School of Public Health

Researchers at West Virginia University are fighting West Virginia’s opioid epidemic with new professional development opportunities for social workers.

West Virginia University President Gordon Gee’s knack for risk-taking is generally well-known, as is his encouragement to students to live lives based on their passions, not their fears. In his weekend (May 10-12) commencement addresses to WVU graduates across campus, Gee urged future risk balanced on what they’ve learned.

Researchers at West Virginia University have studied the overwhelming, detrimental effects of opioid abuse on this state and the nation, and a new wave of the epidemic may be the most daunting yet.

Carry your keys; stick to well-lit streets; don’t go out alone after dark. People receive advice like this every day from friends and family members concerned for their safety. But WVU researcher Danielle Davidov is investigating bystander-intervention programs that engage the whole community, not just potential victims, in preventing sexual violence.

Summer camp season at West Virginia University begins in May and offers many options for young people to engage both academically and physically during their summer break. Summer camps are known for providing a safe environment where children gain self-confidence as they learn new skills.

Acute hepatitis C infections rose 98 percent between 2010 and 2015 nationwide, largely because more people were injecting drugs. Using a new needle for every injection can slow the spread of hepatitis C, but getting those new needles isn’t always as simple as buying glucose-meter lancets at the pharmacy. And safely disposing of old needles presents a whole other set of problems.

West Virginia ranks first for fentanyl-related deaths, but it also leads the nation in a more optimistic way: its medical examiners pinpoint the cause of every drug-related death, and the relevant facts populate a unique statewide database. An interdisciplinary research team—involving the WVU School of Pharmacy, the WVU School of Public Health and the West Virginia Office of the Chief Medical Examiner—analyzed data and found that fentanyl deaths are up 122 percent in the state.

In a weekend of commencement events May 9-12, West Virginia University’s nearly 4,600 graduates will hear from a host of speakers whose pasts have earned them a Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy, a spot as a cyber-security top cop — and one whose career has begun before she leaves middle school.

An effort to expand a multi-use rail-to-trail network throughout the Industrial Heartland is drawing on the expertise and work of faculty at the West Virginia University Health Research Center.

West Virginia University’s master’s program in public administration jumped 41 spots in the latest rankings of graduate programs by U.S. News and World Report released Tuesday (March 12), the most significant move among the nine programs and more than 10 specialties included in the rankings.