News
Seed grants awarded to Fellows Parcesepe and Ng
June 28, 2020In June, Fellows Angela Parcesepe and Shu Wen Ng were each awarded seed grants to investigate the impacts of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic on US families. Parcesepe's mixed method study aims to generate knowledge and advance understanding of the impact of COVID-related work and family arrangements on maternal mental health in U.S. during the SARS-COV-2 pandemic…
Hannabeth Franchino-Olsen: Minor sex trafficking of girls with disabilities
June 23, 2020Hannabeth Franchino-Olsen is interested in topics of gender-based violence abroad and within the United States and is particularly focused on violence that impacts adolescents and children. Her current work focuses on domestic minor sex trafficking and adolescent vulnerabilities in populations across the U.S. as well as middle and high school students in North Carolina. Franchino-Olsen…
Trainee Spotlight: Max Reason
June 3, 2020Max Reason is a statistician at the United States Department of Agriculture. He is a former trainee at the Carolina Population Center and recently received his PhD in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This interview was conducted by CPC intern Ryan Holmes shortly before Max graduated earlier this year. Q: …
Response to Recent Events
June 2, 2020Dear faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of the Carolina Population Center, In the past months police killings of African Americans in multiple states and the differential impact of the many facets of the COVID19 pandemic on people of color in the United States have shone a bright light on racism of many forms and…
Large collaboration explores social determinants of health in humans and other social mammals
May 22, 2020Humans are highly social animals; we require connections with others. Social adversity is closely linked in health and mortality outcomes, and much research over the past decade has revealed that the social environment we live in, both in the earliest parts of life and later on in adulthood, is one of the strongest predictor of…
Adults in Mexico are consuming fewer soft drinks three years into a sugary-beverage tax
May 6, 2020Three years after Mexico implemented a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages, the country’s adults are consuming fewer soft drinks, according to new findings from an international team of researchers. The team examined the self-reported soft-drink intake of participants in the three phases of Mexico’s Health Workers Cohort Study — a self-administered survey on health and lifestyle…
Trainee Spotlight: Rachel Wilbur
May 3, 2020Rachel Wilbur is a fourth year doctoral candidate in Human Biology and Predoctoral Trainee in the Biosocial Program at CPC. She is interested in the impact of historical trauma and social determinants on the health of contemporary Native American and Alaska Native peoples. Her dissertation research seeks to elucidate and document the pathways through which…
Who gets admitted to medical education in low- and middle-income countries — and why does it matter?
April 7, 2020Recent studies have found that doctors and nurses in low- and middle-income countries are often absent from work, sometimes seek unauthorized payments for services, and may treat patients in disrespectful or abusive ways. A recent commentary in Human Resources for Health points out that while improving work environments might help the overall situation, that solution…
Can social media help track the spread of disease?
April 7, 2020This piece was originally published on March 30 by the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Disease surveillance means monitoring the spread of disease through populations in order to establish patterns and minimize harm caused by outbreaks. In a recent article, UNC-Chapel Hill researchers explored how to effectively and ethically include social media and broader…
These basic public health measures can slow the spread of COVID-19
April 7, 2020This piece was https://sph.unc.edu/sph-news/these-basic-public-health-measures-can-slow-the-spread-of-covid-19/originally published by the Gillings School of Global Public Health. Since the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 was identified in December 2019, it has been transmitted around the globe. Currently, the World Health Organization reports 634,835 confirmed cases and 29,891 deaths worldwide. The epidemiology of COVID-19 — the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2 — has…