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Dear UCI Community,
In recognition of May being Mental Health Awareness Month, I want to applaud all our students – especially the Class of 2024 – for their resilience during these last few years. Our students who are now graduating entered college at the height of the pandemic. We have all had to experience other challenges: remote learning, political and social turmoil, and economic hardships – all while trying to maintain positive mental health.
As educators and administrators in the higher education space and as students starting their careers, we must nurture and train a resilient workforce. I believe the following three principles will help prepare our future leaders to be resilient, nimble, and ready to address the challenges ahead:
- Operating through a trauma-informed care lens;
- Addressing a changing climate and harmful environment; and
- Pushing for equity-focused practice and policies.
May this month inspire collective action toward building a society where mental health and resilience are valued, supported, and prioritized as an integral part of attending a university, creating community, earning a degree, and entering the workforce.
Sincerely,
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New Center for Health Ethics will explore issues, inform debates and propose policy solutions
Director Leigh Turner will lead the new school-based center, which will mobilize UCI public health researchers and scholars in addressing a range of challenging, health-related ethical issues and informing contemporary societal debates
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UC system-wide health equity initiative finds new home at UC Irvine Public Health
Led by Denise Payán, the California Initiative for Health Equity & Action (Cal-IHEA) Center has been renewed and relaunched at UCI Public Health. Cal-IHEA brings together four UC campuses as exemplars of inclusive access and equity to research and education
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Closing the U.S./Mexico border during COVID-19 increased HIV transmission
Tetyana Vasylyeva, senior author, and collaborators at UC San Diego recently published in the Lancet examining HIV prevalence and transmission dynamics among people who inject drugs in the U.S./Mexico border region during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results found increased cross-border HIV clusters, which will better inform municipal HIV programs.
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Environmental disparities researcher receives $1.3 million grant from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program
Jason Douglas will lead a study that looks at whether proximity to smoke shops have an effect on tobacco product use among Black and Latiné youth
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Unwrapping reasons why Latinos have among the highest percentage of obesity in the U.S.
Dylan Roby co-authored a study that confirmed the Latino Health Paradox, or the phenomenom that the longer Latinos live in the US, the worse off their health is. Researchers suspect that the effects of acculturative stress over time could be to blame.
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Using the Healthy Minds Study data, co-author, Karen Lincoln, examined why the paradox where ethno-racial groups report lower prevalence of clinical depression despite having higher exposure to stressors exists. Study findings published in the Journal SSM Population Health found that differences in the impairment criterion of clinical diagnoses may explain this paradox. Self-reported anxiety and depression varies widely among Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Asian students compared to White students.
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Wenjun Fan, and team published their findings of lipoprotein(a) and long-term cardiovascular risk in a large U.S. population cohort study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The study included 27,756 persons with specific eligibility criteria to determine that higher lipoprotein(a) levels are associated with an increased atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk, including in patients with diabetes.
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To understand the potential risk of influenza vaccinations on those with cardiovascular disease (CVD), co-author, Yihang Fan, second year doctoral student in public health disease prevention, and team evaluated cardiovascular clinical trial and observational study outcomes between 1994 and 2023. The study findings published in the journal Vaccine did not find clear evidence to support that influenza vaccination was associated with lower all-cause and CVD mortality but there were some examples that show the vaccine is safe.
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In a commentary piece published in the journal Health Promotion Practice, author and second year doctoral student, Tessa Pulido, discusses the transformative implications for public health research if personal racial identification can capture multiple cultural identities. Pulido argues that racial and ethnic identity should not be limited to singular categorization because it can dampen the effectiveness of public health interventions.
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Seeing healthcare through a different lens
Omar Morales-Haro, MD/MPH Class of 2024 graduate, found that his public health curriculum opened his eyes to the social determinants of health that his future patients face.
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Reappointment of Founding Dean Bernadette Boden‐Albala for additional 5 years
Boden-Albala played a critical role during the COVID-19 pandemic, for both UCI and the Orange County community. Under her leadership, the Program in Public Health went from one department to four and is expected to become a School by the start of the next Academic Year.
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Appointment to a committee to examine the link between exposure to ethylene oxide and breast cancer
The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine has appointed Veronica Vieira to serve as member of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality committee, created in response to the known carcinogen, ethylene oxide, polluting the air in Texas. Vieira and members will conduct a scientific review of the evidence for a causal relationship between exposure to ethylene oxide and breast cancer risk.
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Recognition of leadership & expertise in global health & emerging diseases
In celebration of the launch of the Africa One Health University Network’s One Health Academy, the AFROHUN Board and Leadership recognized Oladele Ogunseitan at the Fourth AFROHUN International One Health Conference for his leadership and expertise in the intersection of human, animal, and environmental health.
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On Thursday, April 25, in recognition of Earth Month, UCI Public Health and the UCI Center for Environmental Health Disparities Research joined forces to host an informative, interdisciplinary discussion with keynote speaker Abre’ Conner, Esq., on Forging Our Own Path – The Importance of Black Leadership in Environmental and Climate Advocacy.
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“Scientists have consistently found higher rates of certain health problems among people with higher PFAS exposures,” Bartell tells TODAY.com.
An expert on PFAS 'forever chemicals', Scott Bartell is leading a study that is looking at how PFAS may affect the health of adults and children in Orange County, Calif.
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