News from the School of Public Health

By Maryland Today and SPH staff

The Hollewas have lived happily in their home in a tidy neighborhood in rural Adamstown, Maryland for over a decade. But during the last eight months these empty-nesters have been troubled by the water coming out of their faucets: it’s often brownish-yellow, with a strange sediment.

Nearly a month after a wastewater pipe broke and spewed hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage into the Potomac River just north of Washington, D.C., the latest water testing results from the University of Maryland School of Public Health continue to show high levels of E. coli and S.

In October 2025, early-career researchers and doctoral students from U21 member institutions and a policy leader convened in Dublin for the biannual Universitas 21 Health Research Exchange (U21HREx) symposium. Chaired by Dr. Negin Fouladi of the University of Maryland (UMD), the U21HREx network brings together participants from UMD, the University of Birmingham and University College Dublin as a growing global community of practice.

Following one of the largest sewage spills in U.S. history, University of Maryland researchers have detected high levels of fecal-related bacteria and disease-causing pathogens in the Potomac River, raising urgent public health concerns and underscoring the risks posed by aging sewer infrastructure.

Commonly cited data on the mortality risk of pregnancy when compared to abortion in the U.S.