Public Health Research Day 2026 Showcases Student Innovation, Collaboration, and Career Inspiration at Mount Sinai

May 27, 2026 | Featured, Research, School

A photo of winners Saarim Qureshi, MPH, Annum Jaffer, MPH, Tina Chen, MPH, and Program Director Dania Valvi, MPH, PhD, MPH

From left: Winners Saarim Qureshi, MPH, Annum Jaffer, MPH, Tina Chen, MPH, and Program Director Dania Valvi, MPH, PhD, MPH

Public Health Research Day, hosted by the Graduate Program in Public Health, recently celebrated student research from the master’s programs in the Department of Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

The event, held Thursday, May 21, began with two keynote speakers who are both alumni of Mount Sinai. The first was Hannah Thompson, MD, MPH, an Assistant Professor of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and physician at the Selikoff Centers for Occupational Health. Dr. Thompson specializes in occupational medicine and care for patients in the World Trade Center Health Program. She earned her Master of Public Health through Mount Sinai’s MD/MPH training pathway.

The second keynote speaker was Kshitij Sachdev, MS, a graduate of the Master of Science in Epidemiology program at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and is currently pursuing a PhD in Epidemiology at the University of Iowa. His academic and research interests focus on epidemiology, environmental health, and population-based public health research, with experience contributing to interdisciplinary studies on environmental exposures and disease risk.

In his address, Dr. Thompson told the students that her MPH training gave her insight into public health, policy, and environmental medicine, which are all areas not included in her medical education. She also mentioned that working in public health provides a strong sense of purpose that is inspiring.

Mr. Sachdev explained how his training in the Master of Science in Epidemiology program prepared him to advance to a PhD program. He also emphasized the importance of networking in this industry and reminded the students that Mount Sinai is a great place to make connections. Students were able to ask both speakers questions about their experiences.

The students then moved on to their lightning round presentations. Each student had two minutes to present a high-level overview of their research to our faculty, their peers, and prospective students. Faculty members scored the students based on criteria about the presentations.

The next stage of the event featured students presenting their research on posters in the Annenberg lobby. Other students, prospective students, and members of the Mount Sinai community gathered to see what our students created. There were lively discussions as participating students proudly explained their work.

“My professor, Mayaan Yitshak-Sade, taught me how pollution negatively impacts health outcomes over time if not addressed. This encouraged me to learn more about this and to help others understand the long-term health effects of pollution,” said Bahra Aldolapour, a Master of Science in Epidemiology student.

Trang Dao, a Master of Public Health student, recommends taking advantage of connection opportunities at Mount Sinai.

“Get out there and speak to faculty while you’re a student. Your interests matter, and you never know who you could end up working with on research,” she said. “For example, I was able to utilize data from Mount Sinai for my research about cultural barriers to cervical care screening among East and Southeast Asian women in the U.S. There are so many opportunities for cross collaboration at Mount Sinai.”

“I’m sad that the program is nearly over. Working with my cohort and the faculty at Mount Sinai has been incredible. My time here has inspired me to continue expanding access to care for ALS patients, and I look forward to staying involved in this community,” said Justice-Keith Little, a Master of Health Administration student.

The day ended with faculty giving out awards to students based on their presentation scores. The winners included:

  • Best Abstract: Tina Chen, MPH
  • Best Online Oral Presentation: Annum Jaffer, MPH
  • Best In-Person Poster Presentation: Saarim Qureshi, MPH
Learn more about the master’s programs in the Department of Public Health

Training the Next Generation of Change-Makers in Nursing

Updated on May 26, 2026 | Featured, Nursing

2025 TRAIN Program leadership, speakers, staff, and fellows, from left: Bevin Cohen, PhD, MS, MPH, RN, FAAN; Kavita Rampertaap, MSN, RN, CPON; Tiffany Goldwire, MA, CHES; Selamawit Gebrezghi, MSN, FNP-c; Keisha Burrell, MSN, FP-BC; Joseph E. Ravenell, MD; Nickisha Mortimer, DNP, PMHNP; Tanmaiyee Vaddepati, MSN, MPH; Kimberly Souffront, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, FAHA, FAAN; and Crystal Tucker, DNP, PMH-RN-BC.

Hypertension remains a significant public health challenge and a major contributor to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Although clinical trials have identified effective interventions to improve hypertension outcomes, translation of findings remains uneven.

