Blog

A cardboard sign that says

Public Health's Role in Addressing Racism

DuBois Bowman

A new year represents an opportunity for change and growth. This is a critical moment in which our nation has turned its attention to racism and pledged to address long-standing inequities in our society. Those of us in the field of public health can and should be leaders in these efforts.

Food market in Detroit

Emergency Food Security Funding Must Continue

Alek Ostrander and Carly Truett

The economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk of the nearly 26 million adults in the US struggling to access and afford food. Federal nutrition assistance programs like SNAP help, but additional assistance is needed for those already receiving maximum benefits. And many of these emergency measures should become permanent.

Smokestacks shooting steam into a morning lit sky.

The Hidden Pandemic behind the Coronavirus

Sarah Javaid and Kathleen Lindsey

Sarah Javaid and Kathleen Lindsey take a look at some of the positive and negative impacts on the environment that have happened due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Katherine Hoffman at her desk in the biostatistics and epidemiology division at Weill Cornell Medicine.

On the sidelines: New York's COVID-19 outbreak from the eyes of a Biostatistician

Katherine Hoffman, MS ’18

It's March. An early-career biostatistician at a large medical facility, alum Katherine Hoffman is living through New York City’s explosive COVID-19 outbreak. As the statistician for a pulmonary and critical care team, she is quickly pulled into COVID-19 work. Her hospital is running out of ventilators. She is told to drop all other research projects for COVID-19 work. This is her story.

A black mother stands on a beach while holding her infant

Infant Mortality among Black Babies

Utibe Effiong, MPH ’14, Ekemini Hogan, and Obasi Okorie

It’s a painful statistical fact that Black babies die at higher rates than White babies—a fact all the more painful and tragic for those living with the realities of infant mortality. The difference in death rates is shared by developing and developed nations alike. But the trend can and must change.

René Pitter, MPH '09, finishes the Race against Hate

Movements toward Health and Each Other

Renée Pitter, MPH ’09

An effort to spread health positivity among Black Michigan alums became a huge success. In the face of so many stories about health inequities and trauma in Black communities, a growing group of Black alums is moving their way to connection, awareness, health, and healing.