News | College of Public Health

WET Trial explores rates of illness from drinking untreated private well water

Nationwide, approximately 48 million people use private wells, including nearly 3 million in Pennsylvania. The water quality from these largely untreated wells is not federally regulated, and there have been few studies on both the extent and the source of microbial contamination in private wells. In a new randomized controlled trial, Heather Murphy, assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics, will research the effects of drinking untreated well water on children ages three or under—effects that include gastrointestinal and respiratory symptoms from norovirus, Gi...

Water

Environment

Community

Epidemiology and Biostatistics

How vaccine marketing mischaracterized the risks of HPV

When it hit the market in 2006, the vaccine against human papillomavirus was marketed to parents of girls as a way to prevent cervical cancer. Merck’s TV commercials for Gardasil, at the time a series of three vaccines, featured young women proclaiming they wanted to be “One Less” victim. But for years the marketing ignored a population of people who could benefit from it: boys and men, particularly gay men, who are at risk of other preventable types of cancer that HPV can lead to. Christopher Wheldon, assistant professor of social and behavioral sciences, has examined...

Prevention

Cancer

Social and Behavioral Sciences

My Lens project shares stories of those affected by the opioid crisis

Two faculty members in the College of Public Health have been awarded a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as part of a federal effort to combat the opioid crisis on campuses nationwide. Deirdre Dingman, assistant professor in social and behavioral sciences, and Marsha Zibalese-Crawford, associate professor in social work, have launched a three-piece education program that will roll out through 2020 on Temple’s campus. “The number one underlying goal for all of this is reducing the stigma associated with substance use,” Di...

Students

Opioids

Community

School of Social Work

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Study to examine how caregivers impact childhood language learning

Early childhood language difficulties can have a snowball effect, impacting children’s ability to learn and express themselves. As director of the Language, Literacy, and Learning Lab in the College of Public Health, Rebecca Alper knows that parent-implemented early language intervention can be very effective, but that approaches that work well for some families don’t work as well for others. There’s been much research on different kinds of interventions and childhood factors that may predict success. But, surprisingly, researchers haven’t closely examined how much the...

Language and cognition

Children

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Thomas co-authors guidebook on early psychosis and substance use

Substance use is a major problem among young people who are experiencing early psychosis, but there’s been little guidance to help healthcare professionals work with patients who are dealing with these issues together. Now, Elizabeth Thomas, a research assistant professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, has shared her expertise by co-authoring a new government-published guidebook on the subject. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has made First-Episode Psychosis and Co-Occurring Substance Use Disorders available for dow...

Collaborative on Community Inclusion

Substance Use

Social and Behavioral Sciences

Class teaches skills to fight back against assailants

Sixteen students enrolled in Personal Defense for Women, a two-credit class in the College of Public Health’s Kinesiology Department, form a large circle around instructor Jeff Chapman in a gymnasium at the back of McGonigle Hall. The young women are wearing their regular classroom clothes. Having trained for weeks, they’re ready to fight. “We’re going to do some striking drills, and then I’m gonna use this dummy to attack them,” Chapman says. He points to the dummy, a thick red pad that’s in the shape of a human torso. The women shadow-box moves that they...

Kinesiology

Physical Activity

Classes

Understanding what makes a swear effective could lead to advances in treating brain injury

The way we might impulsively blurt out a profanity, in response to anger or surprise or hitting a thumb with a hammer, suggests curse words might have a special place in our brains, accessed a little bit differently than ordinary language. The study of taboo words has been a little bit taboo itself. But there is legitimate academic and health rationale for studying profane language, says associate professor Jamie Reilly, who directs the Memory, Concepts and Cognition Lab in the College of Public Health. “I've seen lots of patients clinically who curse after they’ve had bra...

Language and cognition

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Recreational therapy student starts Girls on the Run chapter

Recreational therapy student Gabrielle Savidge returned to her former elementary school in Bellmawr, NJ, to start a local chapter of the Girls on the Run program, thanks to fundraising and support from the Girls on the Run Central NJ Scholarship Fund. More than 50 girls from Bellmawr Park and Ethel M. Burke elementary schools have completed the program, which builds confidence, life skills, and healthy habits through group activities and running. Once a week, Savidge meets with the group to talk about topics like conflict resolution, positive self-talk, and discovering one’s i...

Students

Recreational Therapy

Health and Rehabilitation Sciences

Community

PACT theater group brings holiday cheers of applause

In a packed conference room inside Ritter Annex, snow was falling and laughter rang out as, one by one, a crowd of people dropped money into a bucket. Then, a chime. At the front of the room, someone says: “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings.” Soon after, a group of nearly 10 adults takes a bow as they finish their performance of the ending scene from Christmas classic It’s a Wonderful Life. The show was more than holiday entertainment: It was part of a new therapeutic theater group in PACT, the Philadelphia Aphasia Community at Temple. PACT provides p...

Community

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Exercise video games may reduce caregivers' stress

Caregivers who need to spend a significant amount of time caring for family members who are elderly, ill or living with disability often neglect their own health. It’s been demonstrated that regular exercise can improve a person’s health and relieve stress, depression and fatigue, but often caregivers don’t feel comfortable leaving homebound loved ones alone so they can hit the gym or the running track. “Caregivers may feel guilty about going out, and that can increase their stress,” says Daniel Rosney, assistant professor of instruction in kinesiology. In earlier res...

Exercise

Caregivers

Kinesiology

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