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As classmates at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, Michol Dawson, BSPH (1999), MBA, and David Amuda, MBA, seized the opportunity to study and visit other countries as part of Kenan-Flagler’s global immersion program. Their love for travel continued as their friendship grew into more: they got engaged on vacation in Hawaii, got married in 2008 and moved to David’s home state of California.

And over the 21-plus years since they first met, they visited all six inhabited continents. When they weren’t crisscrossing the globe, Michol (pronounced Mitchell) cared for patients in the Sleep Disorders Center at Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Orange, California. She worked there for 10 years and eventually became supervisor after quitting her corporate job to further her education and pursue her passion for health care.

“I’m convinced that in a former life she was a travel agent — she loved looking up destinations, always did a ton of research and acquired knowledge about a place to the level that she was practically a local,” says David, adding that Michol’s natural affinity for research led her to minor in information and library sciences while at UNC. “Whether it was Machu Picchu or the Australian outback, we did a lot of wonderful things together. And, in retrospect, I’m so glad we did, because tomorrow is not promised.”

“During that first week without her, I thought a lot about her unfulfilled work. I wanted to pay it forward to help those in the future pursue their dreams — particularly in public health — like she had the opportunity to do.”

— David Amuda, MBA

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Michol unexpectedly passed away in May 2022, barely two weeks after her 45th birthday. Even amid his shock and grief, David drew inspiration from his beloved wife. “During that first week without her, I thought a lot about her unfulfilled work. I wanted to pay it forward to help those in the future pursue their dreams — particularly in public health — like she had the opportunity to do.”

David and Michol made it a tradition to donate annually to Carolina as a way to stay connected to the school and to reflect on their experiences there. But David and his father-in-law, Harold Dawson, wanting to make a more lasting impact, decided to establish a new endowment fund at Gillings in Michol’s memory: The Michol Anne Dawson Student Acceleration Fund.

They decided the fund should support student practica in global health after learning that several students traveled to some of the same countries — particularly in Africa — that David and Michol had loved to explore. “I found out there was a student working in Tanzania and immediately thought that Michol would love to be associated with that work,” David says. “That was the spark.”

Tanzania held a special place their hearts, as Michol had organized a safari trip in 2017 to Tanzania and Kenya for Harold, David and herself. “We saw all the animals you could see in the Serengeti,” says Harold, reminiscing about lions feeding on cape buffalo just 10 feet from their vehicle and about being cautioned by a Masai guide not to get too close to an elephant and her calf. “I had always wanted to go on safari — to be immersed in nature and get a better understanding of the animals. It was really something.”

It was just like Michol to plan a trip that would mean a lot to her father. Her thoughtfulness and compassion for others were well-known to her family, friends and colleagues. “She was always taking care of people, listening to their problems and trying to help,” Harold says. “That was just her personality, and that guided her to move in the direction she ultimately moved in with her career. She cared about helping people.”

The Michol Anne Dawson Student Acceleration Fund supports research, travel, practice and dissertation projects — or other needs that allow students to apply knowledge beyond the classroom. Preference is given to work focused on global public health issues that affect African countries and/or North Carolina. Donate online: go.unc.edu/MicholAnneDawson

The ability to make decisions about having a child can shape the rest of a person’s life.

While raising children can bring profound joy, pregnancy can carry substantial health risks and financial burdens. In the United States, there are nearly 33 maternal deaths for every 100,000 births, according to 2021 data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This rate is more than twice as high for Black mothers and nearly double for those in rural areas. Around 12% of births are in counties with limited or no access to maternity care.

The cost of giving birth and raising children in the U.S. is among the highest of any high-income country, yet many parents have few resources for employment leave or economic support.

These factors don’t just affect individuals. Without autonomy to control when and if they have children, people face poorer health and worse social and economic outcomes, which has a broader ripple effect on families and communities.

Limitations around contraception access, safe abortion services and high-quality reproductive care are not a challenge for the U.S. alone. These restrictions impact health and increase inequity around the globe, according to Sian Curtis, PhD, professor of maternal and child health at the Gillings School.

