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You may not always notice it, but public health is a constant presence in your daily life. It’s the seatbelt you buckle, the green space where you walk to clear your mind, the vaccines that protect your parents from the flu and the healthy lunch your children eat at school. It’s the policies that prevent our exposure to toxic chemicals and the research that improves our odds against chronic disease.

Public health can look like free mental health services for veterans or a mobile dental clinic that travels to rural areas. It ranges from training police officers to administer a drug that reduces overdose deaths to implementing a standard check-up that can save a new mother’s life.

And yes, public health is there in emergencies, too. It’s in the rapid response to hurricane destruction, the sanitation plans made for refugee camps and the clear communication shared with parents about a virus outbreak at school.

At the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, we believe that now, more than ever, public health matters. In a world marked by complex challenges, public health is the force that brings science, compassion and action together to protect and improve the well-being of all people.

We are committed to training the public health leaders of tomorrow to be savvy innovators, bold leaders and thoughtful collaborators. Our programs cultivate problem-solvers who know how to navigate uncertainty and meet the needs of many different populations, wherever they may be.

We train students to embrace both flexibility and dedication because public health is not just a field – it is a promise. A promise that, no matter how the world changes, there will always be people working to keep others safe, healthy and empowered. It is this promise that motivates us to study, to teach and to serve with unwavering purpose.

In this issue of Carolina Public Health, you will read about the countless ways public health saves lives every day, and how it will safeguard our future. From innovative research and community-driven programs to groundbreaking policies and transformative partnerships, these stories capture the heart of our mission.

Public health is here for you, for your family, for your community and for the world. And it will be here tomorrow, too.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier

Dean and Bryson Distinguished Professor in Public Health

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health

Working from home? Public health ensures that indoor air is free of harmful chemicals and water is safe to drink when you turn on the tap.

Going for a walk? Public health keeps pollution at bay and contributes to the design of walkways that are safe and accessible.

Driving to the store? Public health policies keep you safe in your car, keep lead out of your gasoline and show you ingredients in the food you buy.

Public health works in the liminal spaces and in the conscious choices we make each day: sending our kids to school with healthy food, taking daily medication or casting a ballot in a voting booth.

Public health works in the liminal spaces and in the conscious choices we make each day.

It also works in the communities and foundations of our society: the vaccines that have controlled diseases that once haunted our ancestors, the research that has uncovered the harms of tobacco or the technology that ensures our water is safe to drink.

It’s an ecosystem of ourselves, our neighbors, our health care providers and our governments. The greatest innovations in public health history are still benefiting us today, and the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health has proudly contributed to those achievements.

The greatest innovations in public health history are still benefiting us today.

And as you’ll see in this issue of Carolina Public Health, we’re still leading the charge in so many of these areas. The Gillings School is responding to natural disasters outside our doorstep, bringing a safety net of health and community in the face of storms and floods. We’re informing the design of warning labels on everything from cigarettes to junk food. We’re researching the best policies that can keep families healthy before, during and after pregnancy. And so much more.

Public health shines each time health improves and crises are averted. We are working hard behind the scenes so that you can have more moments with your family, more time to enjoy your hobbies and more facts to make informed choices. We are the silent partner constantly striving to make life better for all … even if you never notice.

Assistance from afar

When Hurricane Helene hit the western part of the state Sept. 27, 2024, it left a trail of unprecedented devastation in its wake. Communications were cut off; roads and highways crumbled; and rushing floodwaters swept away people, their possessions, even their cars and homes. In the immediate aftermath, public officials asked people who wanted to help to refrain from traveling to Western N.C. because of washed-away roads and other safety concerns. Gillings faculty and staff began leveraging their public health networks and contacts to find ways the School could help from afar.

Gillings faculty and staff began leveraging their public health networks and contacts to find ways the School could help from afar.

Through these networks, Gillings School faculty and staff found opportunities to lean in. They partnered with the Western N.C. Health Communicators Collaborative on communications about roughly 40 hurricane impact health issues, including drinking water, safe clean up, road safety, advice for pregnant persons, environmental concerns with mold, burning debris and other issues. They also helped support UNC’s Center for Public Service, the main resource for coordinating UNC’s disaster response, and organized volunteers to serve in a call center for the Crisis Cleanup Hotline, which connects disaster survivors who need property cleanup assistance with volunteer organizations.

