High-tech tools such as mobile phone apps can help people follow through on health recommendations, offering daily reminders and gamelike progress-tracking to help their behavior stay on course between doctor visits. But it’s a mistake to believe that a totally automated solution works for everyone. A new study by Stephen Lepore, chair and professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Bradley Collins, professor of social and behavioral sciences, shows the benefit of a hybrid approach that combines a mobile health app for quitting smoking with targeted hu...

Patients hospitalized for influenza had increased odds of heart attack and stroke in the following weeks and months, according to a new study led by Temple College of Public Health epidemiologist and assistant professor Erin Kulick. Kulick and collaborators from Columbia University established the connection after analyzing the large New York Statewide Planning and Research Cooperative System (SPARCS) database, which includes about 98 percent of all hospitalizations in the state.  “In looking at trigger factors for stroke and heart attack, there’s been promising research i...

When a person leaves a job due to a serious injury, the resulting mental health issues, like depression or post-traumatic stress, can endure longer than the physical ones. New research by Aimee Palumbo, assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, finds a connection between returning to work and mental health outcomes in Black men in Philadelphia recovering from serious injuries.  The research, newly published in the journal Injury, finds not returning to work after injury to be strongly associated with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder...

Children from low socioeconomic status (SES) households tend to show lower levels of language and communicative skills than those from higher SES homes at the group level. But these group-level findings provide limited information about the individual strengths and needs of families. A broad generalization suggesting low SES as a predictor of poor language learning can lead to stereotyping and obscure what parental interactions with children really do make a difference. A new study from the College of Public Health’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders seeks to...