“We know that countries with more restrictive reproductive health laws have poorer reproductive health outcomes,” she explained. “The World Health Organization estimates that about 287,000 women die every year from pregnancy or birth complications, and many more experience other negative health consequences. The lifetime risk of dying from these conditions is massively different between countries, and it’s an indicator of many kinds of inequalities and structural injustices.”

Limits to reproductive care can impact children, as well. Globally, around 5 million children under age 5 die every year — rates that Curtis says could be improved by birth spacing, high-quality prenatal and delivery care, and access to child health services.

Pregnancy itself can carry complications that range from exacerbating existing health conditions to putting a strain on economic security or physical safety.

“There are circumstances where it’s better for a person’s health not to be pregnant, whether that’s physical health, socio-economic health or mental health,” said Alice Cartwright, a doctoral candidate in maternal and child health at the Gillings School. “People should have full, affordable access to contraceptive options, but we’re never going to be in a situation where everyone is using contraception that’s 100% effective all the time.”

Cartwright is a former project director with Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH), the research program at the University of California San Francisco that conducted the Turnaway Study.

That study found that people in the U.S. who were forced to carry unwanted pregnancies to term not only risked possible complications but were also less likely to receive advanced degrees and more likely to stay in relationships with abusive partners. They were also four times more likely to fall below the federal poverty level, a status that further contributes to health hardships for parents and children.

These outcomes are preventable.

A public health response to these challenges must consider the cultural and historical contexts through which decisions and restrictions around family planning occur. One strategy is to train health providers, religious leaders and community advocates to have non-judgmental conversations about reproductive health and consider how factors like health care access, intersectional identity, social values and family dynamics impact reproductive autonomy.

“There are layers of stigma around these conversations that are tied up in norms about morals, about gender, about religion,” Curtis said. “One way we can address this is through values clarification and attitude transformation exercises, which get people to think about how others approach these issues in a constructive and empathetic way.”

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“There are dire consequences when physicians are forced to practice not based on medical training or scientific evidence but rather on legal considerations.”

— Amy Bryant, MD, MSCR

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Well-designed public health approaches make space for these conversations and support people in making fully informed decisions about pregnancy. Part of the work is recognizing how legal restrictions and structural barriers like systemic racism and gender bias contribute to poorer health outcomes.

In the U.S., restrictions on reproductive services increased immediately after the Supreme Court’s ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson. Unfortunately, data from the Guttmacher Institute show that these restrictions make it more likely that people in need of reproductive care, including abortion, will be harmed, criminalized or face life-threatening circumstances.

“There are dire consequences when physicians are forced to practice not based on medical training or scientific evidence but rather on legal considerations,” said Amy Bryant, MD, MSCR, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the UNC School of Medicine and adjunct associate professor of maternal and child health at the Gillings School. “Medicine is very individualized for each patient. When we’re told by non-medical forces that all options can’t be available, it can be really damaging.”

Efforts to restrict and defund reproductive health providers do more than limit abortion. Unclear legal restrictions may also limit access to the full spectrum of pregnancy and miscarriage care if physicians are unsure how to interpret legislation, especially for underserved populations already at higher risk of poor maternal health.

Cartwright says the U.S. is still in the early days of understanding how much miscarriage and abortion care could be denied in states with differing abortion restrictions, but it’s important to address common misconceptions.

“Close to 90% of abortions happen in the first trimester,” she said. “The risk of complications is magnitudes lower than with childbirth. And the people who are getting these procedures are trying to make the decision that’s best for their lives.”

While the growing legal restrictions on reproductive services in the U.S. are cause for public health concern, Bryant sees room for optimism. She believes there are also more conversations happening that help the public understand the need for autonomy around all health decisions.

“People often don’t understand that this could have implications for them and their loved ones,” said Bryant. “As we see more of the consequences, I think people will see that it could have an impact on their care, too.”

Curtis also has found optimism in global trends. As more countries engage in open and empathetic conversations around reproductive care, many are integrating a full range of high-quality services into reproductive health and effectively reducing maternal deaths.

“Person-centered and respectful care can give people the ability to control a significant portion of their own lives,” she said, “and that can make a difference in so many ways.”

