Women in urban Senegal seek less biased contraceptive access
February 21, 2022 Women in urban Senegal seeking family planning services tend to avoid providers with a bias that would prevent them from acquiring their preferred method of contraception, according to new research from Dr. Ilene Speizer.
NIH funds $2.8M Gillings research on personalized messaging for weight management app
February 17, 2022 A new grant from the National Institutes of Health will help researchers at the Gillings School develop personalized messaging strategies that nutrition apps can use to nudge users toward modifying behavior to meet their goals.
UNC researchers develop mapping tool to protect populations from environmental chemicals
February 15, 2022 A new tool developed by UNC environmental health researchers allows users to visualize trends in environmental contaminants, demographic information and environmental justice indicators across North Carolina.
Looking at the impact of COVID-19 on exclusive breastfeeding in Kenya and beyond
February 14, 2022 An ongoing project reveals a perceived sense of milk insufficiency among mothers in Kenya due to food insecurity caused by the economic shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Anstrom to lead Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center
February 11, 2022 Dr. Kevin Anstrom joined the Gillings School faculty on February 1. He is a professor in the Department of Biostatistics and the new director of the Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center.
Endowment honors Aitken’s commitment to innovation during Environmental Science and Engineering centennial
February 7, 2022 As part of a series of events to mark its centennial, the UNC Gillings Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering held a symposium in early November that included a special dedication to the late Dr. Michael Aitken and the announcement of an endowment established in his name.
COVID-19 vaccination higher in LGBT communities, CDC reports
February 4, 2022 Gay and lesbian adults are more likely to be vaccinated for COVID-19 and have confidence in the safety of vaccines than heterosexuals, according to a CDC report that features research from Dr. Noel Brewer. The data can help public health officials tailor education and outreach to further overcome barriers that prevent LGBT people from getting vaccinated.
Picture warnings on sodas? A promising tool to fight childhood obesity
February 1, 2022 A study in PLOS Medicine is the first to examine in a realistic setting whether pictorial health warnings on sugary drinks influence which beverages parents buy for their children. The findings are promising: The warnings reduced parental purchases of sugary drinks for their kids by 17 percentage points.
UNC researchers to lead 2 centers for $170M NIH Nutrition for Precision Health Consortium
January 31, 2022 Understanding how people differ in both their metabolism and their bodily response to what they eat and drink is critical to tailoring diets for an individual’s optimal health. To that end, Gillings School researchers will direct both a $13 million Nutrition Precision Health Clinical Center and a $19 million Metabolomics and Clinical Assay Center.
COVID-19’s indirect effects are claiming more lives than we realize
January 26, 2022 Social isolation, economic insecurity, barriers to health care access – Gillings epidemiologists have found that these indirect consequences of the pandemic are claiming lives that are not being reported in COVID-19 surveillance data, especially among populations of color and young people.
