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KPHD interim health officer supports water fluoridation at low levels

Fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral that protects teeth from tooth decay. Generally, all water contains some naturally occurring fluoride, but not enough to prevent tooth decay, which has led many communities to add additional fluoride to the water to combat tooth decay. U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he intends to push for removal of fluoride from the public water supplies across the country, calling it an “industrial waste.” Dr.

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Bill Gates calls for climate fight to shift focus from curbing emissions to reducing human suffering

AP News

Bill Gates calls for a “strategic pivot” in the global climate fight: from focusing on limiting rising temperatures to fighting poverty and preventing disease. University of Washington public health and climate scientist Kristie Ebi agrees with Gates that the U.N. negotiations should focus on improving human health and well-being, but thinks it's unlikely that changing one variable will curb climate change.

 

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The Republican Plan to Reform the Census Could Put Everyone’s Privacy at Risk

In recent weeks, the GOP has set its sights on getting rid of an algorithmic process called "differential privacy", which was created to keep census data from being used to identify individual respondents. According to research by Abraham Flaxman, professor of global health and of health metrics sciences at the UW, this could mean that someone could use census data without differential privacy to identify transgender youth. 

START Faculty Spotlight: Patricia Pavlinac

For Dr. Patricia Pavlinac, a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington, her career path has been anything but linear. Driven by an innate curiosity and a keen eye for opportunity, Dr. Pavlinac has carved out a distinguished career focused on understanding and combating complex global health challenges, particularly diarrheal diseases. 

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The world is heading to add 57 superhot days a year, but study indicates it could have been worse

AP News

The world is on track to add nearly two months of dangerous superhot days each year by the end of the century a study released Thursday found. University of Washington public health and climate scientist Kristie Ebi, who wasn’t part of Thursday’s report, says that other groups are also finding more than hundreds of thousands of deaths from recent heat waves in peer-reviewed research with much of it because of human-caused climate change.

A One-Stop-Shop: Integrating Hypertension Care into HIV Clinics

For people living with HIV (PLWH) in Africa, hypertension (HTN) is the leading cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. However, despite increased access to effective antiretroviral therapy (ART), PLWH in Africa have limited access to high-quality care for cardiovascular diseases such as strokes, heart failure, and kidney diseases.  

START Kicks Off Academic Year With 13th Annual 2-Day Retreat

START held its 13th annual retreat on September 20 – 21, 2025 at Semiahmoo Resort in Blaine, WA. This two-day retreat is an opportunity for the Center to come together and re-establish their values, have dedicated time toward team-building, go over specific resources and skills that lead to success in START work, and to welcome the new START Research Assistants (RAs) and Global Innovation Fellow (GIF) joining the center for the 2025 – 2026 academic year.

MPH

Oral Health, Global Impact: John Sumkai Atiiga Earns Top Thesis Award

John Sumkai Atiiga, a University of Washington Department of Global Health MPH alumnus, has been awarded the Graduate School’s 2025 Distinguished Thesis Award (Biology & Life Sciences) for his thesis, “Oral Inflammation and Systemic Immune Activation Among Children Living with HIV in Kenya”. This award competition is held by the Western Association of Graduate Schools (WAGS), and recognizes achievement at the master’s level in multiple STEM disciplines.

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