Two HPDP organizations, the Carolina Hunger Initiative (CHI) and the Food Fitness and Opportunity Research Collaborative (FFORC), are doing crucial public health work in addressing the challenge of food insecurity from different but complementary angles.

With a focus on child nutrition, CHI aims to bridge the gap between daily school meals and the summer months. In North Carolina, about 900,000 children are eligible for free and reduced-price school meals. Federal summer nutrition programs are available to provide free meals to children in low-income areas during the summer months, but prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, only 12 children for every 100 eligible for free and reduced-price meals received summer meals. Lack of access — the availability of meal sites varies from community to community, and not all families have access to a nearby meal site — and lack of awareness of the summer meals program are both barriers to participation that CHI is working to overcome.

In partnership with the state Department of Public Instruction, which administers N.C.’s school and summer nutrition programs, CHI launched SummerMeals4NCKids in 2021 to support summer nutrition programs, using special events, social media, online toolkits, word of mouth and other means to promote the programs and raise awareness of meal sites and sponsors in local communities. As part of that initiative, CHI offered a paid internship pairing college students with summer meals programs in different parts of the state, where they learned about and worked to support nutrition programs in the community.

“We have a large focus on rural areas because it’s more challenging to reach students. So it’s important to get partners involved,” says CHI member and Assistant Professor of Nutrition Jessica Soldavini, PhD, MPH, RD, LDN, whose passion for fighting hunger began with an internship at a local health department more than a decade ago. “The internship is a great way for students to go into the community and help with a lot of different tasks.”

Through its work on community-based food systems, the Food Fitness and Opportunity Research Collaborative (FFORC) relies on partnerships to improve access to healthy foods in low-resource communities.

FFORC lead and Assistant Professor of Nutrition Molly De Marco, PhD, MPH, came to UNC-Chapel Hill in 2007 to do her postdoctoral work at the UNC Sheps Center, where she was part of a UNC-Shaw University Divinity School health disparities project with a network of N.C. Black churches called the DC2 Network. She collaborated with prolific health inequities researcher Paul Godley, MD, PhD, and, through that work, met Warren County pastor Rev. Bill Kearney, who had prior experience working on wellness initiatives with academic institutions.

Together, they applied for a grant to launch a community-based participatory research project examining the impacts of a church garden on food knowledge, attitudes, behaviors and empowerment. Empowerment was something of particular interest to Kearney, who wanted to know if participating in a community garden would instill an ‘I can’ attitude in his faith community members. De Marco helped him determine how to measure that.

“We can’t truly partner with communities unless we understand where they’re coming from.”

— Molly De Marco, PhD, MPH

“In this work, there is mutual learning, and both partners bring value,” says Kearney, who now works full-time with UNC and several other FFORC community partners. “The University brought its academic and technical expertise, and the church brought its facility, good will, the legacy of community, and farm skill and experience.”

FFORC has established nearly 20 community gardens in eastern N.C. and has started several other community-based projects. Members of the collaborative also organize field trips to state cultural and historical sites, such as the International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro and former plantations where people had been enslaved in Durham and Whitakers, and spend time together in the communities where they work.

“It’s important to help our teams understand each other and build trust,” De Marco says. “We can’t truly partner with communities unless we understand where they’re coming from.”

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Text FOOD to 304-304 to find free meals for all kids and teens (from No Kid Hungry)

Pear Fruit "Donuts"

Ingredients

• 2 ripe fresh pears
• ¾ of a cup yogurt

TOPPINGS SUCH AS:

• Toasted “O” cereal
• Strawberries or other berries diced roughly one third cup of berries
• Pomegranate
• Sprinkles
• Green pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
• Granola

Instructions

• Slice your pear into round circles. You will be cutting right through the core.
• Remove the core of the pear to create an “O” shape. Use a small cookie cutter or melon baller.
• Using a spatula or the back of a spoon, “frost” your pears with yogurt.
• Add toppings and enjoy!

Shepherd’s Pie

• 6 SERVINGS • 1 HOUR COOK TIME • 1 CUP SERVING SIZE

Ingredients

POTATOES

• 1 pound of Yukon golden potatoes, peeled and diced
• ¾ of a cup of no-added-sodium chicken broth
• 2 tbsp of plain nonfat Greek yogurt
• Chili powder to taste
  

FILLING

• 1 pound of lean ground turkey
• 1 tsp of olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 1 celery stalk, diced
• 2 gloves of minced garlic
• 8 oz of bella mushrooms, diced
• 1 bag (10 oz) of mixed veggies: carrots, corn, peas, green beans
• 2 tbsp of all-purpose flour
• 1 cup no-added-sodium chicken broth
• 2 tsp of tomato paste
• 1 tsp of Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tsp of dried rosemary
• 1 tsp of thyme
• 1/2 tsp of salt and pepper

Instructions

• Bring a medium pot of salted water to a boil.
• Place potatoes in the water and boil until they are soft, about 12-15 minutes.
• Drain the potatoes and put in a separate bowl.
• Mash the potatoes with chicken broth, plain greek yogurt, 1/2 tsp salt and pepper; set aside.
• Preheat the oven to 400°F.
• In a large pan, brown the ground turkey over medium high heat, breaking the meat up as it cooks. Season the meat with salt and pepper to taste.
• When cooked, remove from the pan and set aside on a plate.
• Add the oil, onion, garlic, mushrooms and celery into the same pan used to brown the ground turkey and sauté on medium heat for about 6 to 8 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.
• Add the flour, frozen vegetables, chicken broth, tomato paste, Worcestershire sauce, rosemary, thyme and cooked meat and mix well.
• Simmer on low for about 8-10 minutes.
• Spread the meat on the bottom of the casserole dish. Top with mashed potatoes and sprinkle with chili powder.
• Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, then place under the broiler 1 to 2 minutes until the potatoes turn golden.
• Remove from the oven and let it cool 5 minutes before serving.

Earp was a nationally recognized researcher and academic leader who, during her 50-year career, was committed to eliminating racial health disparities through the power of community advocacy. She led the Gillings School’s Department of Health Behavior for 13 years, and her years as an activist in the civil rights movement informed the research questions she asked, the interventions she developed and tested, and her approach to developing the talents of generations of faculty and students in health behavior.

Hundreds of students and colleagues called her friend and mentor, reflecting Earp’s commitment to fostering cooperation, building bridges and elevating voices from underrepresented groups. Because of that mentorship, her influence will endure for generations — in the halls of the Gillings School, in the pages of research journals, on the front lines of public health practice and in the gathering spaces of community allies.

“As a medical sociologist, she studied social networks and the influence certain individuals in those networks could have in communities,” said Elizabeth French, MA, associate dean for strategic initiatives. Through rigorous survey and mixed methods research, Earp identified ways that boundary spanners — people able to move fluidly across different cultures, communities, educations and more — could be formally engaged as trusted sources of health information, thereby connecting people to critically important health resources.

Using this approach, she co-founded the North Carolina Breast Cancer Screening Program, which was able to overcome longstanding medical mistrust and breast cancer stigma to close gaps in mammography rates among Black women in eastern N.C.

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“If someone had the odds stacked against them, she would remove every barrier she could to create opportunities for them.”

— Kurt Ribisl, PhD

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“She was ahead of her time in promoting health equity and social justice,” said Kurt Ribisl, PhD, who is chair of health behavior and holds a distinguished professorship that bears Earp’s name. “And she was a relentless, scrappy advocate for ideas that were important for faculty and students. If someone had the odds stacked against them, she would remove every barrier she could to create opportunities for them.”

Many mentees, who knew her as JAE, are now formidable public health researchers and leaders themselves, demonstrating the exponential influence of her values and the high-quality work she promoted.

“JAE encouraged, dare I say, drove me to publish my master’s paper, which was a policy analysis of what could be done to help older adults in Durham, N.C., who were struggling to pay for and manage their medications,” recalled Gina Upchurch, MPH, adjunct assistant professor of pharmacy and health behavior and executive director of Senior PharmAssist. “That publication was noticed by leaders at The Duke Endowment, and Senior PharmAssist opened its doors in 1994. JAE’s engaging me as adjunct faculty, especially with patient advocacy work and as a mentor myself, has ensured that my work is grounded in public health principles.”