“These were some things we could help with from a distance,” said John Wiesman, DrPH, MPH, professor of the practice, associate dean for practice and the director of the School’s doctoral program in Public Health Executive Leadership (DrPH).

Safely feeding young families

A few days after the storm, a network of nutritionists, lactation consultants and others – mobilized in large part by former and current leaders of the N.C. Breastfeeding Coalition who live in Western N.C. – gathered in Asheville to assemble and deliver hundreds of infant feeding and cleaning kits for families lacking power, water, critical supplies and shelter. The group also trained volunteers and local organizations on how to keep infants eating safely after a disaster, promoted breastfeeding as a safe practice, and established milk banks in stricken communities.

Assistant Nutrition Professor Heather Wasser, PhD, who volunteered in October with the Coalition’s Support and Advocacy for Infant Feeding in Emergencies Team (SAFE Team), said studies show that in times of disaster, diarrhea and infant morbidity worsen when there are mass distributions of formula, especially when it’s not paired with information about how to safely prepare it. “So what we really wanted to do was not just give out these kits but to really interface with families and pair our deliveries with counseling and try to find any opportunity we could to promote breastfeeding as the safest way to feed,” she said.

Assistant Nutrition Professor Stephanie Martin, PhD, along with nutrition doctoral students Ivonne Headley and Doreen Alumaya, volunteered on the ground in November, as the colder weather posed new challenges. “A lot of distribution sites were storing formula outside, and powdered formula is not supposed to get cold,” Martin said. “We organized their supplies, got rid of expired formula, and spent time educating site staff about safe formula storage and distribution.”

In partnership with the Breastfeeding Coalition, the Carolina Global Breastfeeding Institute at Gillings (a longtime member organization of the coalition) offered technical assistance and resources, created infant feeding and emergencies online modules and a training manual for SAFE Team leaders, offered continuing education credits for volunteers who completed training, collaborated on grant and presentation submissions, and provided hands-on assistance at Western N.C. distribution sites. Additionally, as part of the Mary Rose Tully Training Initiative, an accredited lactation training program housed in the Department of Maternal and Child Health, students Elizabeth Abt, Katie Hume, and Master of Public Health (MPH) candidate Hannah Larson volunteered alongside CGBI and SAFE Team members, including MPH candidate Linels Higuera Ancidey. CGBI faculty and staff also are working closely with the nutrition department on research studies to evaluate the impact of the SAFE Team response.

Disaster response training at Gillings

Hurricane Helene was a common topic in this year’s Gillings on the Ground, a two-semester training program open to anyone interested in learning more about disaster response and emergency management. One session on crisis response strategies included Appalachian State University students who shared their experiences during the storm and in the days, weeks and months afterward.

“It was eye opening and just scary to think about what they lived through,” said Gillings on the Ground coordinator Ariella Tal, an MPH student from Charlotte. “It also made us realize that we were unprepared and that we don’t want to be unprepared again. So the session was a very approachable way to talk about different aspects of the emergency response cycle and get a base foundation on steps people can take to be more prepared in the future.”

For students in the UNC Asheville-UNC Gillings MPH program, Helene had a more direct impact – and more direct opportunities to help and learn. With their classes at Asheville’s Mountain Area Health Education Center campus either paused or moved online, students contributed to Helene recovery efforts in Buncombe, Henderson and Yancey counties, either as part of their full-time public health jobs or on a volunteer basis. Thanks to their classes, they knew the importance of understanding what people need and using real-time information, said Sarah Thach, MPH, program co-director and Gillings School assistant professor. “Rapid assessment is something we talk about,” Thach said. “Listening to community members and hearing what the needs are. Not coming in assuming that you know what the needs are but, instead, drawing on local expertise.”

Students contributed to recovery efforts in Buncombe, Henderson and Yancey counties, either as part of their full-time public health jobs or on a volunteer basis.

‘You just cannot imagine…’

Bill Gentry, MPH, professor of health policy and management and director of the School’s Community Preparedness and Disaster Management certificate program, has broad expertise in leading relief and recovery efforts from his 15 years at the N.C. Division of Emergency Management. He took two groups of students to Western N.C. to help rural communities rebuild.

