June 30, 2025

Stay informed with the latest from the University of Michigan School of Public Health community in our monthly digest. Departmental news, research highlights, community achievements, and more to help you stay connected with Michigan Public Health. Explore the impactful work of our faculty, students, and partners as we continue to advance public health initiatives and celebrate our collective successes.

Awards

Faculty, staff receive research awards and recognition

The University of Michigan’s Office of the Vice President for Research recently recognized several Michigan Public Health faculty and staff for their work:

Jackie Goodrich, research associate professor of Environmental Health Sciences, received the Research Faculty Achievement Award. Goodrich's work identifies hazardous environmental factors and their health impacts in populations underrepresented in research or burdened by higher toxic exposure levels due to their occupation or the region where they live.

Matthew Schipper, research professor of Radiation Oncology and Biostatistics, received the newly established Research Faculty Mentor Award. This award celebrates Schipper's consistent commitment to providing guidance and fostering academic career growth: advising 24 graduate student research assistants and supporting the training of fellow faculty, clinical residents, graduate students and research staff.

Stephen Modell, a senior research area specialist in the Department of Epidemiology and a Michigan Public Health alumnus, received the Research Staff Support Recognition Award. This award commemorates Modell's excellence in supporting and facilitating the successful planning and implementation of research projects and processes.

Research highlights

OVPR highlights school’s research in recent newsletter

The University of Michigan Office of the Vice President for Research recently featured critical research stories from the University of Michigan School of Public Health. The newsletter explores how the school’s research makes a lasting impact on society, addressing key public health issues from preventing cancer and heart disease to reducing childhood hunger and gun violence.

Faculty address declining trust in science and medicine

A team including Michigan Public Health faculty published important research on rebuilding public trust in the Journal of Hospital Medicine. The study, led by Marianne Udow-Phillips, lecturer in the Department of Health Management and Policy, and Natasha Bagdasarian, Chief Medical Executive for the State of Michigan and adjunct professor in Epidemiology, examines how trust in public health and medical practitioners has declined since COVID-19. The research highlights Michigan's innovative response through the Michigan Health Communications Initiative, which partners with trusted community messengers to combat health misinformation. "Providing accurate, fact-based information is imperative to save lives and promote health," the authors write, calling for states to take leadership roles in disseminating evidence-based health information during times of declining federal reliability.

Research team advances privacy-protecting methods for medical data

A team of researchers published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association that could advance privacy-protecting medical research. The study compared different methods for creating synthetic patient data that maintains research value while protecting real patients' privacy. After testing seven approaches, the team found that AI-based methods worked best for accuracy while simpler methods offered stronger privacy protection. The researchers also developed free software called "SynthEHRella" to help the broader medical research community generate and evaluate synthetic health data, providing tools that could enable more studies while safeguarding patient information.

Genetic diversity study advances precision health strategies for India

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, India, the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of Michigan collaborated to analyze the complete genomes of 2,762 individuals representing India's major linguistic, ethnic and geographic communities. The research, published in Cell, uncovered a 50,000-year history of genetic mixing and population bottlenecks that shaped genetic variation in South Asia, finding that Indians harbor the highest variation in Neanderthal ancestry among non-Africans. The study identified numerous rare and population-specific disease variants, including mutations that cause severe reactions to anesthetics in certain communities. These findings will help inform precision health strategies in India and reshape understanding of how ancient migrations and social structures have influenced genetic diversity and disease risk across South Asian populations.

Commentary & op-eds

Don't let Michigan workers pay the price for budget cuts

"In Michigan, our core industries depend on NIOSH guidelines to maintain safe operations. The destruction of NIOSH will reduce productivity and increase the likelihood of safety failures, threatening lives and sectors critical to our state's economy," writes Rick Neitzel, professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Global Public Health, and COHSE colleagues in the Detroit News. The op-ed argues that proposed cuts to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health would harm workers across industries from automotive manufacturing to agriculture, removing critical free onsite consultations and safety guidance that protect workers nationwide.

Michigan has tools to ease medical debt. Does it have the will?

Nearly 1 million Michigan adults carry medical debt, with 80% of medical bills containing inaccuracies, writes Minal Patel, professor of Health Behavior & Health Equity at Michigan Public Health, in Bridge Michigan. Patel advocates for training Community Health Workers to help patients navigate medical billing errors and apply for financial assistance programs. "Medical bills shouldn't drive families into bankruptcy because they couldn't understand a charge or find help," she writes, calling for Michigan to unlock the full potential of its community health worker model to address this overlooked public health threat.

Don’t let TikTok be your child’s only sex ed teacher

Michigan's sex education laws, last updated in 2004, leave students turning to social media platforms like TikTok for health information, write Julie Maslowsky, associate professor of Nursing and Health Behavior & Health Equity, and Michigan Public Health alum Taryn Gal, in Bridge Michigan. The authors advocate for reintroducing House Bill 6068, which would require medically accurate, evidence-informed sex education while maintaining parental opt-out rights. Research shows that approximately 90% of parents believe comprehensive sex education should be taught in schools, they note, calling for common-sense updates to prepare students for healthy relationships and informed decision-making.

Health and health care's influence on political engagement

On the Michigan Minds podcast, Scott Greer, professor of Health Management and Policy and Global Public Health, discusses how politics and public health collide to affect vaccines, preparedness to fight the spread of contagious disease, humanitarian outreach and HIV/AIDS programs.

Alumni & community impact

Feeding MI Families fellows bring lived experience to state policy discussions

Michigan Public Health Associate Professor Kate Bauer's Feeding MI Families Community Food Advocacy Fellowship continues to demonstrate its impact as participants take their advocacy skills to the state level. Recent testimony before Michigan lawmakers about proposed federal SNAP cuts included voices from the fellowship's speakers bureau, which connects fellowship graduates with policymakers, community organizations, and the public on food access issues. The testimony highlighted how federal cuts would force families to choose between housing, clothing, and food, affecting 1.5 million Michigan SNAP recipients.

"Personal stories are the most effective way to communicate the impacts of policies to legislators. I am so proud of the CFAF Fellows who honestly and directly spoke to our lawmakers about how critical SNAP is to their families' health and wellbeing," said Bauer.

The Feeding MI Families Community Food Advocacy Fellowship empowers Michigan parents with lived experience of hunger to advocate for policies that support food security, with fellows serving as speakers, advisors, and collaborators. This direct line from fellowship training to state-level advocacy demonstrates how Bauer's community and family-centered work is creating lasting change in Michigan's food policy landscape.

Alum gives oral presentation at 2025 Collaborating Across Borders IX conference

Recent Michigan Public Health alum Amani Abuelenain, along with colleague Hannah Edwards, presented research on leadership and conflict resolution in healthcare education at the 2025 Collaborating Across Borders IX conference. Their study, "Bridging Leadership and Conflict Styles in Interprofessional Education: Baseline Insights from Health Science Students," examined how early-stage health science students navigate team dynamics. The research revealed that students tend toward supportive leadership styles and favor compromising approaches to conflict resolution, findings that could influence how shapes collaborative leadership development in team-based healthcare environments.

Healthy Flint Research Coordinating Center's 8th Annual Research Symposium

The Healthy Flint Research Coordinating Center, a partnership of community organizations and academic institutions with the goal of establishing equitable relationships between community and academia, hosts its eighth research symposium on September 26, this year focused on the role of citizen science and building capacity and partnership. Registration is free.