April 19, 2017 A recent study assessed high school students’ and health teachers’ perceptions of an online sexuality education intervention – and found the tool a valuable resource that provided high-quality health education while improving student engagement, privacy and comfort. Doctoral student Liz Chen and Dr. Clare Barrington are study co-authors.
March 27, 2017 The fourth annual GillingsX event, hosted by the Student Global Health Committee on March 23, highlighted students' global health research experiences. The format is modeled after the TED talks, which aim to deliver an important idea in a short, interesting presentation.
March 24, 2017 Dr. Hazel Nichols and epidemiology student Chelsea Anderson were co-authors of a study that found women who were diagnosed and treated for cancer during their childbearing years more commonly gave birth prematurely – and to babies whose weights were below normal. Their findings were published in JAMA Oncology.
March 16, 2017 Dr. Jim Herrington is collaborating with RTI International to survey Americans about whether the threat of contracting Zika virus is affecting their spring and summer travel plans.
February 16, 2017 The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has announced that the Gillings School was the top public health school at a public university in receiving NIH funding during fiscal year 2016. The School received 107 awards, for a total of $65,454,312 in funding.
Dr. Leslie Lytle led a weight-gain prevention intervention program for people in their first and second years of college. The results, reported in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, show that online social networking and support can help prevent weight gain in this group of young adults. Lytle is professor and chair of health behavior at the Gillings School.
Dr. Kurt Ribisl, professor of health behavior at the Gillings School, is a co-author of the 2016 Surgeon General’s report, “E-cigarette Use Among Youth and Young Adults.” Published by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, the report calls for improved regulation of e-cigarettes and increased education about health risks related to e-cigarette use.
In an effort to increase uptake of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, researchers at UNC evaluated the effectiveness of training health-care providers either to make presumptive announcements about the vaccine or to engage in participatory conversations with families. Study results showed that only the announcement training led to a meaningful increase in vaccine initiation.
Providing pregnant and postpartum women in sub-Saharan Africa with multiple HIV self-tests can make it more likely their male partners will be tested for HIV, found a study led by Dr. Harsha Thirumurthy of the health policy and management department.
In a recent study, researchers from the Departments of Health Behavior and Maternal and Child Health investigated how youth in North Carolina can be “locked out” of educational opportunities through complicated immigration policy.