“As we drove in, the van got really quiet,” Gentry recalled of the first trip. “Most of them had not seen that type of damage before and just did not relate that landscape to what a natural disaster can do and how it affects people. Sometimes you just cannot imagine that a small stream that you can literally step over now, at some point was a 30-foot raging stream of water that literally swept people’s houses away into the woods.”

In Fairview, a rural area outside of Asheville, Gentry’s group worked with a small community that had lost three houses, along with its main road. On Saturday, they sifted through debris piles looking for personal items that were still in good enough condition to be reunited with their owners. Sunday, they cleaned out a community barn estimated to be about 200 years old, which had been filled with mud as the floodwaters passed through.

“We got there at a pretty good time because it wasn’t hazardous to be there, but there was still a lot of work to be done,” said Parmis Kimia, a senior economics student at UNC who is part of the certificate program. “We got to see these things we were learning about in person – for example, seeing that it’s not easy to stick to a disaster relief plan, and that there is a lot of improvisation and fitting in where you can.”

Addressing community concerns

As director of UNC’s Superfund Research Program (UNC-SRP), Rebecca Fry, PhD, the Carol Remmer Angle Distinguished Professor in Children’s Environmental Health and chair of environmental sciences and engineering, is steering a multi-faceted environmental response to assist communities affected by Helene, working closely with local government officials and community leaders to address urgent needs.

One of UNC-SRP’s key projects is integrating hurricane-related data into NC-ENVIROSCAN, a geospatial mapping tool, to create a comprehensive map of impacted counties and provide crucial information on Superfund sites, landfills, predicted private well usage and known private well contaminants. The UNC-SRP is also mobilizing scientists to assist with private well testing to address community concerns beyond microbial contamination, planning chemical exposure assessments in areas of concern raised by residents, and providing environmental health education resources online to inform and empower communities as they navigate Helene’s aftermath.

One of UNC-SRP’s key projects is integrating hurricane-related data into NC-ENVIROSCAN to provide crucial information on Superfund sites, landfills, and private wells.

“As the UNC-SRP continues its work,” Fry said, “the program remains committed to addressing the pressing environmental and public health needs of communities impacted by Hurricane Helene.”

Long-term lessons

Helene hit N.C. just three days before the Gillings School, in collaboration with the N.C. Institute for Public Health (NCIPH), had planned to launch its Regional Center for Public Health Preparedness. The partners had received a five-year federal grant to establish the Center, one of 10 in the U.S., to study and promote evidence-based strategies that strengthen public health emergency preparedness and response.

The Center is facilitating the School’s role in a major research effort in which, collaborating with the N.C. Division of Public Health and local health departments in counties affected by Helene, researchers from NCIPH, the public health leadership and practice department, and the biostatistics department’s Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center are collecting and analyzing massive amounts of data to develop actionable workplans that will guide future disaster response.

“After any emergency, there are after-action reviews: What went well? What could have been improved?” said John Wallace, PhD, MSPH, senior data advisor for NCIPH, who co-directs the Center with Wiesman. “This will give us a better picture of how operations happened and where there were strengths and where there are areas to improve.”

Longer term, the Center’s mission to improve disaster preparedness and response in southeastern states enables the School to continue supporting Western N.C.’s recovery. “Recovery in some people’s minds is the first couple of weeks after a storm. But from the public health perspective and from a systems level, that’s going to take years,” Wiesman said. “Our hope is that we’re going to be able to coordinate that long-term recovery – and Gillings’ role in it, whatever that might be.”

Despite being the country that first launched the practice of labeling nicotine and tobacco products, which are some of the most addictive and deadly substances available today, the United States now lags behind its peers in communicating the danger.

And these products are deadly, as warning labels on cigarettes and cigars in more than 130 countries indicate. Some labels in Canada have displayed photos of a diseased heart or a blackened lung. In Brazil, a gangrenous foot with missing toes. In the European Union, a sick newborn exposed to cigarettes in utero. In India, a mouth with missing teeth or tumors. And in Australia, which has some of the toughest laws for tobacco warnings in the world, labels that cover most of a cigarette pack have shown pictures of esophageal cancer, damaged and missing teeth, and the anatomy of an eye blinded by macular degeneration.

