UW News

Department of Global Health


August 1, 2024

15 UW professors among new class of members to the Washington State Academy of Sciences

Fifteen faculty members at the University of Washington have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences for 2024. They are among 36 scientists and educators from across the state announced Aug. 1 as new members. Selection recognizes the new members’ “outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.”


April 18, 2024

Two UW researchers named AAAS Fellows

A tradition dating back to 1874, election as an AAAS Fellow is a lifetime honor, and all fellows are expected to meet the commonly held standards of professional ethics and scientific integrity.


November 14, 2023

5th National Climate Assessment authors include UW climate experts

Three UW experts are among the authors of the newly released Fifth National Climate Assessment, an overview of climate trends, impacts and efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change across the nation.


October 12, 2023

ArtSci Roundup: Frontiers of Physics Lecture, a conversation with Bridgerton author, Archaeology Day at the Burke, and more

This week, attend the Frontiers of Physics Lecture, listen to a conversation with Julia Quinn the author of the Bridgerton series, head to the Burke Museum to celebrate International Archaeology Day, and more. October 17, 7:30pm | Frontiers of Physics Lecture | More perfect than we imagined: A physicist’s view of life, Kane Hall Among the most…


September 19, 2023

Five UW faculty members elected as AGU Fellows, plus more honors

block W

The American Geophysical Union announced Sept. 13 that five University of Washington faculty members have been elected as new fellows, representing the departments of astronomy, Earth and space sciences, oceanography, global health, and environmental and occupational health sciences.


November 11, 2021

Deforestation, climate change linked to more worker deaths and unsafe conditions

Outdoor workers in the world’s lower-latitude tropical forests may face a greater risk of heat-related deaths and unsafe working conditions because of deforestation and climate warming, according to a study led by The Nature Conservancy, the University of Washington and Indonesia’s Mulawarman University. In the study, researchers found that increased temperatures of 0.95 C (1.7…


October 5, 2021

UW joins USAID’s $125M project to detect emerging viruses with pandemic potential

Showing a bat

To better identify and prevent future pandemics, the University of Washington has become a partner in a five-year global, collaborative agreement with the U.S. Agency for International Development. The newly launched Discovery & Exploration of Emerging Pathogens – Viral Zoonoses, or DEEP VZN project, has approximately $125 million in anticipated funding and will be led…


October 1, 2021

Politics, health data held almost equal sway in states’ COVID-19 restrictions

Closed sign in a shop window

New research by the University of Washington shows that states eased pandemic restrictions, such as gathering limits and business closures, based on politics as much as COVID-19 death rates or case counts. 


August 20, 2021

With extreme heat increasingly common, UW expert calls for urgent planning to protect health in new Lancet series

In a new series on increasingly common extreme heat waves and their impact on human health published Thursday in the British medical journal The Lancet, a University of Washington climate change and health expert joined more than a dozen international experts to warn that we better prepare. “The preventable heat stress and deaths during this summer’s…


July 16, 2021

20 UW researchers elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences for 2021

Twenty scientists and engineers at the University of Washington are among the 38 new members elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences for 2021, according to a July 15 announcement. New members were chosen for “their outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement, and their willingness to work on behalf of the Academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.”


October 22, 2020

COVID-19: CDC advisory committee hones in on vaccine rollout recommendations

Vaccine and syringe

When a vaccine to fight COVID-19 has been approved by the FDA for distribution, it’s unlikely that at first there will be enough doses for everyone. Consequently, the United States will need an equitable and effective plan for who gets those first doses, how they get them and who’s next. Just as important, that plan…


August 7, 2020

Faculty/staff honors: Grants for STEM equity, HIV prevention; innovation award — and a White House honor for engineering mentoring

Eve Riskin, professor and associate dean in the UW College of Engineering, has been named a recipient of a 2019 Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.

Recent honors and grants to University of Washington individuals and units have come from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, the Marconi Society — and the White House.


January 22, 2020

Community-based counselors help mitigate grief, stress among children orphaned in East Africa

Group of people pose outside a building.

The University of Washington led a clinical trial involving more than 600 children in Kenya and Tanzania, in which community members were trained to deliver mental health treatment, showed improvement in participants’ trauma-related symptoms up to a year after receiving therapy.