In 2023, the Center for Nursing Research and Innovation (CNRI) at Mount Sinai launched a novel program to address this disconnect. The third cohort of Translational Research And Implementation Science for Nurses (TRAIN) Program fellows will join Mount Sinai in May.

“The TRAIN Program is the first of its kind in the United States,” says Kimberly Souffront, PhD, RN, FNP-BC, FAHA, FAAN, Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Health Equity Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Associate Director of the CNRI. “TRAIN offers a fellowship opportunity to Doctor of Nursing Practice students from historically underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds to develop expertise in translating evidence into clinical practice.”

The 12-week, summer boot camp-style initiative is supported by a five-year grant from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) at the National Institutes of Health.

“The TRAIN program is built around two core components,” says Bevin Cohen, PhD, MS, MPH, RN, FAAN, Director of the CNRI. “TRAIN fellows are paired with researchers in the field to gain hands-on experience and personalized mentorship in the fields of health disparities, hypertension, and other topics central to the NHLBI mission. The approach helps to develop skills for working in translational research teams. Simultaneously, TRAIN fellows participate in a rich, structured curriculum designed around the principles and methods of translational research, implementation science, and interdisciplinary teamwork.”

TRAIN fellows travel to Mount Sinai from across the country to take part in the program, which features nationally renowned guest speakers who are clinician-scientists in the fields of nursing, medicine, social work, and psychology, along with DNP-prepared leaders who bring expertise in health care operations and quality. Meet the five fellows from the second cohort in 2025.

Keisha Burrell, MSN, FNP-BC

Keisha Burrell, MSN, FNP-BC, is an Air Force reservist and a family nurse practitioner at SUNY University of Buffalo, where her goal is to advance mental care for all communities. “The TRAIN program gave me a much better appreciation for how research and clinical practice go hand in hand,” she says. “In nursing school, I shied away from research. As my nursing practice matured, I wanted to strengthen that area to be better able to bring the latest nursing knowledge to the frontline.”

Throughout Ms. Burrell’s fellowship, she worked with Milla Arabadjian, PhD, FNP-BC, RN, Assistant Professor, Department of Foundations of Medicine at NYU Grossman Long Island School of Medicine, to​ conduct a series of one-on-one interviews with Black men at risk for hypertension and their partners to identify interpersonal factors that impacted cardiovascular health promotion. She deepened her research involvement by observing an institutional review board, sharing insights via a podcast, and presenting a poster abstract at the Eastern Nursing Research Society’s 38th Annual Scientific Sessions.

Crystal Tucker, DNP, PMH-RN-BC

Crystal Tucker, DNP, PMH-RN-BC, is a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner at Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center in Charlote, North Carolina. Paired with mentor Billy A. Caceres, PhD, RN, FAHA, FAAN, FPCNA, Associate Professor at the Columbia School of Nursing,  Ms. Tucker focused on a systematic literature review examining non-pharmacological interventions for hypertension in people living with serious mental illness—a project that she continues to work on with Dr. Caceres post-fellowship. “TRAIN was truly life changing to me personally and professionally,” Ms. Tucker says. “I hadn’t met any PhD-prepared nurse scientists, let alone any of color, so that was very inspirational. It also helped me see I can improve the health of more than one person at a time. For example, it can be hard for patients living with schizophrenia to get the help they need because of their symptoms, and some are reluctant to take medications. As a DNP working with a nurse scientist, we are finding ways to build a bridge where there’s a gap like this to find alternative approaches to improve the health of this community.”

Tanmaiyee Vaddepati, MSN, MPH

Tanmaiyee Vaddepati, MSN, MPH, practices in a medical-surgical unit at UMass Memorial Health, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her fellowship project involved equitable, primary care-integrated long COVID care for adults in New York City.

“Some research findings might not translate in an acute setting the same way they do in a community health setting,” Ms. Vaddepati says. “TRAIN helped us to focus on our role as DNPs to both identify available research and make it applicable within our own practice settings.”

“It was also really interesting to hear the different perspectives of fellows from across the country,” Ms. Vaddepati says. “Each of us had something unique to share that made for a rich collective learning experience. The other fellows have shared so much knowledge that I wouldn’t necessarily gain at the bedside or in a classroom.”

Nickisha Mortimer, DNP, PMHNP

Nickisha Mortimer, DNP, PMHNP, is a hospice clinical liaison for VNS Health. Her mentor was Ruth Masterson Creber, PhD, MSc, RN, FAAN, FAHA, the Mary Crawford Professor of Nursing and Director of the Center for Community-Engaged Health Informatics and Data Science at Columbia University’s School of Nursing. Ms. Mortimer had the opportunity to participate in Dr. Creber’s NHLBI-sponsored study “IMPROVE: Cardiac Care.”

