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From COVID-19 to abortion to environmental justice, see the research, activities and people that topped SPH news this year!

Many health care facilities follow infection control policies that are based on outdated models of how respiratory viruses spread and should be revised, according to a team of leading experts that includes Dr.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.

A new study led by University of Maryland researchers used Twitter data to take the nation’s pulse on race-related sentiments and suggests that changes in attitudes—particularly about anti-Black sentiment—were short-lived following the high-profile killings of Floyd and other unarmed Black people in early 2020.

A new report released September 15th by the University of Maryland School of Public Health provides urgent recommendations to inform the ongoing response to the COVID-19 in Prince George’s County, Md, which has led Maryland in COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths throughout the pandemic.

Results of a new study led by the University of Maryland School of Public Health show that people infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 exhale infectious virus in their breath – and those infected with the Alpha variant (the dominant strain circulating at the time this study was conducted) put 43 to 100 times more virus into the air than people infected with the original strains of the virus.

Climate change is impacting us all, but it’s not impacting us all the same way, Dr. Sacoby Wilson, director of the Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health, said during the opening session of the 2021 Environmental Justice and Health Disparities Symposium, Aug. 19-21. 

Researchers know that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) spreads through air, but are working to pinpoint how much virus hangs in small airborne particles. A new study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases explored how much SARS-CoV-2 virus is released into the air when people infected with COVID-19 sing, talk or simply breathe. 

Exercise can increase brain connectivity related to memory and may help older adults at risk of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a new study published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease led by J. Carson Smith at the University of Maryland. 

Adults who were better informed during the COVID-19 pandemic may have been less stressed and better able to manage the uncertainties and changes, but more knowledge may not have had the same impact on children.