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UW research finds decrease in sweetened beverage consumption after tax implemented

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New research from the University of Washington found a nearly 50% reduction in purchases of sweetened beverages in lower-income households after introducing a sweetened beverage tax. The study investigated responses to sweetened beverage taxes by observing the purchasing behavior of approximately 400 households in Seattle, San Francisco, Oakland and Philadelphia. Researchers followed the households for a year before and after the tax was implemented in their city, finding a larger price increase in taxed beverages for lower-income households compared to…

Spotlight: Sharon Laing puts community first, and the rest follows

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If there is one person you can always count on to be out in the community seeking opportunities for growth, change and improvement, it is Dr. Sharon Laing. Laing, an associate professor in the School of Nursing & Healthcare Leadership at University of Washington Tacoma, uses community-based health research to better understand the needs of the community while ensuring equitable healthcare solutions are offered to structurally marginalized communities. “There is a need to engage with the community and not be…

UW News highlights Initiative-funded research offering better data on unhoused populations

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UW News spoke with researchers Zack Almquist, a University of Washington associate professor of Sociology, and Amy Hagopian, professor emeritus of Health Systems and Population Health, to learn more about their Population Health Initiative research aimed at providing a more representative sample of the estimated total unhoused population. America’s homeless service systems rely on federal reports to allocate funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Development (HUD) and direct local service providers towards appropriate outreach efforts. Hagopian emphasized that…

New UW research assesses the harm of workplace psychosocial hazards

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New research from University of Washington School of Public Health examined the severity of occupational psychosocial hazards on U.S. workers while highlighting the underlying sociodemographic disparities that harm racially and ethnically minority workers to a greater extent. The research was published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, leading to the creation of a publicly accessible database that provides insight to how these psychosocial hazards are present across occupations and sociodemographic groups. Researchers looked at 19 psychosocial hazards, divided into…

UW-led study reveals disparities in suicide rates among young Asian Americans

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A new study published in JAMA Pediatrics found that suicide rates among young Asian Americans (ages 15-24) vary significantly between different ethnic subpopulations, suggesting that low rates in some groups might be hiding high rates in others. Dr. Anthony L. Bui, the study’s lead author and an acting assistant professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine, advised that programs aimed at reducing suicide rates among young Asian Americans should attempt to understand the needs of higher-risk…

Initiative, Buerk Center co-host third annual Sacia Digital Health Innovation Workshop

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For the fourth year in a row, a cross-campus collaboration between the Foster School of Business’ Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship and the Population Health Initiative offered students an immersive and hands-on opportunity to workshop new solutions in the growing and dynamic field of digital health. Approximately 30 undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of disciplines came together on November 16, 2024 in the University of Washington’s Hans Rosling Center for Population Health to make the 2024 Sacia Digital Health…

Initiative and Buerk Center co-host an Innovation in Women’s Health panel

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Students gathered in the Hans Rosling Center for Population Health in October 2024 for a panel event focused on Innovations in Women’s Health. This panel event was a partnership between the Population Health Initiative and the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship’s Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership program (WE Lead). The panel event set out to highlight the crucial role that research, investment and innovations in women’s health plays in addressing centuries of gender disparities in medical research, amplified by guidelines that excluded women…

UW research finds racial and gender bias in AI tools ranking job applicants’ names

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The prevalence of Artificial Intelligence-use in the job market is staggering: applicants are now using artificial intelligence bots to apply for thousands of job listings, and employers are writing job descriptions and evaluating resumes using the latest AI large language models. Despite the potential for increased efficiency and potentially less discriminatory hiring practices, new University of Washington research found significant racial, gender and intersectional bias in how three large language models, or LLMs, ranked applicants’ names from 550 real-world resumes….

Designing better methods to help female athletes train to prevent, recover from injuries

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The popularity of women’s sports has increased substantially in the last year, but higher risk of injury continue to create disparities between male and female athletes. Several common injuries particularly impact women’s sports, with ACL tears found to be two to eight times more common for women than men in the same sports. Jenny Robinson, a University of Washington assistant professor of mechanical engineering, studies how male and female tissues differ in recovery after sports injuries. As endowed chair in…

Population Health Initiative helps to catalyze innovative, interdisciplinary research

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UW News engaged with three Population Health Initiative projects in celebration of the Initiative’s eighth year in action. Since the Initiative began in 2016, it has funded 227 interdisciplinary projects that have collectively realized a range of positive results. The projects previewed include an online program that measures a person’s memory and predicts their risk of memory disorders, a “respondent-driven sampling” method utilized to more accurately count the number of unhoused people in King County and a collaborative effort with…