“I didn’t come into the program seeing myself as a researcher at all,” Ms. Mortimer says. “So, this was an amazing opportunity, particularly as a student, to actively learn from the best of the best.”

She became involved in conducting reflexive interviews and analyzing how patient-reported outcomes inform clinical decision making. “I came to more deeply understand the importance of language, emotion, and environment in shaping how patients interpret health information,” she says. “The experience also revealed the symbiotic relationship between those doing the research and the DNP. I absolutely came away with more tools and knowledge that make me a far better provider.”

Selamawit Gebrezghi, MSN, FNP-c,

Selamawit Gebrezghi, MSN, FNP-c, is an Emergency Nurse Practitioner with Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa, California. As a TRAIN fellow, she contributed to a study of follow-up services for sexual assault survivors led by Jessica Draughon Moret, PhD, RN, Associate Professor of Clinical Nursing, Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at the University of California, Davis. She described her experience as one of the most transformative of her nursing career.

“I entered the fellowship wanting to understand how evidence becomes action,” Ms. Gebrezghi says. “While I engaged with research, I was never taught how to critically evaluate evidence, synthesize findings, or understand how implementation strategies can facilitate or hinder equitable outcomes. TRAIN provided me with that understanding and a completely new scientific framework that I would not have accessed without this opportunity. Translational research and implementation science are fields that have traditionally felt out of reach for clinicians from disadvantaged backgrounds like mine that have limited access to academic resources and professional networks.”

Ms. Gebrezghi echoed the sentiments of the other fellows, saying, “TRAIN didn’t just advance my career. It expanded my capacity to lead change locally and globally. It showed me that nurses are not only vital to health care, they are capable of transforming it.”

Learn more about Mount Sinai's Center for Nursing Research and Innovation

Stroke Patient Saved by Quick Clot Retrieval Using Minimally Invasive Procedure

Updated on May 27, 2026 | Featured

A group portrait showing: Yohannes Melaku, MD, center, Critical Care Physician, is back to work after experiencing a stroke while visiting his patients in the Mount Sinai South Nassau Intensive Care Unit. He is joined by his neurologycare team, from left, Joseph Merims, RN, Interventional Radiology; Jonathan Sisti, MD, Cerebrovascular and Endovascular Neurosurgeon; M. Travis Caton, Jr., MD, Interventional Neuroradiologist; and Robert Croes, RN, Assistant Nurse Manager, Interventional Radiology.

Yohannes Melaku, MD, center, Critical Care Physician, is back to work after experiencing a stroke while visiting his patients in the Mount Sinai South Nassau Intensive Care Unit. He is joined by his neurology care team, from left, Joseph Merims, RN, Interventional Radiology; Jonathan Sisti, MD, Cerebrovascular and Endovascular Neurosurgeon; M. Travis Caton Jr., MD, Interventional Neuroradiologist; and Robert Croes, RN, Assistant Nurse Manager, Interventional Radiology.

One Friday last October began like any other for Yohannes Melaku, MD, 54. The Mount Sinai intensivist and nephrologist was visiting his patients in the hospital’s ICU when a sudden wave of nausea hit him. As he walked to the restroom, his left leg felt unusually heavy.

“My left leg was dragging like I was dragging a heavy rock,” he recalled. “While I was in the bathroom, the heaviness in my left leg got worse…I was shuffling. I thought it was something transient and that it would pass, but my leg felt heavier and heavier. Then I knew this must be serious.”

As he began feeling “cloudy,” he said he yanked on the emergency pull cord to call for help. ICU personnel pounded on the restroom door and then unlocked it to render aid to their colleague, rushing him to the Emergency Department.

A CT and MRI confirmed the diagnosis: a stroke in the right carotid artery caused by a blood clot. That day, Dr. Melaku had become one of the nearly 700,000 Americans to experience a stroke each year.

Within minutes, doctors rushed him to the hospital’s Radiology Department, where M. Travis Caton Jr., MD, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sina and an interventional neuroradiologist, and Jonathan Sisti, MD, Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery and a cerebrovascular and endovascular neurosurgeon at the Mount Sinai Cerebrovascular Center, performed a thrombectomy. During the minimally invasive procedure, they guided a catheter equipped with a specialized tool through Dr. Melaku’s blood vessels to remove the clot and restore blood flow to his brain, reducing the risk of permanent tissue damage or death.

