West Virginia University researcher Nicholas Castle is part of a team investigating how nursing homes can best meet obese residents’ healthcare needs. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality—a division of the Department of Health and Human Services—has awarded them nearly $2 million for the project.
Kim Innes, of the WVU School of Public Health, and her colleagues recently discovered that greater exposure to perfluoroalkyl substances was associated with lower rates of existing coronary heart disease in adults with diabetes. PFAS, considered a public health threat by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are manufactured chemicals that were popularized by various industries in the 1940s because of their ability to repel oil and water.
Pregnant African American women are more likely than white women to give birth prematurely, but they’re underrepresented in studies of preterm birth rates. Snehalata Huzurbazar, a biostatistics professor in the West Virginia University School of Public Health, is working to change that.
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.