UW News

Health Systems and Population Health


September 19, 2024

Over 8 years, UW Population Health Initiative has turned ideas into impact

In a time-lapse image, a bus passes in front of a large building with a reflective glass exterior.

In just eight years, the UW Population Health Initiative has funded 227 innovative, interdisciplinary projects. With the Initiative now a third of the way into its 25-year vision, UW News checked in with three projects that recently received funding to scale their efforts. 


January 22, 2024

Q&A: UW expert on the rise and risks of artificial sweeteners

Eight white sugar cubes set against a black background.

The rise of artificial sweeteners has made it easier for conscious consumers to reduce their sugar intake, but these products may present their own health risks.


February 14, 2023

New faculty books: Fad diets, how inequality leads to poor health and more

Three books spread on a wooden table with covers facing up.

Four new faculty books from the University of Washington cover topics ranging from inequality’s effects on health to fad diets to former German chancellor Angela Merkel’s legacy on gender equality.


September 9, 2022

Pandemic federal programs helped kids in need get access to 1.5 billion meals every month

National Guard distributing food

  When schools closed during the first year of the pandemic, an immediate and potentially devastating problem surfaced: How would millions of children in struggling families get the school meals many of them depended on? The U.S. Congress responded by authorizing the Department of Agriculture to roll out two major programs. It launched the “grab…


July 8, 2022

Sweetened beverage taxes produce net economic benefits for lower-income communities

Bottles and cans of soda on store shelves

New research led by University of Washington professors James Krieger and Melissa Knox found that sweetened beverage taxes redistributed dollars from higher- to lower-income households.


May 27, 2022

Critical race theory at center of UW study of unequal access to treatment for opioid addiction

Opioid use disorder is an addiction crisis in the United States that has become increasingly lethal during the COVID-19 pandemic. To preserve access to life-saving treatment during the pandemic, federal drug agencies loosened requirements on physicians for treating these patients, including moving patient evaluations away from in-person exams to telemedicine. This federal policy change focused…


October 28, 2021

Countermarketing based on anti-smoking campaigns reduces buying of sugary ‘fruit’ drinks for children

spoonful of sugar with raspberry on top

Public health messages such as in the image below — designed to reduce parents’ purchases of sugar-sweetened beverages marketed as fruit drinks for children — convinced a significant percentage of parents to avoid those drinks, according to a study by researchers at the University of Washington and the University of Pennsylvania. The UW-led study set…