“He had a complete occlusion of his right internal carotid artery, which normally provides blood flow to 40-45 percent of the brain,” said Dr. Sisti. “Historically, that diagnosis—without thrombectomy—carries a mortality rate between 40-60 percent.”

After recovering from the stroke, Dr. Melaku is back in the ICU—this time, not as a patient, but as a medical provider with a new outlook on illness, patient care, and life.

“The time from the start of symptoms to intervention is extremely important,” he said. “As soon as the procedure was over, I regained all my function. I am 100 percent and have no residual weakness. If I had not gotten care in time, I would have been clinically disabled. It would have been disastrous.”

Alan Wong, DO, Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs at Mount Sinai South Nassau, echoed Dr. Melaku’s assessment.

“Behind every neurological diagnosis is a patient whose life has changed in an instant,” Dr. Wong said. “Expanding our services allows us to bring cutting-edge treatments and multidisciplinary expertise together to deliver the highest level of care.”

While Dr. Melaku’s medical training helped him to promptly recognize the seriousness of his symptoms, he said physicians can become desensitized to seeing illness through daily exposure and feel invulnerable.

“As physicians, we think of ourselves as invincible. Sickness is someone else’s problem,” he said. “It could happen to anyone—irrespective of your identity as a physician.”

The stroke also helped him to realize the importance of demonstrating compassion toward patients.

“The doctors followed up with me to see how I was,” he said. “I realized personally that the idea of connecting with patients means a lot.”

Since the stroke, Dr. Melaku is maintaining tighter control of his blood pressure. Besides that, he has taken his exercise routine up a notch, dropped a few pounds, and cut down on salt.

“I’m probably one of the luckiest persons in the world,” he said. “The doctors and nurses really impressed me. They are highly skilled and very caring…This experience helped me appreciate the power of modern medicine.”

Spearheading Precision Education: Improving Communication in Medical Training

Updated on May 18, 2026 | Artificial Intelligence, Featured, OB/GYN, Primary Care, School

A recording device is being used to improve communication between medical residents and preceptors at Mount Sinai.

Precision medicine, which uses an individual patient’s genetic information to tailor treatment, has shown evidence of improving outcomes, particularly for those who don’t respond well to standard treatment. Mount Sinai educators are now exploring whether the same concept of precision can be applied to the way medical training is carried out, leading to improvements in learning efficiency.

Just as no two patients are the same, teachers and learners all differ in the way they teach, mentor, learn, and process information. A team of medical educators at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is developing a framework for “precision education,” leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to establish evidence-based metrics for how mentors and trainees operate in a learning setting.

The project leverages new technologies, including AI analysis, to analyze the human-defined metrics of how patients, residents, and their attendings/preceptors communicate. A goal is to study communication patterns and explore whether certain approaches are associated with differences in patient engagement or care outcomes. Residents and their preceptors would then use these insights to try to adjust their communication styles to better match those of the people they are interacting with.

“Precision education is a relatively new concept—it started to be discussed in the post-COVID era—and in a sense, builds on the success of precision medicine,” says Deborah Edelman, MD, Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency, Mount Sinai Morningside-West.

Deborah Edelman, MD, Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency, Mount Sinai Morningside-West

“When people start residency, they don’t all start with the same levels of information, and they don’t all take the same journey to get to the end,” says Dr. Edelman. Almost all teaching programs—in medicine and other fields—aim to account for the middle of the bell curve. “Wouldn’t it be great if we can target all parts of the curve and help everyone maximize education?”

The framework that Dr. Edelman’s team is building is backed by a $1.1 million grant from the American Medical Association (AMA), which has tasked 11 institutions to develop precision education systems over four years. The grant program stems from AMA’s ChangeMedEd initiative, aimed at innovating medical education across the United States.

Linking communication styles to outcomes

Assessing the effectiveness of residency training starts with examining how feedback occurs. Currently, this is conducted with feedback forms.

“It works fine, but there are definitely areas for improvement,” says Dr. Edelman. “It can be biased—affected by whether a trainee likes the faculty member or not. The feedback is very subjective and variable, and if multiple suggestions conflict, it makes it hard for the faculty member to know what to change or improve.”

The team from the Icahn School of Medicine, as part of its AMA grant proposal, has designed a system that uses a recording device, such as a cell phone secured with HIPAA protections, to capture how residents interact with patients, and how residents discuss that patient interaction with their attending mentors.

