In this issue, we address emerging fields, collaboration, and impactful research. We tackle epidemics, opioid misuse, and global water threats through data-driven solutions.
This issue of Carolina Public Health showcases our faculty’s expertise in solving some of the biggest public health challenges of our day.
"The stories address the now, the new and the next — where we are, especially in emerging fields like artificial intelligence and machine learning, and where we are going (for example, individualizing weight-loss strategies). It takes many minds, often from very different backgrounds, with complementary skills and training, to understand problems and find effective, sustainable solutions. At UNC, collaboration is in the soul of the place, and our faculty, staff and students benefit every day from being in such a rich milieu.
Research done in schools of public health matters. Sometimes it’s a matter of life and death, for example, when epidemics threaten populations (think Ebola) or when opioid use increases in communities. Gillings researchers are driven to get results to people who will benefit. Many of the problems we face in public health are huge, potentially daunting and heretofore unsolved. Our faculty members and students seek to disentangle the apparently disconnected and discordant threads of evidence to create a coherent story that can be turned into interventions, methods and tools for improved public health.
The lives of people and the planet are affected by what we do in our school. It’s personal. Someone’s son or daughter may be the college student who dies from alcohol poisoning. Someone’s father, mother, sibling or child may be the victim of an opioid overdose. They are people in our communities. They are us. The losses of opioid misuse, for example, are human, economic, community and societal. The work of faculty members and students in war-torn countries reminds us of the need to adapt strategies to context. As the fall semester began, Hurricane Dorian battered the Bahamas and our own Ocracoke Island, a brutal hammer shattering lives, livelihoods and communities. Climate change will cause more of these horrific events. We must devote more of our research, practice and training to building resilience in the face of disasters.
Data are fundamental to public health solutions, and we have some of the strongest faculty anywhere when it comes to data. They are in biostatistics and in every department. They are experts in using large data sets to find patterns that lead to answers. Real-world evidence may sound folksy, but it takes a lot of data to find credible answers to important questions, such as how medications perform in the real world. We’re on the leading edge of research and teaching in artificial intelligence and machine learning. These are the tools of the now and the future, and our students must acquire them to be effective.
“At Gillings, we are challenged every day to improve the world, and we’re on it!”
Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH
Dean, Gillings School of Global Public Health
Among the new is Aaron Salzberg, PhD, the Don and Jennifer Holzworth Distinguished Professor of environmental sciences and engineering, and director of The Water Institute at UNC. He came from the U.S. Department of State, where he led water initiatives and served under five different secretaries of state. He is building upon Jamie Bartram’s excellent work but also taking The Water Institute in new directions, including water diplomacy. Water, one of the building blocks of life, essential for survival, is under threat all over the world and here at home. We are determined to do something about it. At Gillings, we are challenged every day to improve the world, and we’re on it!
Thanks for your support,
Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH