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“I doubt the School ever has known a more dedicated and effective mentor.”

— Dean Emerita Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH, MPH

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“I doubt the School ever has known a more dedicated and effective mentor,” seconded Dean Emerita Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH, MPH. “To have been ‘Earped’ was to have had one’s papers subjected to her purple pen, thereby joining a special group that resulted in leaps of quality. I counted on Jo Anne’s candid feedback and thoughtful observations about my performance as dean, and I will be forever grateful for how she made me better.”

Melissa Gilkey, PhD, associate professor of health behavior, fondly recalled Earp’s “encyclopedic” knowledge of mentees, from work to families to assorted trivia about personal histories and preferences. “Whenever I had big news about my career, Jo Anne was the person I wanted to share it with first because she could see the big picture, understand the implications and ask the hard questions that would help me clarify next steps,” she said. “Her delight in my successes and concern for my challenges meant so much because she really knew me.”

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“Whenever I had big news about my career, Jo Anne was the person I wanted to share it with first ...”

— Melissa Gilkey, PhD

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“I see her influence everywhere,” said Adina Kalet, MD, MPH, director of the Kern Institute at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Gillings School epidemiology alumna. “She gave me the confidence and key skills to launch an academic career I did not know I could have, raised the possibility of working with purpose and lead ‘with people,’ not ‘over them.’ She made a career in public health and health services research seem imbued with meaning and purpose.”

At Carolina and beyond, she was so well loved that her retirement party, dubbed “Earpfest,” drew hundreds to celebrate her legacy, which only grew in the 10 years that followed. That love also led to a scholarship and a distinguished professorship in her name.

Though Earp retired in 2013, her work in public health never truly ended. Even in the weeks up to her passing, she made time to check in and spent hours sharing strategies or celebrating successes.

“Those are things I really miss today,” Ribisl said. “And I try to build on that legacy and reflect on her process in my leadership.”

“We are who we are in part because of our reflection in others’ eyes,” Upchurch said. “With JAE gone from this time and place, many of us may feel smaller in some way. However, I hear her loud and clear, that we don’t have time for such nonsense, as things aren’t right, and we need to get on it!”

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Donations in Earp’s memory may be made in support of the Jo Anne Earp Scholarship Fund in Health Behavior and Health Education or the Jo Anne Earp Distinguished Professorship in Health Behavior). Make checks payable to the “UNC-CH Public Health Foundation” and mail to UNC-Chapel Hill, P.O. Box 309, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. (Please write “In memory of Jo Anne Earp” in the memo line and note if the gift is for the scholarship or professorship.) You may also donate at go.unc.edu/JEarp.

Emily Grant, MPH ‘21 (MPH@UNC)

Medical student in Spokane, Washington

Grant, who is currently seeking a Doctor of Medicine degree, conducted master’s research on the effects of smoke from wildfires that was published in the Journal of Climate Change and Health.

"I was able to finish my degree and contribute to research that I am passionate about, and which will help me better care for my future patients, while still spending precious time with my family.”

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Arbor Quist, PhD ’21 (epidemiology)

Postdoctoral researcher, University of Southern California Environmental Health Centers, Los Angeles, California

Quist focuses on the ways disasters related to climate change exacerbate health disparities. As a researcher at the Gillings School, she studied links between hog feeding operations and illness in nearby communities.

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Dilshad Jaff, MD, MPH ’15 (Maternal and Child Health)

Gillings Humanitarian Fellow at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Jaff, who has more than 20 years’ experience in complex humanitarian crises in conflict zones in the Middle East and Africa, has explored the mental health needs of internally displaced persons in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. His research highlighted a “critical need” for mental health services among these populations.

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Eric Daza, DrPH ‘15 (Biostatistics)

Lead biostatistician in data science at Evidation Health, San Mateo, California

Daza is a biostatistician and health data scientist who focuses on how to use data from a single person to make inferences about that individual’s health. He publishes a blog called “Stats-of-1” and a podcast “N-of-5 Minutes” exploring this concept.

