School of Public Health News from UNC

USAID awards $8.5 million to UNC water and sanitation project in Southeast Asia

kastlema@email.unc.edu (Linda Kastleman) — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:44:03 PDT

A program started at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has received an award of up to $8.5 million over five years from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The funding will help expand a project to bring clean drinking water and improved sanitation and hygiene to homes in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

The program, called WaterSHED (Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Enterprise Development), is a joint effort between UNC�s Gillings School of Global Public Health, Kenan-Flagler Business School and the Kenan Institute-Asia. The USAID award will be managed by the public health school. Mark Sobsey, PhD, Kenan Distinguished Professor of environmental sciences and engineering, is the principal investigator.

Researchers will search for sustainable ways to increase the use of ceramic or biosand water filters in homes that lack clean

Sonia selected to present at APHA poster session

kastlema@email.unc.edu (Linda Kastleman) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:24:35 PDT

Michelle Sonia, 2009 graduate of the Master of Science in Public Health program in health policy and management, will present her research on early detection of breast cancer at the 137th annual American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting, Nov. 7-11, in Philadelphia, Pa. She is one of 19 students from across the U.S. selected for the honor by The Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health.

The APHA poster session, scheduled for Monday, Nov. 9, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, will showcase scholarship and research of students in accredited schools and programs of public health.

The School�s Office of Research partnered with Delta Omega to nominate four students from the organization�s Theta Chapter, of which UNC is a member, to compete at the national level. Other nominees from UNC include Mejs

Rositch selected as Fogarty Scholar

kastlema@email.unc.edu (Linda Kastleman) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 10:40:19 PDT

Anne E. Rositch, doctoral student in epidemiology, was selected this spring as a Fogarty International Clinical Research Scholar. Beginning in July, she will live in Nairobi, Kenya, for about a year, contributing to a study that focuses on human papillomavirus, cervical precancerous lesions and HIV transmission.

Under the auspices of The University of Washington at Seattle and The University of Nairobi, Rositch will conduct research ancillary to a study led by Jennifer Smith, PhD, UNC research assistant professor of epidemiology and Rositch's mentor.

Rositch will be involved in all aspects of the study, including recruitment, interviews and laboratory coordination, and hopes to conduct HIV testing and counseling in the University of Nairobi�s infectious disease and HIV clinic.

�As a Fogarty Scholar, I look forward to broadening my research skills so I can successfully contribute to international

HPM students� research contributes to legislation about fluoridated water in Mississippi

kastlema@email.unc.edu (Linda Kastleman) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:44:24 PDT

A team of graduate students in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health�s Department of Health Policy and Management has helped convince the Mississippi state legislature to require communities in the state to fluoridate their water. The students include Lauren Brown, Kim Hammersmith, DDS, Ashley Kranz, Presha Patel and Bhav Shukla.

Also instrumental was Nick Mosca, Mississippi State Dental Director and student in the distance education Doctor of Public Health program in health policy and management.

As part of a core master�s course on health care in the U.S., taught by Edward (Ned) Brooks, PhD, professor in the department, students were

HPM students� research contributes to legislation about fluoridated water in Mississippi

kastlema@email.unc.edu (Linda Kastleman) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:44:24 PDT

Also instrumental was Nick Mosca, Mississippi State Dental Director and student in the distance education Doctor of Public Health program in health policy and management.

As part of a core master�s course on health care in the U.S., taught by Edward (Ned) Brooks, PhD, professor in the department, students were

Getting more "health," less "sickness" into marriage vows

kastlema@email.unc.edu (Linda Kastleman) — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:53:09 PDT

It�s June, the month when many couples promise to stay together �in sickness and in health.�

But research shows both men and women tend to gain weight right after marriage � so, as brides and grooms-to-be prepare to tie the knot this summer, nutrition experts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have some suggestions for how couples can help each other stay healthier together.

Penny Gordon-Larsen, PhD, associate professor of nutrition, and Natalie The, nutrition doctoral student, both in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, found people face the following risks of becoming obese, compared to people in romantic relationships who are not living together:

Married women and men � both more than twice as likely to become obese;
Women living with a romantic

Lebanon cedar tree joins magnolia as symbols of School�s past and future

kastlema@email.unc.edu (Linda Kastleman) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:09:10 PDT

On April 7, 1963, as part of a building dedication ceremony, Dr. John Wright, professor and former chair of the School's Department of Health Administration (now health policy and management), planted a Southern magnolia near the entrance of the new public health building to honor the School's first dean, Milton J. Rosenau, MD.

Forty-six springs later, Habib El Takach, MD, a physician earning a doctoral degree in health policy and management, has presented the School with a Lebanon cedar as a token of friendship between North Carolina and his homeland.

The companion trees in front

Lebanon cedar tree joins magnolia as symbols of School�s past and future

kastlema@email.unc.edu (Linda Kastleman) — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:09:10 PDT

Exhibit, program to share history of local black community

kastlema@email.unc.edu (Linda Kastleman) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:48:42 PDT

The research of Emily Eidenier, doctoral student in health behavior and health education at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, will be featured in a new exhibit opening June 12 in the North Carolina Collection Gallery of Wilson Library on The University of North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill.

The exhibit, �We�re All Family Here: Preserving Community Heritage in the Rogers Road Neighborhood of Chapel Hill,� will remain open until Aug. 31.

For 37 years, the Rogers Road community in Chapel Hill has been at the center of a public debate about the impact of the Orange County Landfill, which borders the neighborhood. The exhibit

UNC Nutrition students sweep awards at major national conference

kastlema@email.unc.edu (Linda Kastleman) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:21:42 PDT

Six students in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health�s Department of Nutrition have won prestigious fellowships and prizes presented at the 2009 Experimental Biology Conference in New Orleans April 18-22. The students, including Jessica Ellis, Scott Ickes, Nicole Schwerbrock, Megan Slining, Ya Wen Teng and Natalie The, won half of the doctoral student awards and were finalists for other prizes presented by the American Society of Nutrition (ASN).

The Experimental Biology Conference is a multi-society, interdisciplinary, scientific meeting. About 13,000 independent scientists, representing national societies of anatomists, physiologists, biochemists and molecular biologists, investigative pathologists, nutritionists and pharmacologists, register for the annual event. ASN, the premier society for nutritional sciences, is one of the societies that participates in the conference.

This year, UNC nutrition students competed nationally for ASN�s most prestigious student awards and received four of the eight doctoral student awards presented:

Nicole Schwerbrock (Cargill Fellowship)
Megan