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Latest news and updates

Latest news and updates

Empowering social workers to support secure firearm storage

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Firearms are the leading cause of death among children and adolescents aged 1-19 years in the U.S. and this crisis disproportionately impacts Black, Indigenous, and other Communities of Color, as well as those facing economic and social inequities. Understanding these disparities and their impact on local communities, Dr. Kelsey Conrick discovered a critical gap in firearm safety education among social workers—professionals who frequently work with individuals at high risk of firearm-related harm. Conrick grew up in Montgomery, Alabama, where firearms…

Summer 2025 Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship applications due March 27

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The Population Health Initiative is again partnering with the University of Washington’s Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship and CoMotion to offer its summer Social Entrepreneurship Fellows Program. Applications are due by the end of day on Thursday, March 27, 2025. The program offers each graduate or professional student a total of $10,000 each over the course of 10 weeks to explore social enterprise models with the potential to support innovations developed by UW researchers. The four fellows will be selected from…

Spotlight: Martine De Cock’s privacy-preserving artificial intelligence research

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The potential for artificial intelligence to solve some of the world’s biggest problems has always motivated Dr. Martine De Cock to work on developing and improving its utilization across multiple disciplines. De Cock, a professor in the School of Engineering & Technology at University of Washington Tacoma, particularly believes in the power of privacy preserving AI in healthcare, which involves securely obtaining and utilizing patient data in order to improve current machine learning models aimed at diagnosing and treating a…

Applications for 2025 summer applied research fellowships due on March 20

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The University of Washington’s Population Health Initiative is partnering with the university’s Center for Studies in Demography & Ecology for the seventh consecutive summer to offer the Population Health Applied Research Fellowship program. Applications for this summer’s cohort will be accepted until March 20, 2025 from undergraduate and graduate students across all schools and colleges on all three UW campuses. This paid fellowship program will offer a multidisciplinary team of undergraduate and graduate students training in data analysis techniques as…

Autumn 2022 pilot grant awardees report out the final outcomes of their projects

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The University of Washington Population Health Initiative awarded five pilot grants to interdisciplinary teams of UW researchers in autumn quarter 2022. Those projects have now each reached their respective conclusions, with the researchers reporting outcomes in areas such as mental health and well-being, healthcare access and point-of-care diagnostics. The Population Health Initiative’s Tier 2 pilot grant program support researchers in developing preliminary data or the proof-of-concept needed to pursue follow-on funding to scale one’s efforts. The total value of these…

Initiative-funded pilot develops training for pharmacists to treat people with epilepsy

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Epilepsy, a complex spectrum of seizure disorders, which affects about 3.4 million people nationwide, making it the fourth most common neurological disease in the United States. While anti seizure medicines (ASMs) are the first line of treatment, 50% of people living with epilepsy (PWE) experience adverse drug effects that lessen medication adherence and quality of life (QoL). For nearly five years, a team of interdisciplinary researchers at the University of Washington, which included H. Steve White (Pharmacy), Andy Stergachis (Pharmacy…

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…