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David Steeb, Pharm.D, MPH ’17 (Public Health Leadership)

Dean, College of Population Health at the University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy, St. Louis, Missouri

As leader of this new school since March 2022, Steeb has the opportunity to shape its priorities and collaborations for the future, with the aim of promoting health equity and improving health outcomes locally and globally.

Hope Thomson, MPH ’21 (Environmental Sciences and Engineering)

Project director at the UNC Environmental Finance Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

After Hurricane Florence brought record rainfall to eastern North Carolina, Thomson worked to understand the true cost of flooding. By focusing on effects typically excluded from damage assessments, for example, costs related to mortgage default, her work will help policymakers develop better strategies for disaster recovery.

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Michael Wilson, MPH ‘14 (Health Behavior)

Executive director, Advance Access & Delivery South Africa; co-founder/director, Bellhaven Harm Reduction Centre, Durban, South Africa; adjunct assistant professor, UNC Gillings

Wilson co-founded Bellhaven, the first low-threshold harm reduction center in South Africa providing services daily to more than 200 low-income and unhoused people.

Bellhaven shows the type of transformation possible when a city goes from a punitive approach to one that supports people.”

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Ronald Aubert, PhD ‘90 (Epidemiology)

Interim dean, Brown University School of Public Health, Providence, Rhode Island

Since April 2022, Aubert has served as interim dean while Dean Ashish Jha, MD, MPH, is on temporary assignment as White House COVID-19 response coordinator. His career in public health has included research, education, practice and leadership in the public and private sectors.

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Ruwaydah Sideek, BSPH ‘20 (Nutrition)

Former care navigator, National Health Corps, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

After graduation, Sideek, who is now in medical school, worked to build healthy communities by providing essential health education and access to services for people in communities plagued by histories of racial and economic inequity.

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Emilia Ndely-Ogundipe MHA ’15 (Health Policy and Management)

White House presidential innovation fellow, Washington, D.C.

As innovation fellow, Ndely-Ogundipe is collaborating with top civil servants and change-makers working within the federal government to tackle some of our nation’s biggest challenges.

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Do you want to share your story in a future issue? Email us.

What’s your role in public health?

My role is to disrupt the status quo and think about what we need to do differently to really address structural racism and the root cause of racial health inequities.

After the murder of George Floyd and the global protests that erupted, the Drexel Dornsife School of Public Health (where Dr. Barber is a faculty member) held a series of town hall meetings. Out of those conversations came the seed of an idea: to create a space to address “racism as a public health crisis.” A planning committee was convened to develop a center for scholars, community members, organizers and activists to work together toward a more just world. The Ubuntu Center on Racism, Global Movements & Population Health Equity arose from an intentional and collaborative planning process. As its director, I am helping to cultivate its growth along with our team.

Amid a COVID-19 pandemic that is having disproportionate impacts on Black communities and other communities of color — and amid repeated instances of state-sanctioned violence — we continued to ask: “What’s necessary because of the pain, and what’s possible because of the power of this moment?”

Can you describe your focus area in one sentence?

My focus is on understanding the ways that racism produces racial-health inequities and mobilizing evidence and narratives toward anti-racism solutions.

This work is necessarily community centered, and it is informed by social movements. History shows that social movements — locally, nationally and globally — can push us forward, and that’s what we’re excited about. We want to tap into those insights about how to bring about the sort of fundamental transformational change that’s needed. It’s important to connect with people who are on the ground, already doing this work, to continue to learn and build relationships.

What brought you to public health?

It was a desire to merge my interest in health and health inequities with my passion for social justice. I saw public health as the vehicle to do that work — though, honestly, I stumbled upon public health. I decided to enroll in a summer program at Harvard as an undergrad, and it opened my eyes to public health as a place to study the links between discrimination and health. After that, I was looking for other opportunities to explore public health and found another summer program at UNC-Chapel Hill. I remember going on the School’s website and seeing a focus on community that was really powerful for me.

How have you pivoted in response to the coronavirus pandemic?

