By Diane Mapes
As with many studies, there was good news and bad news.
The good news: Public health researchers from the University of Washington looked at cancer’s mortality rate county by county and found that overall, deaths from the disease dropped 20 percent during the last 35 years, falling from 240 deaths per 100,000 people in 1980 to 192 deaths per 100,000 people in 2014.
More than 50 percent of adults with high blood pressure in suburban Nepal don’t know they have it, according to researchers from the University of Washington School of Public Health and the Kathmandu University School of Medical Sciences.
By Ashlie Chandler
About 162 million children worldwide under age 5 are considered too short for their age, a growth failure called stunting. Despite efforts to improve child growth, stunting has been difficult to prevent and treat, negatively impacting child health and development.
Researchers from the University of Washington School of Public Health studied what causes child stunting and developed a framework to help deliver effective interventions in low-resource settings.
Masa Narita, MD, Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology and Global Health at the University of Washington School of Public Health, received the Noreen Harris Award for Excellence in Public Health Epidemiology for his work in tuberculosis (TB) surveillance and epidemiology. The award is presented annually by Public Health – Seattle & King County.
Dr. Narita is the TB disease control officer for King County in Washington state, and he has been at the helm of the Tuberculosis Control Program (TBCP) at Public Health – Seattle & King County for 12 years.
By John Greenburg
Among nations, the United States is the runaway leader in the money it spends on global health programs, and the looming question for advocates is what will happen under President Donald Trump and a Republican Congress. Nick Seymour, a Harvard junior volunteering at a health clinic in Mexico, argued for sustained spending.
The Pisacano Leadership Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM), recently selected Brianne Huffstetler Rowan, 4th year medical student at the UW School of Medicine, as one of their 2016 Pisacano Scholars. These 5 scholars and medical students follow in the footsteps of 103 scholar alumni who are practicing physicians and 20 current scholars who are enrolled in medical schools or family medicine residency programs across the country.
Julie Overbaugh, PhD, Affiliate Professor in the UW Department of Global Health, scientist and member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Endowed Chair of Graduate Education, received the lifetime achievement Nature Award for Mentoring in Science and a $10,000 prize in December. Nature hosts these annual awards to champion the importance of mentoring and inspiring a generation of young scientists.
By Jessica Berman
A genetically engineered malaria vaccine has been shown to prevent the disease in mice, researchers say. The findings offer hope of halting the illness in humans, as well as stopping transmission of the mosquito-borne disease.
Researchers at the Center for Infectious Disease Research (CIDR) at the University of Washington, in conjunction with the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, have developed a vaccine that uses the entire malaria-causing parasite — called P. falciparum — to stimulate a protective immune response.
By Mary Engel
Researchers may be one step closer to a truly effective malaria vaccine, a new study suggests. A genetically modified malaria parasite worked as designed in its first human clinical trial, causing neither malaria nor serious safety problems in the 10 people who volunteered to be infected. It also stimulated an immune response that holds out promise of a more protective vaccine than the single candidate now in pilot studies