Research by Gillings School faculty has demonstrated that warning labels are practical, efficient and powerful tools that public health officials use to help consumers make smarter choices about the products they consume.

“The warning is right there on the package. So people see it every time they decide to buy and use the product.”

– Marissa Hall

Labels are effective because they are more than a means of communication. They are also an intervention – an action taken to improve a situation. They have the potential to work precisely when a person makes a choice that can impact their health.

“The warning is right there on the package. So people see it every time they decide to buy and use the product,” said Marissa Hall, PhD, assistant professor of health behavior at the Gillings School. “It’s fundamentally different from social media or health campaigns. Those are in the ether, but they don’t deliver the cue to action right as a person acts.”

The U.S. led the evolution of warning labels on tobacco products dating back to the 1960s, helping to refine side-of-pack labels and create more impactful messages that, by the 1980s, warned of heart disease, emphysema, pregnancy complications and carbon monoxide and encouraged quitting to improve health. They also labeled smokeless tobacco products with warnings about addiction, mouth cancer and gum disease.

Since that time, progress to improve the effectiveness of tobacco labels has stalled in the U.S., due in large part to mounting lawsuits from cigarette manufacturers. Even so, public health’s efforts to research and design more impactful warning labels have grown.

Researchers at the Gillings School and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center have studied the effects of pictoral warning labels on cigarettes for decades. Their published research has been a boon to policy experts at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as they continue to develop recommendations that improve health for Americans. Those researchers include Hall, Kurt Ribisl, PhD, chair and Jo Anne Earp Distinguished Professor of health behavior, Noel Brewer, PhD, Gillings Distinguished Professor in Public Health, and Seth Noar, PhD, James Howard and Hallie McLean Parker Distinguished Professor at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

Researchers at the Gillings School and the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center have studied the effects of pictorial warning labels on cigarettes for decades.

Their studies, which included the first meta-analysis (a study of all published experimental studies) on graphic warning labels and a randomized controlled trial on graphic warning labels, helped build high-quality evidence the FDA needed to design effective warning label regulations that could reduce rates of smoking and withstand continuous litigation from the tobacco industry.

“We have a whole chain of evidence, from exposure to behavior, showing that these warning labels do work,” said Noar.

Outside of the U.S., countries across the globe have been so successful at implementing graphic warning labels that the warnings have now become a standard recommendation for the World Health Organization and are a critical part of their MPOWER measures for tobacco control.

In 2009, the U.S. Congress passed a law giving the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products, and the FDA finalized regulations in 2020 to put graphic warning labels on cigarettes. That same year, a study found that nearly 70% of Americans support these pictorial warning labels.

So why are these pictorial warning labels, which are broadly supported by Americans to help them make better health choices, still not on cigarette packs? In large part because of pushback in the form of lawsuits, political pressure and public comment from tobacco industries that claim a Constitutional right not to put the labels on their products.

Hall sees this sort of industry pushback play out in label regulations for other products, as well, including sugary drinks, junk food and alcohol.

Her work with Lindsey Smith Taillie, PhD, associate professor of nutrition at the Gillings School, used their own UNC Mini Mart to find that pictorial warning labels, such as ones that show a damaged heart or a foot affected by gangrene from Type 2 diabetes, on sugary drinks made North Carolina parents 17% less likely to purchase them for their children.

Smith Taillie and Barry Popkin, PhD, W. R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of nutrition, have also been collaborating to evaluate the effectiveness of front-of-package warning labels on sugar-sweetened beverages and ultraprocessed foods in Chile, both of which have led to decreases in the purchase of unhealthy products.

Experts find these data are valuable in the design of public health regulations and warning labels that inform the public about the health risks of consuming these products. But industries, which see the decrease in purchases as a threat to their bottom line, often fight back through the courts and through public commenting to regulatory agencies.

Experts sometimes refer to this process as the scream test.

Experts sometimes refer to this process as the “scream test” – the louder an industry “screams,” or fights against a regulation, the more likely the regulation is to be effective at improving public health.

“Every time FDA has public comments on these warning labels, they’re flooded with comments, 10-to-1 industry to public health researchers,” Hall said. “Industry representatives write public comments that are really negative, and then agencies see it as an overwhelming negative response.”

