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Dear UCI Community,
I'd like to first start off with a warm welcome to all our newly enrolled Anteaters. You’ve made an excellent choice. Beyond our academic offerings and our research enterprise, UCI is nationally recognized for its diversity, equity, and inclusion, which are the cornerstones upon which a healthier, fairer, and more innovative future is built.
Diversity encompasses the richness of human experiences, backgrounds, perspectives, and identities. In public health and academia, it is a source of unparalleled strength. It ensures that the solutions we devise are truly representative and effective. Inclusion goes beyond the mere presence of diverse individuals because it involves creating environments where everyone feels valued and respected. The goal of driving diversity and inclusion initiatives is to ultimately achieve equity. Whether it’s equitable access to resources and opportunities for students or equitable access to healthcare, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status, achieving equity is important in all sectors.
UCI Public Health's role is to help close those gaps and prevent them from forming in the first place whether that is through training future public health practitioners or our research initiatives – everything we do is important in moving the needle towards a more just, equitable future. Read our Academic Year in Review to see all that we're doing in and for California and beyond.
With the new school year upon us and in recognition of Hispanic Heritage Month, I want to reaffirm our vision to achieve equity among our faculty, students, and staff through the words of our newest addition to our leadership team, Dr. Marizen Ramirez, associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Dr. Ramirez speaks of the importance of building a culturally responsive workforce that is reflective of the population it serves. She is proud to join UCI, a minority-serving institution, and looks forward to putting the “we” and “us” in pushing DEI initiatives that address the needs, desires, and preferences of those populations who have been marginalized in the past.
Sincerely,
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Marizen Ramirez brings 20-plus years of injury prevention research to UCI and high aspirations to further infuse diversity, equity, and inclusion into UCI Public Health. With her five-year plan laid out, she shares about the importance of diversifying the higher education landscape and workforce as well as conducting research with an impact.
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To uncover gaps in neurologic-intervention studies incorporating community engagement practices, corresponding author Bernadette Boden-Albala, collaborated with researchers to publish a study in Neurology.
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Long-term exposure to low-dose radiation is linked to an increased risk of cancer, according to a study led by David Richardson. Researchers' caution is warranted given increased public exposure in recent decades. Published in The British Medical Journal.
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A first-of-its-kind study led by Jun Wu and doctoral student Anqi Jiao, found that exposure to extreme heat had an association with adverse pregnancy outcomes, such as preterm birth, premature rupture of membranes, low birth weight, and stillbirth. Published in JAMA Open Network.
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Newly appointed assistant professor of population health and disease prevention Matthew Landry, believes that education and awareness are key to better community health and well-being. He hopes to help improve Orange County's diet and lifestyle through evidence-based research and community health interventions.
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Denise Payan co-authored two studies on how federally qualified health centers utilized telemedicine to make their operations more efficient and deliver better care. One study showed how an FQHC optimized and automated its screening system and increased follow-up support. The other study showed that telemedicine implementation increased access to care and reduced appointment no-show rates.
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Corresponding author Ulrike Luderer and team discovered that exposure of pregnant female mice to the common environmental pollutant benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) at a dose to which women might be exposed decreased the number of eggs in her exposed daughters and in her unexposed great-grand daughters.
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Trina Norden-Krichmar co-authored a study exposing the impact on animals and humans when exposed to glyphosate, the most highly used pesticide in the world. For a cohort of healthy postmenopausal women residing in Southern California, glyphosate was detected in urine samples from those who consumed grain, even organic grains.
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Corresponding author, Kristina Uban, and doctoral candidate, Hawa Mariko, conducted a study discovering unintended distortions when saliva is collected from participants that are impacted by poor sleep, pH levels, or rigorous physical activity. These findings are important for future studies using saliva as a biomarker because they will need to examine these distortions before analyzing data.
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Post-doc and corresponding author Alein Haro-Ramos found that the majority of Californians who did NOT use paid leave were Latinx. The reasons cited were fear of job loss, fear of negative impacts on job advancement, employers denying it, lack of information or knowledge regarding the process or ineligibility.
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Annual Pop-up Flu Vaccine Clinic
Every Monday & Wednesdays (October, November & Early December)
11 a.m. - 3 p.m. | Social Sciences Plaza on Ring Road
Attention Students! The Pop-up Flu Vaccine Clinic is back! Stop by on your way to class at Social Sciences Plaza along Ring Road. You’ll be in and out in less than 15 minutes. No appointment necessary!
No out-of-pocket cost for students covered by UC SHIP. For "non-SHIP" students, the cost is $40.00 and can be paid by cash or charged to your Zot Account.
The flu vaccine pop-up is a joint effort among the UCI Program in Public Health, UCI School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences, and UCI Student Health Center.
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Doctoral student takes public health research to a community-level
Public health practitioner Athena Corral Carlos is dedicating her career to reducing disparities among the Hispanic communities and understanding chronic diseases, specifically the impact that physical activity, lifestyle-related, and socioeconomic factors have on the onset of disease.
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Karen Lincoln helps NIMH celebrate 75 years, provides closing remarks at their conference on the evolution of mental health research
Karen Lincoln spoke at a conference for the National Institute of Mental Health's 75th anniversary. Lincoln's expertise on mental health disparities made her the perfect candidate to give the closing remarks at this momentous occasion.
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Doctoral student Natalie Binczewski presented an oral talk entitled: "Association Between Low Birth Weight Infants and PFOS and PFOA Exposure from Contaminated Drinking Water in Southern California," at the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology's North American Chapter Meeting. Natalie was joined by her colleagues Karen Valladares, Shayna Simona, Yerin Jung, and faculty mentor Veronica Vieira.
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Doctoral student, Gaelle T. Sehi, and faculty mentor, Daniel Parker, were recently awarded a grant from the Pacific Southwest Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases to harness the power of geospatial surveillance to target interventions for halting the spread of Ae. aegypti or yellow fever mosquitos in San Bernardino County, California.
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Michael Hoyt chosen to serve as the next ISBM President-elect
At the annual conference or International Congress of Behavioral Medicine (ISBM), Michael Hoyt, has been selected to serve as the next ISBM president-elect as well as honored with the ISBM Distinguished Career Contributions Award.
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Doctoral candidate Victoria E. Rodriguez chosen to be a part of prestigious career development academy
Victoria Rodriguez was one of 16 young science leaders chosen out of a national pool of candidates to be a fellow in the NIH-funded Yale Ciencia Academy (YCA) for Career Development program. YCA will equip Rodriguez with the knowledge, skills, and networks she needs to find a postdoctoral position that will further their academic interests and career goals.
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Dual-degree alumna found her calling by bridging the study of the mind with medicine
UCI Public Health alumna Kathleen Carlos, MD, PhD, earned her doctoral degree in public health with the Class of 2020 and went straight into medical school where she earned her medical degree with the Class of 2023.
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