As the nights grow longer and winter settles in across the north, a team of health researchers is using a “community mobilization” approach to translate research into practice for an Alaska Native youth suicide prevention program in 15 remote Alaska towns. The intervention, “Promoting Community Conversations About Research to End Suicide” (PC CARES) was developed by Lisa Wexler and Cris Smith at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with colleagues from Northwest Alaska and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Wexler and colleagues pilot-tested the program in 10 far-flung Native Alaska communities over the past year. They recently received a five-year, $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health to expand the project, “re-envisioning it to adapt to a new region,” as she explains.
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The dominant messaging in many teen pregnancy prevention campaigns is often framed in a stigmatized context of the negative consequences of young motherhood: a young woman’s promising life squandered by the responsibilities of motherhood; teenage girls acting irresponsibly or making “bad choices”; teen mothers and their children becoming societal burdens; and young mothers perpetuating the cycle of troubled family units. Aline Gubrium, Associate Professor of Health Promotion and Policy, and Betsy Krause, Professor of Anthropology, aim to work against these negative stereotypes through their “Hear Our Stories” digital storytelling project.
The CDC’s Office of Scientific Integrity recently invited Community Health Education’s Daniel Goldstein to present a webinar introducing SPHHS’s newest online offering: the Graduate Certificate in Public Health Ethics.
Professor of Community Health Education David Buchanan retired at the end of August 2018 after serving as a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for the past 29 years, including the most recent 3 years in which he served as Chair of the Department of Health Promotion and Policy.
The Springfield organization Men of Color Health Awareness (MOCHA) was recently presented with the Community Partner Award in recognition of the non-profit organization’s role in educating men of color in improving physical and mental health, and its partnerships with the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The School of Public Health and Health Sciences welcomes eight new full-time tenure-track faculty members into its ranks this academic year. New faculty hires for Fall 2018 include Chi Hyun Lee, Andrew Lover, and Youssef Oulhote in the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology; Megan Gross in the Department of Communication Disorders; Airin D. Martinez, Luis Valdez, and John Zeber in the Department of Health Promotion and Policy; and Gwenael Layec in the Department of Kinesiology.
Professor of Epidemiology Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson has been appointed Interim Chair of the Department of Health Promotion and Policy. She began a one-year term on September 1st following the retirement of David Buchanan.
A recent major shift in practice by the Veterans Health Administration (VA) now means that complementary and integrative health (CIH) therapies such as meditation, yoga and acupuncture are increasingly being offered to VA patients as non-drug approaches for pain management and related conditions, says Elizabeth Evans, an Assistant Professor of Community Health Education in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences.
A feature story written by Associate Professor of Community Health Education Lisa Wexler and colleagues appears in a recent issue of Northern Public Affairs magazine. The article explores the inroads Wexler and her team have been making in reducing youth suicide rates in Northwest Alaska through their community-engaged research partnership with the Maniilaq Association.
In Indonesia and other areas of the Asia Pacific region, the HIV epidemic continues at a fast-growing pace among key population groups: people who inject drugs (PWID), men who have sex with men (MSM), female sex workers, and transgender people. In a commentary appearing online now in The Lancet HIV, Associate Professor of Community Health Education Krishna Poudel and Masamine Jimba of the University of Tokyo argue that identifying and addressing the gaps in their HIV care continuum is critical to improve their health.
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