Despite the push back, Hall and colleagues are continuing their warning label research and seeing incremental progress in the U.S. and abroad. In late 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to strike down the FDA’s new pictorial warning label guidelines, although the implementation date was temporarily postponed by a ruling in early 2025 from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. In early 2025, the FDA also entered a public comment period for a proposed new front-of-package nutrition label.

Hall and collaborators are now setting their sights on alcohol, which carries many health harms, including an increased risk of cancer. In early 2025, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy (and Gillings School commencement speaker in 2024) called for warning labels on alcohol to be updated to inform the public about these risks. Hall says that very few countries warn about this link. The U.S. warning label on alcohol, which hasn’t been updated since 1988, only warns about the harms of drinking alcohol during pregnancy or impairing the ability to drive or operate machinery.

“The increased recognition of the risks of alcohol, including cancer risks, could lead to a new phase in alcohol warning label policy,” she said.

Labels are a part of a larger public health strategy to reduce the purchase and consumption of products that are harmful to health, but Hall says they’re not a panacea. The behavior change effects can be small, but when they are extrapolated across a population, they can be very meaningful. They work in tandem with policies that regulate the placement and advertising of these products in stores and in the media, as well as taxes on their purchase.

Even if a warning label doesn’t prevent you from making a purchase, it might make you think twice before you consume it. So next time you’re at the store, take a moment to check the product label. It’s an opportunity to empower your public health knowledge and make a choice that’s better for your health.

At the time of the fire, Chou was a high school junior living in Cupertino, Calif. Despite being more than 200 miles from the epicenter of the fire, smoke was heavy in her community. Chou’s school remained open, and she and many other students walked home from school in the smoke and found themselves coughing badly afterwards.

Fires like the Camp Fire and the recent fires in Los Angeles are called wildland-urban interface wildfires, because they burn across forest areas and urban development. These fires are different from those that happen on undeveloped land, because the burning of homes and other structures adds many additional chemicals and heavy metals into the smoke’s composition.

Fires like the Camp Fire and the recent fires in Los Angeles are called wildland-urban interface wildfires, because they burn across forest areas and urban development.

As wildfires become more common in the United States, it’s important to understand the health implications for those who inhale wildfire smoke. This is particularly true of wildland-urban interface wildfires, since 39% of all American homes are located in the wildland-urban interface.

“All of these additional materials going into a wildfire changes the toxicity of smoke,” said Chloe Chou, who now works in the lab of Associate Professor Julia Rager, PhD. “But up until now we have only been able to make predictions about its chemistry and many of its health impacts using studies focused on wildfires that only burn trees. Wildland-urban interface fires haven’t been modeled and measured in a lab setting yet.”

“All of these additional materials going into a wildfire changes the toxicity of smoke.”

– Chloe Chou

Chou and the team in Rager’s lab are trying to change that. They have compiled a list of 60 materials that are found in the average American home, including construction materials, appliances, clothing, household chemicals and general clutter such as knick-knacks. These items are currently being ground down to a fine particle that will then be burned in a furnace where the smoke can be analyzed.

“We are trying to learn what materials are the most toxic and the most combustible, and from there hopefully we can help inform choices about what materials are best for homes and buildings in wildfire prone areas,” said Rager, who is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering.

“We are trying to learn what materials are the most toxic and the most combustible, and from there hopefully we can help inform choices about what materials are best for homes and buildings in wildfire prone areas.”

– Julia Rager

Rager’s lab is working in partnership with the Environmental Protection Agency, which will perform the tests to analyze the smoke’s composition and toxicity levels.

“The more information we can gather about these fires, the more we’ll know about how to treat them,” said Chou. “My hope is that our research can help guide policy around wildfire response.”

While much is still unknown about wildfire smoke, particularly from fires at the wildland-urban interface, it’s clear that inhalation of wildfire smoke has a negative health impact.

Radhika Dhingra, adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering and current student in the East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine, has also studied air pollution extensively, with a focus on its health effects.

“Most of the research on wildfire smoke so far has looked at short-term health implications and acute events like hospitalizations for asthma in the immediate aftermath of a fire. But we still have a lot to learn about the long-term health effects of inhaling wildfire smoke,” said Dhingra.