One thing was immediately clear: the importance of documenting what was happening. However, the Ubuntu Center itself represents the real pivot. It exists not just to document the impact of racism, but to define and advance anti-racism solutions. The pandemic highlighted the way racism is embedded and ingrained in so many intersecting systems. We’re working to answer the question: “How do we take knowledge from a historical perspective, which allows us to understand how these systems work, and create solutions?”

Early in the pandemic, I joined scholars around the country to serve on a health-justice advisory board for the Poor People’s Campaign. We were thinking about how to center health equity and justice in the pandemic response on a national scale. That helped me think about what kind of center could align itself with movements to address these issues. The data alone aren't enough, and we see the power that exists in movements. We need to break the walls between the ivory tower and the broader community. We need to build the collective power necessary to both dismantle oppressive systems and re-imagine what will be built in their place.

Who are you when you’re at home?

I’m very relaxed, and I feel like I’m deeply reflective. My window faces a path that goes through a wooded area. Since the pandemic, I’ve been working from home a lot more, and I’ve been able to literally observe the seasons change. It grounds me in a way that I didn’t realize I needed. Seeing the trees budding for spring is a reminder that, although the work is hard and challenging — and you don’t change these things overnight — there’s hope and promise. I try to stay hopeful and keep myself optimistic about the possibility of making lasting change.

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For more Gillings stories of impact, discovery and surprise in public health:

• The Pivot articles: sph.unc.edu/comm/the-pivot
• The Pivot podcast: Search “pivot gillings” on your favorite podcast app

As a school of public health, our commitment to well-being starts internally. We cannot demonstrate leadership in this multi-dimensional public health approach if we don’t first put it into practice on our own campus.

“We want to make sure that everyone, every student, is developing in all areas,” said Charletta Sims Evans, MEd, associate dean for student affairs. “Supporting mental health and well-being is a part of that. You can’t function in a classroom if you’re not taking care of yourself.”

For years, the Gillings School has explored new ways to promote campus well-being. Sims Evans, who is chair of the Mental Health and Well-being Task Force, has led the effort to support the student body. The task force seeks to reduce student stressors by broadening access to funding and support resources, providing safe avenues to share concerns and address mental health, and creating opportunities to connect with peers and explore academic flexibility.

These strategies are based on student feedback, along with advice from leadership groups like the Minority Student Caucus and the Student Government Association.

Based on task force recommendations, a faculty mentoring committee has also been established to provide faculty with mentorship training, and the student affairs office has hired a second career services coordinator to help students prepare for life after graduation. They will soon be adding a Gillings-dedicated counselor from UNC’s Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), as well.

Gillings leadership also provides many well-being resources through its Culture of Health initiative, which was inspired by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and uses the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Worksite Health ScoreCard to identify areas that can effectively foster wellness. The Culture of Health was initially established under the leadership of Dean Emerita Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH, MPH, and led by Penny Slade-Sawyer, a longstanding public health leader and former senior consultant for the North Carolina Institute for Public Health. It is currently co-chaired by Rhoda Cerny and Melissa Walter, MPH, RDN, LDN, who collaborate with staff in academics, facilities and wellness providers around campus to offer weekly yoga classes, mindful relaxation sessions, walking groups, healthy snacks, nutrition and self-care infographics, training on mental health and environmental safety, and more. These events are open to all students, faculty and staff.

“There are so many things involved in creating a Culture of Health,” Cerny says. “There are people working on practical safety and health strategies. But two of my favorite things to do are to provide opportunities for students and employees to relax and practice self-care in the middle of their busy days and to create fun events for people to get together and enjoy each other’s company.”

The Culture of Health website shares resources and suggestions that can be incorporated into daily routines, including podcast and webinar recommendations, nutrition suggestions, personal activities, and collaborative events. But it can be hard for people to find time to take a break from work and prioritize well-being. Cerny says that this is where the culture in Culture of Health is critical. Leadership is a critical component in modeling that culture.

“We’ve had students from our Total Worker Health® graduate program give us ideas on how to encourage that culture among leadership,” she said. “One suggestion is to ensure that all managers and supervisors attend trainings so that they can be resources for employee well-being, but it’s important for someone in leadership to advocate for that.”

