Keeping the 'Public' in Public Health
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The Rutgers School of Public Health, along with Rutgers University and the New Jersey Department of Health, has been monitoring the coronavirus disease or
COVID-19
- the World Health Organization’s name for the coronavirus disease that makes no reference to places, animals, or people to avoid stigma. Information, resources, and FAQ on COVID-19 are
available here.
As public health professionals guided by health equity and justice, we cannot reiterate enough the importance of avoiding assumptions about who may or may not have come into contact with someone carrying the virus based on their identity. We must recognize the harm we do to our diverse community if we allow ourselves to make such assumptions.
We need only to think back to the 80's AIDS epidemic or the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak, as evidence of the detrimental effect that stigma has on health. Now, more than ever, we must be guided by our principals to eliminate stigma and discrimination to avoid repeating lessons history should have taught us.
Sincerely,
Perry N. Halkitis, PhD, MS, MPH
Dean and Professor
Rutgers School of Public Health
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This Valentines Day, Demand Better Sex Ed.
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In classrooms around the country, young students are sharing Valentine’s Day cards with their classmates and friends to mark relationships and connections and show care for one another.
However, this light-hearted rite of passage — often filled with humor and candy — may mark the last time personal relationships get much classroom attention. Just about the time paper hearts and chocolate kisses are getting replaced with lectures about how puberty leads to body odor and periods, the focus on relationships get pushed aside.
Too often, sex education teaches young people about their changing bodies, but not about much else. To address this,
Leslie Kantor, PhD
, chair of the
department of urban-global public health, along with Guttmacher Institute colleagu
e,
Laura D. Lindberg, PhD
, authored a Valentine's Day op-ed for
Romper
calling for the expansion of sex education to place greater emphasis on pleasure and relationships.
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E-Cig. Use Among Teens May Be Higher Than Thought
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Juul, the popular e-cigarette brand that is being sued for fueling the youth e-cigarette epidemic, is by far the most commonly used brand among high school e-cigarette users, with some Juul users not even considering themselves e-cigarette users, a Rutgers-led study finds.
The
study
, published in
J
AMA Network Open
, suggests that health officials might be underestimating the prevalence of teen e-cigarette use.
“We’ve suspected that the brand Juul contributed to the increase of e-cigarette use among teens, but I think we were surprised at the extent of the brand’s popularity among young people,” said
Mary Hrywna, PhD
, an assistant professor in the
department of health behavior, society and policy, and a member of
the Rutgers Center for Tobacco Studies, who co-authored the study with
Michelle B. Manderski, PhD, lecturer in the
department of biostatistics and epidemiology and Center member; and
Cristine Delnevo, PhD
,
professor in the
department of health behavior, society and policy
and
Center director.
Hrywna added that “almost half of current e-cigarette users said Juul was the first e-cigarette product they tried and more than half of the high students reported seeing people use Juul on school grounds.”
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Young Sexual Minority Men
Unaware of Risks of HPV Infection
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Young sexual minority men — including those who are gay, bisexual, queer or straight-identified men who have sex with men — do not fully understand their risk for human papillomavirus (HPV) due to a lack of information from health care providers, according to Rutgers researchers.
About 79 million Americans are infected with HPV, with about 14 million becoming newly infected each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As a sexually transmitted infection, HPV can lead to several types of cancer, including anal and penile cancer, and is particularly concerning for sexual minority men due to the high prevalence of HIV and smoking in this community and the low HPV vaccination rates overall among men.
“Particularly in light of the decades-long focus on gay men’s health care as HIV care, there is a missed opportunity for HPV prevention in the community,” said study co-author
Caleb LoSchiavo, MPH
, a doctoral student at the Rutgers School of Public Health and member of the
Center for Health, Identity, Behavior and Prevention Studies
.
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Bolsonaro's Message to Teens on Sex Doesn't Work
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Leslie Kantor, PhD
, chair of the
department of urban-global public health, and a leading expert on teen pregnancy, spoke to the
New York Times on why Brazil's abstinence-only campaign doesn't work, pointing to dozens of studies on the issue, which has been the subject of a fierce political fight in the United States since the 1980s.
Sex education programs that emphasize abstinence, have tended to exclude information pertinent to gay and bisexual people and provided misleading information about the efficacy of condoms and contraceptives, said Kantor. The idea of limiting, or delaying, sex education might seem politically expedient, but is ultimately a bad idea.
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“If you don’t get it in school, you’re not
going to get it at the altar either," said Kantor.
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School Health Professionals Reporting Concussions Via Online Surveillance
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A recent Rutgers School of Public Health
New Jersey Safe Schools Program
study
examined student-athlete concussion incidence reporting data by certified athletic trainers (ATC) and school nurses at public secondary schools and high schools throughout New Jersey. The study is an attempt to address gaps in youth concussion and symptom surveillance in the U.S.
Over the duration of the three-year study, 300 concussions were reported. Concussions occurred most commonly in fall, likely because of the high proportion of male student athletes participating in football. Football players comprised many of the total reported incidents, but sports such a soccer and cheerleading also contributed to many of the reported concussions.
“The school ATC is commonly available after school hours when play typically takes place as opposed to school nurses, who may only be able to see the student during school hours,” added
Derek Shendell, DEnv, associate professor in the
department of environmental and occupational health and senior study author.