When it comes to air pollution from wildfire smoke, Dhingra’s research has primarily focused on how exposures during gestational and early-life development affect later-life respiratory health. While her research didn’t indicate a strong signal that exposure during the gestational period affected health long-term, it did find a link between exposure to wildfire smoke in the first six months of life and the chronic need for lower respiratory medications, such as inhalers or nebulizers, as well as an earlier need for such medications.

“Wildfire smoke is a form of air pollution, and like with air pollution, we know that everybody who inhales it will be impacted,” said Dhingra. “Certain groups – like the very young, the elderly, pregnant women and those with cardiovascular disease – are at the greatest risk, but we still have a lot to learn about the long-term health impacts of wildfire smoke exposure.”

“Wildfire smoke is a form of air pollution, and like with air pollution, we know that everybody who inhales it will be impacted.”

– Radhika Dhingra

There are many challenges to quantifying the impact of wildfire smoke. Beyond toxicity variations depending on what’s burning, wildfire smoke is heavily impacted by geography and meteorology, and health impacts also vary based on individual factors like stress levels and if those inhaling smoke have any underlying health conditions. As wildfires become more common, Gillings School researchers will continue working to protect the public from this growing threat.

Download the PDF of this magazine spread.

Well-being is more than just mental health

Mental health is deeply connected to other areas of life – if you’re stressed about finances, feeling isolated or exhausted from school, that impacts your well-being.

“We need to talk about mental health just like we talk about physical health. If you fall down and scrape your knee, you get help. If you’re struggling mentally, you should do the same.”

TRY THIS →

When you’re feeling off, ask yourself:

• Am I getting enough sleep?
• Am I socially connected?
• Am I financially stressed?
• Am I taking care of my body?

Small changes, big impact

Simple habits can improve your well-being every day:

• Add a plant to your space
• Listen to calming music
• Take a short walk to reset
• Set screen boundaries, especially social media
• Practice mindfulness/journaling/deep breathing

TRY THIS →

Commit to one small action this week!

“Some things seem small but make a big difference – more plants around campus, calming visuals on screens. These little things help people feel better.”

The 8 dimensions of well-being

A holistic approach to mental well-being means addressing:

1. Emotional: Coping with stress and emotions
2. Physical: Sleep, movement, nutrition
3. Social: Finding connections and support
4. Spiritual: Meaning, purpose, values
5. Intellectual: Learning and curiosity
6. Occupational: Career, academics, balance
7. Financial: Managing money and security
8. Environmental: Safe, comfortable spaces

“One thing affects another. If you’re not financially well, if you’re not spiritually well, if you’re not physically well, that affects your mental well-being.”

Where to turn for support

“We want to be proactive, not reactive, about our well-being. Resources are here – use them.”

Feeling isolated? → “A big move or life change can feel overwhelming. Connecting with others – through a group, event or shared experience – can help.”

Overwhelmed? → “People don’t always know what they need, which is why talking to a counselor, mentor or support group can make a difference.”

Money worries? → “Financial stress affects mental well-being, relationships and work. Seeking financial wellness support is a way to take care of yourself holistically.”

Burned out? → “Small environmental changes – like adding plants or shifting surroundings – can ease stress. Finding a grounding space, indoors or outside, can help.”

Final takeaway

“If people aren’t doing well mentally, they won’t do well personally, professionally or academically. We need to support the whole person.”

Explore more tools and resources at our new Community Well-Being Website.

On May 10, at the 2025 Commencement celebration of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, Jetelina shared insights drawn from nearly five years of creating public health communications that have reached more than 500 million readers in 132 countries.

“YLE was born in March 2020 when I was teaching at the University of Texas Health Science Center,” she says. “People were desperate for information about this novel coronavirus, and my dean asked me to send a daily update to our school. It was usually just a couple sentences and a few ugly Excel graphs, but students started asking me to post online instead of in an internal email so they could share the message more easily on social media.”

“People were desperate for information about this novel coronavirus, and my dean asked me to send a daily update to our school.”