That information is deidentified and parsed out by a large language model into structured variables relevant to the mentor, trainee, and patient. These could include:

  • Linguistic: talk time balance between parties, interruptions, word complexity, or sentence length
  • Patient outcomes: medication adherence, preventive care uptake, or visit adherence and continuity
  • Faculty assessment: Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education surveys, or narrative feedback
  • Demographic: race, gender, language preference, or socioeconomic status

“The idea is to gain actionable insights into how people communicate, and see how different combinations of variables are linked to patient outcomes,” says Dr. Edelman, who is also Associate Professor of Medicine (General Internal Medicine) at the Icahn School of Medicine. “When we have a collection of metrics, we can start to form phenotypes of how a person communicates, and from that point, it’s easier to see what works and what has room to improve.”

An overview of the Mount Sinai proposal for its precision education system, which uses ambient listening to improve communication skills (click here to view a larger image).

It’s important to highlight that the framework isn’t meant to cast judgment on any one communication style over others, notes Dr. Edelman. The framework is meant to demystify the process of communication by linking it to results, and to acknowledge the individual nature of each teacher, learner, or patient.

Scaling from Mount Sinai to nationwide

A pilot is underway to test the ambient listening system with Mount Sinai residents in OB/GYN and internal medicine programs. The pilot is born from a collaboration between the Departments of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health, Graduate Medical Education (GME), Digital and Technology Partners, and the various clinical departments at Mount Sinai to ensure patient information is handled safely and ethically.

“Our programs care for some of New York City’s most underserved populations, and we are committed to developing tools to advance health equity,” says Dr. Edelman.

Andrea Schecter, MD, Medical Director, Ambulatory Practices, Raquel and Jaime Gilinski Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science, Mount Sinai Health System (right), with Madeleine Reznik, MD, PGY-2 Internal Medicine resident, Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West (left), trialing a precepting session with a recording device as part of the proposed precision education framework. As residents engage in their one-on-one sessions with their preceptors, their communication styles are recorded and analyzed by large language models.

Dr. Edelman (right) is in the process of assessing ideal recording setups for different interaction types, such as using an external microphone in a trial precepting session with Alexandria Still, MD, PGY-4 Internal Medicine and Chief Resident, Mount Sinai Morningside and Mount Sinai West (left), to improve recording quality.

A road map for the four years has been drawn out, with system development and testing in the first year. This will be followed by a staggered rollout and data collection in the second year, system refinement and data analysis in the third year, and scaling for dissemination to GME programs across the country in the final year.

“Precision education could be a big step for medical education, just as precision medicine has been for patients,” says Dr. Edelman. “Everybody wants to feel seen and heard. And when we have a system that is set up to listen to them and ties their communication to evidence-based metrics, nobody has their time wasted.”

World Cancer Day 2026 Brings Research, Support, Screening, and Community Together at Mount Sinai

Updated on May 15, 2026 | Community, Featured

A photo of Guy Montgomery, PhD, Melissa Mazor, PhD, Jamilia Sly, PhD, Mariana Figueiro, PhD, and Alison Snow, PhD.

From left: Guy Montgomery, PhD, Melissa Mazor, PhD, Jamilia Sly, PhD, Mariana Figueiro, PhD, and Alison Snow, PhD

The Mount Sinai Tisch Cancer Center and its Center of Excellence for Cancer Support Services recently welcomed patients, caregivers, staff, and community members for an event recognizing World Cancer Day 2026, which highlighted how Mount Sinai is advancing cancer care through research, education, supportive services, screening, and community engagement.

The event was held Monday, April 20, at The Mount Sinai Hospital. The event was originally scheduled for February 4, which is World Cancer Day.

The event began with a morning symposium titled “Supportive Oncology in Practice,” organized by Melissa Mazor, PhD, Assistant Director of Community Outreach and Engagement for the Mount Sinai Tisch Cancer Center, and her team.

Opening remarks were delivered by Ramon Parsons, MD, PhD, Director of the Mount Sinai Tisch Cancer Center; Luis  Isola, MD, Associate Director of Cancer Clinical Services, Mount Sinai Tisch Cancer Center;  and Fran Cartwright, PhD, RN-BC, AOCN, FAAN, Vice President of Oncology Nursing and a member of Mount Sinai’s Executive Nurse Cabinet.

Experts from across Mount Sinai shared research and clinical insights focused on improving quality of life for people living with cancer.

