News from the School of Public Health

An online platform to support LGBTQ youth and a chatbot app addressing vaccine misinformation both won yesterday’s 2019 (second annual) Gold Public Health Innovation Award competition hosted by the School of Public Health.

The teams behind Q Chat Space and ChatHealth each took home half of the $5,000 in prize money at the event, established with a gift from SPH founding Dean Robert Gold and his wife, Barbara, to spark public health innovation, design thinking and solutions to the world’s most complex public health issues.

Human-induced climate change is disrupting nature’s calendar, including when plants bloom and the spring season starts, and new research from the University of School of Public Health suggests we’re increasingly paying the price for it in the form of seasonal allergies.

Human-induced climate change is disrupting nature’s calendar, including when plants bloom and the spring season starts, and new research from the University of School of Public Health suggests we’re increasingly paying the price for it in the form of seasonal allergies.

Infant mortality rates in Maryland are highest for African American and rural infants, and researchers at the University of Maryland School of Public Health are helping the state determine why.

Faculty from the Department of Family Science and the Maryland Center for Health Equity are embarking on a year-long study for the Maryland Health Care Commission analyzing risk factors for infant mortality, examining the use of community health workers and pregnancy navigators and cataloging what innovative health programs already exist.

One of the early acts of new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt was to reverse the 2015 federal ban on chlorpyrifos, a dangerous pesticide proven to harm children and developing fetuses. This reversal—challenged by Maryland and other states—was overruled last summer but a lift on the ban is currently being reconsidered in U.S. appeals court.

The Support Advocacy, Freedom, and Empowerment (SAFE) Center for Human Trafficking Survivors will become part of the School of Public Health this month.