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Top Five Percent of All Research Outputs Ever
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“
Trends in Marijuana Use Among Pregnant and Nonpregnant Reproductive-Aged Women,” by
Qiana L. Borwn, PhD, assistant professor in the
department of health behavior, society and policy,
has been in the top 5 percent of all research outputs ever,
according to Altmetric
. The article has been viewed over 31,000 times, has nearly 4,000 downloads, and nearly 100 citations.
Brown, who is also a faculty member within the School of Social Work, had the
JAMA
study published in 2017.
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FDA Committee for HIV Risk Questionnaire
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Henry Raymond
,
DrPH
, associate professor in the
department of biostatistics and epidemiology
, has been selected to serve on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s steering and monitoring committee for the HIV Risk Questionnaire study.
The study was designed to assess potential risk of alternative Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM) donor deferral strategies and to provide evidence by which to consider potential changes, such as reducing or eliminating the MSM deferral policy.
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Executive Director: NJ Center on Gun Violence Research
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The Rutgers-based center, supported by the New Jersey Office of the Secretary for Higher Education and housed at the Rutgers School of Public Health
, takes a public health approach to gun violence, examining individual, community-based and societal factors that place some people at greater risk for gun violence.
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Alum Leading Vaping Investigations in D.C.
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Adrienne Sherman, MPH’19,
is currently a Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologist applied epidemiology fellow in Washington D.C., leading e-cigarette and vaping associated lung injury (EVALI) case investigations.
Under the direction of senior research epidemiologist, Kenan Zamore, and the supervisory medical officer, Preetha Iyengar, Sherman is responsible for reviewing medical records of suspected e-cigarette or vaping injury cases that are reported to the Washington D.C. Department of Health. For more complex cases, she discusses each case’s clinical presentation, symptoms, infectious disease lab results, and pre-existing conditions with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) EVALI response teams. As part of these investigations, she has had the opportunity to interview patients and their families to gather additional information, such as any prior visits to healthcare facilities and exposure to various e-cigarette and vaping products, as well as illicit substance use.
“One of the most important pieces of information I had to collect was the specific type of vaping/e-cigarette device that case patients were using, and the types of substances that were used in it,” said Sherman. “During the interviews and initial discussions with healthcare providers, I would ask if they knew the type of device and substance [nicotine, THC] the case patient used and if they still had any of the e-cigarette or vaping product left for laboratory analysis.”
Sherman is also responsible for directly reporting Washington D.C.'s EVALI case data to the CDC through a new national surveillance system.
In addition to her work with EVALI, Sherman has also responded to several multidrug-resistant organism outbreaks in the Washington D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area working with the department’s healthcare associated infections team.
“The outbreaks that I am responding to involve bacteria capable of plasmid-mediated resistance. Basically, these bacteria can come in contact with other bacteria of the same or different species and transfer the DNA that codes for antimicrobial resistance to other organisms,” she said. “These multidrug-resistant organisms typically colonize in vulnerable patient populations, and can even cause bloodstream, pulmonary, urinary or wound infections that are difficult or impossible to treat, making these outbreaks especially dangerous and a growing public health concern.”
Sherman encourages Rutgers School of Public Health graduates interested in the field of epidemiology to explore employment opportunities at the state and local leveland consider applying for fellowships. Her experience has provided her with invaluable opportunities, which only keep developing.
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I <3 Public Health Campaign
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Join ASPPH and the Rutgers School of Public Health this February in promoting public health by participating in the 'I
<3
Public Health' campaign.
To participate, share why you love public health on social media using the
#ThisIsPublicHealth
and
#ASPPHadvocates
hashtags.
Your post might even be featured!
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- Reading Rainbow with CHIBPS
- Disk Drop for Health with the Multi-Cultural Student Organization
- Obstacle Course with the Alumni Association
- Build Your Own Prep Kit with the Center for Public Health Workforce Preparedness
- Let's Get Active with Student Government Association
- And more - including activities from PHocus and the New Jersey Center on Gun Violence Research!
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Strategic Plan Update: Year 1
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45.5%
Year 1
Goals Complete
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We're thinking strategically as we step into 2020! O
ur five-year 2020-2025 “living” Strategic Plan endeavors to deepen the commitment to our
mission
and expand our capacity to realize our
vision.
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50.0%
Community Engagement Goals
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- Launched 21PHirst Seminar Series, which includes community leaders, activists, and individuals from the private sector as speakers and participants
- Implemented faculty on-boarding program
- Initiated required award kick-off meetings between pre- and post-award staff, human resources, and principal investigator to ensure effective grant management from notice of award to project completion
- Led “Power Hour” sessions twice a semester with the dean as well as “Chats with Chairs” for students several times a semester
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- Placed all core courses online, adding two additional courses annually
- Launched faculty toolkits on enhanced pedagogy practices for in-person, online, and hybrid teaching and advising
- Launched faculty academic advising training
- Piloted staff advisor training program
- Hired biostatistics tutors to support students in need of additional analytical skills
- Developed a scholarship for first-gen. and traditionally underserved students
- Funded 15 students to participate in local, national, and global professional development opportunities
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- Recruited several mid-to-senior level faculty, expanding the breadth and depth of the School’s research focus
- Launched School-based pilot funding mechanism for faculty and students, to fund up to two faculty-led and two student-led projects annually
- Held and are planning several research topic-based conferences with Rutgers centers, institutes, and schools, as well as external partners
- Appointed individual to lead the Center for South Asian Health and Health Disparities Research
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Rutgers School of Public Health
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683 Hoes Lane West
Piscataway, NJ 08854
732-235-9700
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One Riverfront Plaza, Suite 1020
Newark, NJ 07102
973-972-7212
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