  • Mariana Figueiro, PhD, Director of the Mount Sinai Light and Health Research Center, discussed how light-based interventions may help improve sleep and reduce symptom burden in cancer patients.
  • Jamilia Sly, PhD, Associate Professor, Population Heath Science and Policy, and Family Medicine and Community Health, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, discussed Health at Home, a community-based initiative that brings cancer screening directly to New York City Housing Authority developments across the city.
  • Guy Montgomery, PhD, Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy, and Director of the Center for Behavioral Oncology, spoke about professional training in hypnosis techniques designed to support cancer patients during treatment.
  • Joining virtually from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Manan Nayak, PhD, led a discussion on the use of medical cannabis for symptom management in cancer care.

During the symposium, Mount Sinai also recognized volunteers Colette Smith and Jean Claude Noel for their contributions as community scientists, and honored the Rema Hort Mann Foundation for its continued commitment to supporting cancer patients and families.

In the afternoon, the event expanded into a cancer screening, awareness, and health fair in the Guggenheim Pavilion organized by Alison Snow, PhD, Co-Director of the Center of Excellence for Cancer Support Services.

More than 20 local and national community organizations participated, connecting attendees with educational resources, support services, and wellness information. Mount Sinai teams also provided opportunities for prostate cancer screening thanks to the Mount Sinai Robert F. Smith Mobile Prostate Screening Unit, as well as bone marrow, dermatology, and breast cancer screenings, while licensed massage therapists offered mini massage sessions for attendees.

The afternoon also featured live music performances by singers Meli Sul and Ana Hoffman, guests of Mount Sinai patient advocate Diana Mui, helping create a welcoming and uplifting atmosphere throughout the event. A familiar crowd-favorite also returned: Muffin, Mount Sinai’s therapy dog, who spent the afternoon posing for photos and greeting visitors.

Learn more about cancer screening, support services, and community outreach at the Mount Sinai Tisch Cancer Center Community Outreach and Engagement Program

What New Yorkers Need to Know About Hantavirus

Updated on May 15, 2026 | Featured, Your Health

A photograph showing a New York City street lined with apartment buildings.Just weeks ago, you may never have heard of hantavirus. Then it became a frequent topic on the news and in discussions with friends and family in New York City and around the world.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and global health authorities are closely monitoring the situation, following an outbreak of a type of hantavirus on a cruise ship traveling in the Atlantic Ocean. The CDC says the overall risk to the American public and travelers remains extremely low.

The World Health Organization reported the outbreak on May 2. Hantaviruses are a family of viruses usually spread by rodents that can cause serious illness and death.

Area health experts say there is no new concern for New Yorkers and no need to take special precautions.

“Outbreaks of this virus are really rare, and most of those cases that have been reported have occurred in the western areas of the United States,” says Bernard Camins, MD, Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and an expert in infectious diseases. “There is no reason for people to worry, though health experts will continue to work to identify what has caused this unusual outbreak.”

A portrait of Bernard Camins, MD

Bernard Camins, MD

If you are planning a cruise and are concerned about the recent outbreak, you should speak with your doctor, according to Dr. Camins.

What makes the recent outbreak unusual is that it involves an outbreak of a hantavirus strain that previously could rarely be passed from person to person. Normally hantavirus is spread through direct contact with rodents or rodent droppings.

In fact, the Andes strain that is involved in these cases is the only type of hantavirus that is known to spread from person to person. This spread is usually limited to people who have close contact with the sick person with the virus, according to the CDC.

People most at risk for hantaviruses are those who handle rodents or clean up after them, such as pest exterminators or animal caretakers, according to the CDC.

Over a 30-year period, the CDC says there have been 890 cases of hantavirus in the United States. About 35 percent of those cases resulted in death. About 94 percent of cases occurred west of the Mississippi River, with the largest concentration in New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona. Farm workers are at high risk for hantavirus infection, according to the CDC.

Because hantavirus is spread by rodents, there is a special concern among New Yorkers who may be accustomed to rodents in very populated areas, especially apartment buildings, or for those who may spend time at a country home.

But there is no new guidance from health authorities. They continue to recommend the usual precautions you should take if you are living, working, or cleaning in areas where there may be rodents, which would include, for example, making sure to keep rodents out of your living areas and following safe clean up practices. The CDC provides detailed guidance on how to avoid exposure to rodents and clean up areas with rodent droppings.

Read the latest on hantavirus from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control