Health Behavior and Health Equity

Moving puzzle pieces that form blue, green and pink globes and a globe that looks like earth

Exploring environmental equity and impacts on human health

Environmental health experts at the University of Michigan School of Public Health are immersed in understanding the connection between the health of individuals and communities and the environment—whether it’s the air we breathe, water we drink, food we eat, products we use or places we live and work.

Public Health IDEAS

Public Health IDEAS adds two new interdisciplinary research initiatives

Combating Infectious Diseases and Building Health Equity

Michigan Public Health recently launched two new initiatives under its Public Health IDEAS umbrella that will focus on preventing the spread of infectious diseases and building health equity: Public Health IDEAS Combating Infectious Diseases and Public Health IDEAS for Building Health Equity.

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud and Dearborn Public Health Director Ali Abazeed

A passion for Dearborn

Michigan Public Health alumni lead with a public health perspective

University of Michigan School of Public Health alumni Abdullah Hammoud and Ali Abazeed are leading their hometown of Dearborn, Michigan, with a public-health-in-all-policies approach. Hammoud, an epidemiologist, is the mayor, and Abazeed is the founding director of the inaugural Department of Public Health.

image with a collage of logos

A collaboration for health equity

The University of Michigan School of Public Health is collaborating with the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association and the American Cancer Society on a Bank of America-funded program to advance health outcomes for Black, Latino/Hispanic, Asian and Indigenous communities.

Hsing-Fang Hsieh headshot

Public Health IDEAS: Pioneering firearms research

Becoming a violence exposure researcher wasn’t initially the plan for Hsing-Fang Hsieh, MPH '06, PhD '12, but an introduction to a University of Michigan School of Public Health faculty member and subsequent work on a youth resilience study paved the way for her new research path. Now she is a research assistant professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention spearheading firearm violence prevention research, an area that has historically been understudied and underfunded.

Susan Marsiglia Gray, left, and Tasha Akitobi

Better together

Alumnae pair up to help healthcare facilities stay afloat during the pandemic and beyond

Colleagues Susan Marsiglia Gray, MPH ’01, and Tasha Akitobi, MPH ’05, share so much common ground, they practically read each other’s minds. That comes in handy because their federal government workplace, the Provider Relief Bureau, is responsible for $200 billion in COVID relief funding. While their partnership is somewhat new—with only about 18 months of being on the job together—their paths to public health have created deep familiarity.