News from the School of Public Health

Are you wondering how to get connected at SPH? Whether it's your first year and you're looking to make new connections, your last year and you want to go out strong, or you just want to hang out, enjoy free food and win prizes, Welcome Week has an event for everyone! 

“Would you be surprised if this person were not alive 12 months from now?” 

Known as “the surprise question,” this question along with clinical risk calculators help doctors make decisions around care for patients near the end of life. Increasingly, clinicians are also using AI models to predict remaining life expectancy and better inform palliative care decisions. 

This summer’s Juneteenth celebrations in the historic African American community of Sandy Spring were lively, musical and rich with storytelling from residents descended from formerly enslaved Black people who gained freedom within one of Maryland’s oldest Quaker communities. 

After Zaila Avant-garde correctly spelled “Murraya” to win the 2021 Scripps National Spelling Bee, the confetti had barely finished raining down on stage before the scholarship offers started pouring in.

Most came from universities in the eighth-grader’s home state of Louisiana, but not all. University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines reached out to her on social media to offer his congratulations and a full ride to UMD. “We hope you’ll bring your ‘Murraya’ win to Maryland!”

The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine is one of the few vaccines proven to prevent cancer—so why have only 61% of teens 13-17 and far lower percentages of younger children received the potentially life-saving shots?

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – America’s population is the oldest it has ever been.