An online platform to support LGBTQ youth and a chatbot app addressing vaccine misinformation both won yesterday’s 2019 (second annual) Gold Public Health Innovation Award competition hosted by the School of Public Health.

The teams behind Q Chat Space and ChatHealth each took home half of the $5,000 in prize money at the event, established with a gift from SPH founding Dean Robert Gold and his wife, Barbara, to spark public health innovation, design thinking and solutions to the world’s most complex public health issues.

An online platform to support LGBTQ youth and a chatbot app addressing vaccine misinformation both won yesterday’s 2019 (second annual) Gold Public Health Innovation Award competition hosted by the School of Public Health.

The teams behind Q Chat Space and ChatHealth each took home half of the $5,000 in prize money at the event, established with a gift from SPH founding Dean Robert Gold and his wife, Barbara, to spark public health innovation, design thinking and solutions to the world’s most complex public health issues.

Infant mortality rates in Maryland are highest for African American and rural infants, and researchers at the University of Maryland School of Public Health are helping the state determine why.

Faculty from the Department of Family Science and the Maryland Center for Health Equity are embarking on a year-long study for the Maryland Health Care Commission analyzing risk factors for infant mortality, examining the use of community health workers and pregnancy navigators and cataloging what innovative health programs already exist.

The Support Advocacy, Freedom, and Empowerment (SAFE) Center for Human Trafficking Survivors will become part of the School of Public Health this month.

New research by University of Maryland School of Public Health Assistant Professor Jessica N. Fish is the first to explore disparities in high-intensity binge drinking by people of different sexual orientations. The research, published in LGBT Health, found that sexual minority women were two to three times more likely than sexual majority women to engage in high-intensity binge drinking, and sexual minority men were equally as likely or less likely than sexual majority men to engage in high-intensity binge drinking.

Lesbian, gay and bisexual youth are nearly 2.5 times more likely to end up in foster care - and stay there - than their heterosexual peers, according to new research from the University of Maryland School of Public Health. The study, published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect, is the first to document this concerning trend using data representing the entire United States.

The Spring 2018 SPH faculty and staff assembly included plenty of great news about school and department-level accomplishments, and laughter and good cheer during the faculty and staff awards.

Dean Boris Lushniak spoke warmly about this being the culmination of the SPH ten-year anniversary celebration, highlighting the various celebrations that happened over the course of the academic year. He noted that the SPH commencement ceremony, happening this Saturday, May 19th, will mark the end of our anniversary year and the start of our second decade. 

The Gamma Zeta chapter of the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health is pleased to announce its 2018 inductees. At the induction ceremony and awards reception on May 14, 2018, Dean Boris Lushniak and Principal Associate Dean Dushanka Kleinman inducted 16 students, seven faculty members, five alumni and one honorary member, Mr. Mark Luckner. The ceremony also recognized student research poster winners from each department of the school.

Kecia Ellick and Joanne D’Silva, doctoral students in the School of Public Health were two of 28 students selected nationwide to present research at the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health poster session, which was held at the American Public Health Association annual meeting and exposition held in Atlanta from Nov. 4-8, 2017.

Deirdre Quinn, who has successfully defended her PhD dissertation, has been awarded the Outstanding Paper Award for a student paper from the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) in the category of Religion, Spirituality and Family. The paper, “Family Religiosity, Parent Monitoring, and College Students’ Sexual Risk,” is based on her dissertation research examining family-level and individual-level influences on college students’ sexual risk and protective behaviors.