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First-year Interest Groups add concept of population health to core curriculum

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The Population Health Initiative has partnered with the University of Washington’s First Year Programs to introduce the concept of population health to the approximately 3,000 incoming freshmen and transfer students who join a First-year Interest Group (FIG). FIGs are peer-guided clusters of courses that small groups of students take together during their first quarter at the UW. All FIG students register for a two-credit course that encourages critical thinking, research and community engagement. As part of this course, students engage…

Recognizing community-engaged research in promotion and tenure guidelines

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The Population Health Initiative seeks to bring the university community and partners together in more interdisciplinary and collaborative ways to improve the health of people here and around the world. A potential barrier to realizing this goal is the appearance of inconsistent criteria in recognizing interdisciplinary and collaborative research, teaching, public scholarship, mentoring and community engagement for faculty promotion and tenure. This concern, which is shared by faculty and leadership across the university, was a key focus of the UW…

New IHME study finds health risks for any level of alcohol consumption

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A new scientific study from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation concludes there is no safe level of drinking alcohol. This conclusion is due to the study team’s findings of clear and convincing correlations between drinking and premature death, cancer and cardiovascular problems. The study, which is part of the annual Global Burden of Disease, showed that nearly three million deaths around the world were attributed to alcohol use in 2016. Learn More >

UW researchers support a floating community in the Amazon

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An interdisciplinary team of researchers is working to improve the health and living conditions of an impoverished floating community in the Peruvian Amazon by drawing on the expertise of researchers from six different University of Washington departments. From cleaning contaminated water to improving food security, the researchers are implementing innovative interventions to enhance both the built and natural environments in the village. They will measure their success based on the “before and after” health of village members and hope to…

NTU Rankings places the UW fourth among U.S. higher education institutions

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The latest NTU rankings place the University of Washington fourth among U.S. institutions of higher education. This ranking is compiled by National Taiwan University and is also known as the “Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities.” It offers annual performance rankings of universities around the world based on their production and impact of scientific papers. The UW trails only Harvard, Stanford and Johns Hopkins among U.S. institutions. Learn More >

Seven new members named to initiative executive council

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Five new faculty and two students have been named to the 30-member Population Health Initiative executive council by President Ana Mari Cauce. They are: Nidhi Agrawal, professor of marketing, Foster School of Business Wendy Barrington, assistant professor of psychosocial and community health, School of Nursing, adjunct assistant professor of epidemiology and health services, and faculty senate liaison Patrick Heagerty, chair and professor, Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health Michelle Montgomery, assistant professor of social and historical studies, School of…

UW Dentistry remains No. 3 in global research rankings

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The University of Washington School of Dentistry retained its No. 3 global and U.S. ranking in the 2018 Academic Ranking of World Universities by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy. The rankings are weighted toward research performance and reputation, and place the school behind only the dental schools of the University of Michigan and the University of North Carolina. Harvard University and King’s College London complete the top five in the category of dentistry and oral sciences. Learn More >

Department of Emergency Medicine launches new section dedicated to population health

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The University of Washington’s Department of Emergency Medicine publicly announced the establishment of a new Section of Population Health on August 6. The focus of this section will be to make advancements in research, education and public policy to better address inequities in underserved populations in both local and global settings. The section’s focus will be a unique undertaking for an academic department of emergency medicine, according to Dr. Susan Stern, the department’s chair, and is possibly one of the…

Higher concentrations of carbon dioxide may reduce protein and multiple key nutrients in rice

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New research shows for the first time that rice grown at the concentrations of atmospheric CO2 expected by the end of this century has lower levels of four key B vitamins. The research’s findings also support research from other studies showing that rice grown under higher CO2 concentrations has less protein, iron and zinc. Decreases in the nutritional content of rice could have a disproportionate impact on health outcomes in the poorest rice-dependent countries, according to the study team, which includes…

UW Grand Challenges Impact Lab successfully launches in India

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An interdisciplinary group of 17 University of Washington students spent Winter Quarter 2018 in India as part of a new study abroad program that empowered them to tackle grand challenges such as security, clean water and climate change. During the Grand Challenges Impact Lab program, students learned to become problem-solvers by practicing design thinking, an iterative process that entails listening to people articulate challenges, defining problems, proposing solutions, creating prototypes and testing designs. The students also took field trips to…