As a professor of family science at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, Dr. Smith-Bynum has spent her career studying African American mental health, family interaction and communication in ethnic minority families, parenting and racial identity.

With a new National Institutes of Health Career Development Award (K01), Dr. Rodman Turpin, assistant research professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, will work to optimize HIV prevention efforts among Black sexual minority men (BSMM).

A new article by Dr. Jennifer Roberts and fellows with the Harvard JPB Fellowship begins with a painful reminder: “‘I can’t breathe’ were the last words spoken by Eric Garner (July 17, 2014), Javier Ambler (March 28, 2019), Elijah McClain (August 30, 2019), Manuel Ellis (March 3, 2020), and George Floyd (May 25, 2020).” All were Black men killed by the police. 

A team of environmental policy advocates, community members and public health scientists, including Rianna Murray, an assistant research professor and Suhana Chattopadhyay, a doctoral student both with the Maryland Institute of Applied Environmental Health, partnered on a project to assess and safeguard drinking water for residents of Maryland's Lower Eastern Shore who rely on private wells.

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.

As the omicron variant circulates more widely, UMD School of Public Health experts advise that we need a multi-layered approach to best minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission.  

The University of Maryland School of Public Health has surpassed its fundraising goal for the University of Maryland's campaign, Fearless Ideas: The Campaign for Maryland. The School's record $26.3M raised reflects a 188% increase from our original goal of $14M for the period July 2014 through December 2021.

Many health care facilities follow infection control policies that are based on outdated models of how respiratory viruses spread and should be revised, according to a team of leading experts that includes Dr. Donald K. Milton in the University of Maryland School of Public Health.