January 21, 2020

A foundation for ‘safe motherhood’ created with and for the Somali community

On a recent Saturday evening, a dozen women gathered around a table at a community room in the White Center neighborhood of Seattle, settling in with snacks and conversation. The evening’s program would be more education than entertainment, an opportunity to discuss topics so sensitive that, without the group of women assembled that night, might…


October 11, 2019

New UW center receives NIH grant to improve the fight against cancer

IV tubes

Even successful methods for diagnosing, treating and caring for people who are suffering from cancer are not enough without effective, practical tools and guidance for putting those methods into practice. To bridge this gap between cancer interventions and their implementation within communities across the country, the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute is funding…


October 10, 2019

UW names population health building after Swedish physician and ‘very serious possibilist’ Hans Rosling

Artist rendering of building

Hans Rosling is known internationally for his captivating analysis of global health data, for discovering a paralyzing disease in Africa and explaining its socio-economic causes, and for his intense curiosity and life-long passion for educating students, world leaders and the public. Now, Hans Rosling — a Swedish doctor, statistician, author and professor — will be…


June 5, 2019

Urgent action on climate change will prevent heat-related deaths in major U.S. cities

The planet will warm by about 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century if the U.S. and other nations meet only their current commitments under the Paris climate agreement to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases. According to a paper by U.S. and U.K. scientists published in Science Advances today, accelerating ambition to reduce global warming emissions to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius could prevent thousands of extreme heat-related deaths in cities across the U.S.


November 20, 2018

Mobile health has power to transform HIV/AIDS nursing

headshot

The abundance of personal smartphones in southern African countries got University of Washington professor Sarah Gimbel thinking: What if these phones were used by front-line health workers — namely nurses — to collect and analyze data on patients living with HIV or AIDS to improve their care?


October 11, 2018

UW professor of global health a lead author on new climate report

Kristie Ebi, a UW professor of global health, was a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s “Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 C” that compares the effects of 1.5 versus 2 degrees Celsius of global warming.


September 19, 2018

UW offers new concurrent graduate degree program for nurses with focus on population, global health

aerial of UW campus

Nurses and nurse-scientists interested in advanced multi-disciplinary training for population and global health practice can now apply for a new University of Washington degree program.


April 25, 2018

UW breaks ground on new Population Health building

A crowd of dignitaries gathered Wednesday for the official groundbreaking of the university’s new 290,000-square-foot Population Health Building, a facility that will house the Population Health Initiative launched by the UW in 2016.


UW faculty selected as authors, editors of international report on climate change

About twice each decade, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, looks at what is known about the science of climate change, the extent to which human activities are changing the Earth’s climate, and what risks these changes pose to human and natural systems. Organized into three working groups, each assessment is…


April 12, 2017

Why treating animals may be important in fighting resurgent tropical disease

  As the World Health Organization steps up its efforts to eradicate a once-rampant tropical disease, a University of Washington study suggests that monitoring, and potentially treating, the monkeys that co-exist with humans in affected parts of the world may be part of the global strategy. Yaws, an infectious disease that causes disfiguring skin lesions…


January 15, 2016

Twenty-seven UW faculty listed among ‘world’s most influential scientific minds’ by Thomson Reuters

The University of Washington is home to 26 researchers included on Thomson Reuters’ list of “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” for 2015, which was released Jan. 14. The distinction, based on an analysis of over a decade of research paper citations among 21 general scientific fields, is meant to recognize scientists who are most cited by their peers.


April 29, 2014

Health Digest: Infant immunization, worker memorial, malaria and AirCare

Health Digest is a selection of recent news and features from the UW Health Sciences/UW Medicine.


January 27, 2014

‘Achieving Health for All’ is topic of 38th Annual Faculty Lecture Feb . 6

Gloyd with grads

Dr. Stephen Gloyd, professor of global health and health services, will discuss creative responses to reducing inequity worldwide.


January 8, 2014

Despite declines in smoking rates, number of smokers and cigarettes rises

smoking in flight

Population growth since 1980 drives increases in the number of smokers in countries including China and Russia, while Canada, Mexico, and the United States see strong declines


November 21, 2013

Studies to probe confluence of human, animal and environmental health in Africa

Grand Challenges Exploration Grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will allow two UW-led teams to study the health determinants people share with other living creatures.


June 5, 2013

Congolese rape survivors helped by cognitive processing therapy

Congolese training class

Short-term therapy from paraprofessionals improved the mental health of Congolese women who suffered sexual violence.


April 4, 2013

Explore global health through the arts during Global Health Week

Phil Borges Tibet portrait

Dance, photography, cinema, theater and music will convey how the arts can make a difference in public health.


March 20, 2013

2013 Canada Gairdner Global Health Award goes to King Holmes for STD work

King K. Holmes

Holmes was honored for his groundbreaking work on sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, chlamydia, genital herpes, gonorrhea and human papilloma virus.