News from the School of Public Health

Dozens of University of Maryland programs earned high rankings in U.S. News & World Report’s 2024-25 Best Graduate Schools lists released Tuesday, with many achieving top-25 placements in overall and specialty categories.

Among UMD’s highlights, the College of Education and the School of Public Health both climbed into the top 25, and the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences (CMNS) earned four top-25 accolades, including No. 15 in artificial intelligence.

Depending on where Marylanders live, their assurance of safe drinking water isn’t always crystal clear. In some Baltimore neighborhoods, it can be brown. While the city’s drinking water meets federal safety standards when it leaves municipal treatment plants, it might pick up lead, E. coli and other contaminants while flowing through a network of aging pipes before reaching a drinking glass. 

It can be as simple as a high-five from a kid while prepping an anti-bullying workshop in Prince George’s County. Or seeing a family equipped with tools like mosquito nets to reduce their malaria risk in Sierra Leone.

“It’s so rewarding to volunteer in these communities,” said biological sciences major Meghna Pandey ’24, co-president of the University of Maryland’s Public Health Beyond Borders—the first organization of its kind at an American college.

Students from across the University of Maryland gathered at the School of Public Health to showcase their research during the annual SPH Public Health Research & Practice Day on Wednesday, April 4, one of several events taking place in SPH as part of National Public Health Week.

LGBTQ+ as well as Black and Latinx populations are at increased risk for using tobacco products, so youths of color who are LGBTQ+ are squarely in the sights of Big Tobacco. As a result, they experience greater tobacco-related health burdens than their non-LGBTQ+ and white peers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

COLLEGE PARK, Md.