Most recently, School leadership created a resource to address food insecurity after a survey found that nearly 10% of Gillings students did not have consistent access to food. Associate Professor Amanda Holliday, MS, RD, LDN, and the Nutrition Coalition worked with student and University groups to establish CJ’s Cupboard, a food pantry located in 2210 McGavran-Greenberg Hall that serves the entire Gillings community.

CJ’s Cupboard carries non-perishable foods, utensils, sanitary items, oral care, diapers and other personal necessities. Most popular among them, according to Holliday, are foods that meet cultural or dietary needs and items that are in small, easy-to-carry packages. They also partner with Good Bowls to provide nutritious frozen meals.

“Our goal is to normalize this,” she said. “We all forget our lunch or have months where the money runs out. I encourage anyone to go to CJ’s if they need to. The door is always unlocked.”

Since its inception, the Cupboard has seen visits from handfuls of students every day, and because it relies on donations, it can be hard to keep food in stock. Donations can be dropped off at any time, and donors are encouraged to purchase items from the cupboard’s online wish list.

“We are a flagship school of public health,” Holliday said. “We should do the very basics for our own. And that includes food.”

The School and University collaborate on other avenues of support, as well, including work/life and wellness programs for employees and the Heels Care Network, which is a hub of mental health and well-being resources. Peers for Progress, housed in the Department of Health Behavior, also works with Sims Evans to provide peer support groups to the Gillings community.

We know that promoting health is a continuously evolving process that is informed by the unique needs of our community. Students in need of support can reach out to CAPS, and the UNC Employee Assistance Program can provide valuable personal and professional resources for faculty and staff.

Evan Mayo-Wilson, DPhil, MPA, has a lot of questions. “In research, every time you start digging into something, you realize how much isn’t known about it,” says Mayo-Wilson, an associate professor of epidemiology who joined the Gillings faculty last fall. “Every question you answer generates two more questions.”

For almost a decade, Mayo-Wilson’s inquiring mind has been digging into the effects, including negative effects, of gabapentin, a drug used for pain and other health problems. More broadly and longer term, he focuses on improving the methodology of research in a more systematic way: In other words, are researchers asking the right questions and using appropriate methods to answer them?

"Being at Gillings is a great opportunity to collaborate with people who are doing that type of work and who understand where opportunities for methodological advancement might be."

— Evan Mayo-Wilson, DPhil, MPA

Because there are many clinical trials and observational studies about most health interventions, Mayo-Wilson aims to synthesize all available evidence to better inform the research process and guide decision-making. “I’m interested in how we pull all of that information together in a rigorous way and how we can improve that process to make better policy decisions and better recommendations for care,” he says.

Mayo-Wilson, who grew up in Pittsburgh and has earned degrees from Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oxford, began focusing on gabapentin harms while working at Johns Hopkins and continued while he was an associate professor at Indiana University. This research path eventually led him to the Gillings School.

“Being at Gillings is a great opportunity to collaborate with people who are doing that type of work and who understand where opportunities for methodological advancement might be,” he says.

In addition to his own research, Mayo-Wilson is a co-scientific director for peer review at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), contracted with Origin Editorial. Former director of the UNC Sheps Center for Health Services Research Tim Carey, MD, MPH, a semi-retired UNC research professor in medicine and adjunct professor of epidemiology, has worked closely with Mayo-Wilson for several years. Mayo-Wilson and Carey currently serve as co-scientific directors.

“Evan has a way of communicating with great clarity,” says Carey, adding that having Mayo-Wilson at Carolina not only benefits Gillings but any school or department that does scientific research. “It’s easy sometimes to talk in epi-speak — very technical and specialized — but Evan is very good at expressing concepts in terms that the average clinician, researcher and disease advocate can understand.”

When he’s not working, Mayo-Wilson is spending time with his family. His wife, Larissa Jennings Mayo-Wilson, is also on faculty at Gillings in both the departments of health behavior and maternal and child health. They enjoy hiking and camping — though like many parents of young children, most of their time and energy is focused on raising their son, who’s 1½ years old.

“I used to have hobbies,” Mayo-Wilson jokes, “but right now, we’re really enjoying a full night’s sleep — we went for about a year without that.”