Sherief Ibrahim, who graduated with his master of public health this May, has compiled research on firearm suicides that he hopes will persuade legislators who oppose gun regulation that, in some cases, it is justified and life-saving. The focus of his research is Extreme Risk Protection Orders, which allow family members or law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily remove firearms from someone at risk of suicide. Gun suicide attempts are almost always fatal; in states that allow them, ERPOs have been shown to cut suicides by up to 13%.  But firearm control in any fo...

A new ranking establishes Temple University as one of the world’s leading research institutions addressing a truly endemic public health crisis—the ongoing rise of obesity in the United States. Driven by research at the Center for Obesity Research and Education (CORE) in the College of Public Health, the university ranks third in the world in the number of papers published in one of the field’s premier journals, Surgery for Obesity and Related Diseases, the flagship journal of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.  “Prior to 2015, we had almost no w...

Public health crises, from the COVID-19 pandemic to future challenges, call for an interdisciplinary, unified response, and we look to our future public health, healthcare and social service workers to answer this call. Within this year's Temple Public Health magazine, you will find numerous examples of just that—beginning with the story of our vaccine delivery protocol, RapidVax, and how the college partnered with communities across Philadelphia to help the city reach an all-important vaccination threshold. You'll also read stories of impact beyond the pandemic, including th...