“I never got one hour of formal education on science communication, but I loved working with students and translating public health information for them,” she adds. “I think that passion is why I was asked to start the newsletter, and why it’s become the trusted resource it is today.”

Jetelina holds a master’s degree in public health and a doctoral degree in epidemiology and biostatistics. She currently works as an epidemiologist, data scientist and consultant to organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Resolve to Save Lives in addition to managing YLE with a team of fifteen other experts and administrators.

She initially thought the public-facing newsletter would primarily reach “Joe on the corner,” or maybe moms considering which vaccinations to give their young children. And it does, but it turns out the audience is mostly made up of doctoral and medical degree holders whose employment runs the gamut.

“What I’ve learned,” she says, “is that our readers tend to be leaders within their local communities: doctors, businesspeople, professors, members of public health departments and so on. They take our content and translate and curate it themselves to share in turn with their patients, colleagues and students. In that way, the information eventually does reach Joe on the corner. YLE is just one small node in a massive grassroots information system. Our goal is to equip as many trusted messengers as possible with factual, timely and understandable health information.”

YLE is just one small node in a massive grassroots information system. Our goal is to equip as many trusted messengers as possible with factual, timely and understandable health information.

On that note, Jetelina is no stranger to the perils of being vocal online in a world rife with mis- and disinformation. She used to host YLE on Facebook, but her page was hacked in 2021. All her content and her audience of more than 400,000 people was out of reach. After that experience, she switched hosting sites and dove right back into the fray. Over the years, she has been subject to everything from death threats to doxing to a “thousand papercuts from colleagues.”

“Succeeding in this forum comes down to courage,” says the mother of two. “You have to be willing to put your neck out there and think innovatively in the name of spreading helpful, evidence-based content. You have to deeply believe in the values of public health and live up to them, which requires listening and community engagement – even when, or especially when, someone disagrees. Public health is, above all, a team sport. I’ve had incredible success, but I can’t do any of this alone.”

YLE recently surpassed 300,000 subscribers – a number that floors Jetelina. She once planned to be a clinician, then pivoted to public health when she realized the field treats patients millions at a time instead of individually. After earning her doctoral degree, she worked for the World Health Organization in Geneva, then the townships in South Africa, before landing a tenure-track faculty position and starting a research lab at UT.

“My career has been a squiggly line,” she laughs. “I was going for tenure when COVID hit. Next thing I knew, I had started YLE and Dr. Rochelle Walensky of the CDC was calling my personal cell phone and asking me to support her organization in science translation.”

“It was an incredibly hard decision to leave teaching and research behind, but my goal has always been to make the largest possible positive impact,” Jetelina says. “In academia, practice isn’t always appreciated, but I can see the numbers. When one of my peer-reviewed articles gets seven views and one issue of my newsletter gets a million views, the value of Your Local Epidemiologist is crystal clear.”

“I think Katelyn’s voice and her mission to equip trusted messengers with accurate health information will absolutely resonate with our graduating students,” shares Gillings School Dean Dr. Nancy Messonnier. “I’m so excited to welcome her to campus.”

See the magazine spread PDF to see the photo that goes along with these captions:

• These 1968 Poor People’s March narratives and pictures came from the “Health is a Human Right: Race and Place in America” 20th anniversary exhibit, which I helped bring to Georgia State University along with other colleagues.
• I love this caricature, because teaching (in anything, but especially public health) is what feeds my soul. It undergirds Mandela’s quote about making a difference in the lives of others.
• This jam is a gift from Vic Shoenbach, PhD, emeritus professor of epidemiology at the Gillings School and long-time supporter of the Minority Health Conference.
• A photo and quote from Nelson Mandela: “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived; it is what difference we have made in the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.” This is 100% my motivation for life.
• Family pictures are everywhere because they are so important. This is a picture of me and my late husband, who died from heart disease. It’s a major public health issue and part of my research interest in African-American men’s health.
• Three of my grandchildren and I painted rocks when they were 4, 5 and 6 on a spur-of-the-moment picnic by a creek in upstate New York. They are now 20, 21 and 22. These rocks have moved with me everywhere for the past 14 years.

Researchers at the Gillings School are studying the unique needs of early childhood from many angles with one goal: giving children the best possible start in life.

