Family Science PhD candidate and UMD-PRC Investigator Natasha D. Williams (she/her) was recently selected for a dissertation award through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Policy Research Scholars program. Her dissertation, titled: Mental health among Black lesbian, gay, and bisexual people: Examining patterns of risk, treatment utilization, and mental health management strategies will use quantitative analyses of population-level data and interview-based grounded theory methods to elucidate the mental health challenges Black LGB adults face and the ways in which they manage their mental health.
In a first-of-its-kind study comparing hundreds of millions of social media posts about online health topics, a team of researchers from GWU, JHU and UMD, found that posts about COVID-19 were less likely to contain misinformation than posts about other health topics. The researchers found that health misinformation was already widespread before the COVID-19 pandemic. Although all types of information about COVID-19 — including misinformation — were popular between March and May 2020, posts about COVID-19 were more likely to come from governments and academic institutions. In many cases, these posts were more likely to go viral than posts from sources that routinely spread misinformation
Climate change is known to be a contributing factor in a range of troubling health issues, from asthma to cardiovascular disease to foodborne outbreaks. New research from the University of Maryland School of Public Health examined the impacts of air pollution and extreme heat related to climate change on people undergoing dialysis, also known as end stage kidney disease patients.
