The Abstract: November 1, 2021
November 1, 2021
Whether you’re local or global, student or alumni, the Abstract’s weekly news digest will help you stay in the loop with our amazing Gillings School community.
UNC Gillings represents at 2021 APHA Annual Meeting and Expo
Congratulations to the Gillings School student, faculty and staff researchers who presented posters, spoke at sessions and were honored for their work at this year’s American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting and Expo on Oct. 24-27. Some events include:
- Professor Benjamin Mason Meier was honored with the APHA Mid-Career Award in International Health.
- Professor Jim Thomas was honored with the APHA Ethics Section Distinguished Career Award.
- Assistant Professor Jessica Soldavini, as part of a session on child nutrition programs implemented during COVID-19, presented her work titled “Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and USDA waivers on child nutrition programs in North Carolina.”
- Master of Public Health Student Deanie Anyangwe presented research titled “Assessing course content to promote progressive pedagogy in public health graduate education: a resource for anti-racist public health pedagogy,” along with Hailey Mason and Emmanuel Saint-Phard.
- Master of Public Health student Harper Eisen presented research titled “Exploring barriers to contraception use among low-income women using the 2016 national inpatient sample data.”
If you presented at this year’s APHA conference and would like to be included, contact the editor.
Cohen elected to National Academy of Medicine
Mandy Cohen, MD, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services secretary and adjunct professor of health policy and management at the Gillings School, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) for her work in creating a strategic alignment to bring about critical improvements in health.
In her election, NAM cited Secretary Cohen “for creating a strategic alignment of Medicaid, public health, and behavioral health and human services designed to bring about critical improvements in health during her tenure as North Carolina’s secretary of health and human services.”
University of Georgia creates resources around work of Sherman James
The Owens Institute of Behavioral Research in the Center for Family Research (CFR) at the University of Georga has created several resources around the work of Dr. Sherman James, former professor of epidemiology at the Gillings School.
The theoretical and empirical work by Dr. Sherman James informed the research undertaken by CFR scientists on how stress gets under the skin and into the brains of African American young people and adults. Dr. James proposed the “John Henryism” hypothesis which acknowledged the health costs of overcoming economic hardships and racial discrimination. The hypothesis proposed that having a single-minded determination to succeed while contending with structural racism makes it more likely that African Americans will develop hypertension and cardiometabolic diseases.