“The brain develops so rapidly during these early childhood years. It’s really important for children to be in nurturing and stimulating environments in order to create healthy neurological pathways,” said Meghan Shanahan, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health.

“The brain develops so rapidly during these early childhood years. It’s really important for children to be in nurturing and stimulating environments in order to create healthy neurological pathways.”

– Meghan Shanahan

Shanahan studies the prevention of child maltreatment – or abuse and neglect – and evaluates how preventing these adverse childhood events optimizes health and well-being. She studies interventions at both the policy and family levels.

“I firmly believe that most parents love their children and don’t want to hurt them. And children love their parents, too, and want to be raised by them,” said Shanahan. “Adverse childhood events increase the risk of many chronic diseases, so if we can equip parents to parent well and help get more children off to a great start, we’re going to improve our physical and mental health at a population level.”

Early in her career, Shanahan collaborated with Desmond Runyan, MD, MPH, a former professor of social medicine and pediatrics at the UNC School of Medicine and professor emeritus of pediatrics at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, on a campaign aimed at educating new parents about the period of purple crying. The period of purple crying refers to the early weeks of an infant’s life when there may be an increase in crying for no apparent reason, and the campaign warned parents about the related dangers of shaking a baby. The work was well-funded and included bedside teaching at every birthing hospital in North Carolina, but it failed to reduce abusive head trauma.

For Shanahan, this points to the fact that education and one-on-one programmatic approaches alone can’t reduce child maltreatment. Family stress is often thought to be a precipitating factor for abuse and neglect. To counteract this, Shanahan believes that it is important to create a context that is supportive of parenting through policies. About 75% of the cases investigated by Child Protective Services are not for abuse but for neglect, which includes failure to provide proper supervision, clothing or food to a child. These are often scenarios in which investing in a vulnerable family so that they have the support they need – like access to health care, food and high-quality child care – can prevent neglect.

About 75% of the cases investigated by Child Protective Services are not for abuse, but for neglect, which includes failure to provide proper supervision, clothing or food to a child.

Shanahan’s study on the period of purple crying, funded by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, coincided with results out of Vancouver on the period of purple crying that did show a reduction in abusive head trauma. Thus the CDC’s technical package on how to prevent child maltreatment includes information regarding how to create a supportive environment for children and families, of which policies are a critical part.

Iheoma U. Iruka, PhD, professor in the Department of Maternal and Child Health, studies early childhood development with a focus on issues related to parent-child and teacher-child interactions.

Iruka grew up in poverty in Boston, Massachusetts. She attended a public exam school for grades seven through 12, and early in life it became her goal to earn a doctoral degree. However, she noticed that many of her peers, especially Black males, who came from similar backgrounds had left the school by the ninth grade. She wanted to understand what factors were at work and why many of her peers struggled in school. Once in graduate school, she started to focus on early childhood development and the interconnected systems that make up a young child’s world.

“We know that young children need high-quality early care and educational programming, but there are a lot of stressors outside of school environments that can’t be fully overcome by educational programming. So we can’t think of this in silos where we separate education out from the other factors that shape a child’s development, health and learning,” said Iruka.

A child’s environments are all highly interconnected, because things like access to high-quality early education also provide stable child care that enables parents to hold down jobs and provides economic and health benefits to families. Similarly, access to health care allows for earlier diagnoses and access to services if a child has autism or needs additional services like speech, physical or occupational therapy. Early access to services has a huge impact on outcomes, and the cost to families and society becomes much higher with late diagnosis and treatment.

“My research prioritizes the needs of children who are facing barriers like racism, discrimination, disability and intergenerational poverty. And it’s impossible to fully support children without supporting the primary adults and caregivers in their lives,” said Iruka. “But the policies that really move the needle for the most vulnerable children – things like family medical leave that supports early parent-child bonding, access to quality health insurance, access to early intervention services, income support and access to high-quality early education – help so many people and our society as a whole.”

Iruka, Shanahan and many other researchers in the Gillings School are focused on protecting children and setting them up to thrive. There are many factors that affect a child’s well-being from the prenatal stage all the way through early childhood. The Gillings School’s research seeks to identify the best solutions at each stage to prevent maltreatment, support caregivers and families, provide quality early care and education, and more, so that all children can have the best possible start in life.