News from the School of Public Health

Young women in sub-Saharan Africa are at a disproportionately high risk for HIV infection.

Engagement in transactional sex may contribute to this increased HIV prevalence according to a new report published by UNAIDS with STRIVE, a research partner consortium, which addresses the Structural Drivers of HIV/AIDS.

Since 2019, Allison Breitenother has served as the Natural Resource Planner/Climate Coordinator for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. She received her BS in Environmental Science from the University of Maryland College Park and went on to complete an MPH in Environmental Health from the UMD School of Public Health.

The Maryland Center for Health Equity (M-CHE) has been selected as the APHA Public Health Education and Health Promotion (PHEHP) Section’s 2018 Health Equity Award recipient. The award honors individuals or organizations that have worked to eliminate health disparities and improve health equity through advances in health education or communication. Dr. Stephen B. Thomas, professor of Health Services Administration and M-CHE director, will accept the award on behalf of the center at the APHA annual meeting in San Diego during the PHEHP Awards Luncheon.

On a Friday morning, Kristen Arant addressed the 20 public health students gathered around her: “You’re going to have a musical experience today.”

With that, Arant led Dr. Stephen Thomas’ “Fearless Ideas” class in an hour-long drum circle featuring a variety of West African drums, other percussion instruments and the students’ voices.

A team of UMD researchers is developing a new mobile app to help people without regular access to health care cut through the thousands of fitness, nutrition, brain health and other offerings by providing a sort of one-stop wellness shop.

Assistant Professor Devon Payne-Sturges has been awarded a National Institutes of Health (NIH) K01 Career Development Award for a project focused on how combined exposure to environmental and social stressors affects child neurological development. The three-year grant from the NIH National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences totals more than $400,000.