 17/12/2024
Beep beep! Which occupations are associated with the lowest risk of death from Alzheimer's disease? Check out our analysis in @bmj.com Christmas Issue with some interactive graphics to explore links between Alzheimer's and navigational jobs 🚕🚑✈️🚢🚌 www.bmj.com/content/387/...
bmj.com
Alzheimer’s disease mortality among taxi and ambulance drivers: population based cross sectional study
Objective To analyze mortality attributed to Alzheimer’s disease among taxi drivers and ambulance drivers, occupations that demand frequent spatial and navigational processing, compared with other occ...
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 15/12/2024
Our working paper out in @nberpubs.bsky.social: can we take advantage of Halloween to study the role of diagnostic subjectivity at the pediatrician?
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 06/12/2024
Oh my
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 04/12/2024
Online dissemination of scientific research (at least how @altmetric.com defines it) changed dramatically over just one month. Eyeballing this plot, it looks like there was both a shift from Twitter/X to @bsky.app and an addition/awakening of sharing here that was not happening previously. #medsky
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 03/12/2024
This is awesome! Can’t think of a better way to test this out than by sharing our Barbie movie study, where we found that Google searches about gynecologists spiked following the film’s release, with its closing joke about Barbie’s health care jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...
jamanetwork.com
Online Search Interest in Gynecologists After the Release of the Film Barbie
This cross-sectional study evaluates whether the film Barbie was associated with increased public interest in gynecologic care in the US after its release.
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Reposted by Chris Worsham
American Thoracic Society (ATS) @atscommunity.bsky.social · 03/12/2024
Hello, Bluesky! We've finally started building out our starter pack for our ATS member community. If you're a current or former member, let us know and we will add you. go.bsky.app/GLzJtqT #medsky #lungsky #pedsky
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 25/11/2024
A nice read to brighten your day: www.nytimes.com/2024/11/22/m...
nytimes.com
Clear Eyes. Foam Head. Can’t Lose. (Gift Article)
The New York Times for Kids goes inside the sweaty, funny, heartfelt world of high school mascots.
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Reposted by Chris Worsham
Lakshman Swamy (he/him) @laxswamy.bsky.social · 21/11/2024
You should read these. Also you should buy them. @drjessigold.bsky.social @ranaawdish.bsky.social @therealdoctort.bsky.social @weselymd.bsky.social @chrisworsham.com
Books: how do you feel, in shock, these vital signs, every deep drawn breath, random acts of medicine
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Chris Worsham @chrisworsham.com · 18/11/2024
Our book, "RANDOM ACTS OF MEDICINE: The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape our Health," is now available in every format: paperback, hardback, ebook, and audiobook (narrated by us)! Check it out here, along with our newsletter!👇 #MedSky open.substack.com/pub/randomac...
open.substack.com
Our book: RANDOM ACTS OF MEDICINE now in paperback!
Our bestselling book is now available in paperback, hardback, ebook, and audiobook!
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