News and Stories

Everybody can help fight the health misinformation epidemic by not falling for – and not sharing – fake news. It’s something experts like Lisa Bero, PhD, hope people will do for the sake of evidence-based science and, ultimately, societal health.

Debra Melani | March 27, 2023

By creating a rapt worldwide audience at a time of worry, COVID-19 brought out the worst in fake health news. Misinformation clogged the airwaves, with claims of microchipped vaccines, dangerous miracle cures and mask-mandate conspiracies plastering TV stations and social media platforms.

Today, pandemic “news” has abated. But misinformation has not.

Debra Melani | March 27, 2023

Sightings of dead geese in neighborhood ponds are becoming sadly more common today, as the most significant avian flu outbreak in U.S. history continues its march across the country. Nearly 58 million birds have fallen to the wild waterfowl-driven epidemic, with the virus now detected in 47 states.

Debra Melani | January 20, 2023

A paper published last month attributing 12.7% of childhood asthma cases to gas stoves generated a lot of heat, especially after U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka Jr. said banning these common household stoves was being considered.

Kiley Kudrna and Matthew Hastings | January 18, 2023

New research from the Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative examined diverse viewpoints on reducing access to potentially dangerous situations among older adults due to changes in physical or cognitive functioning.

Julia Milzer | November 16, 2022

Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have found that a new imaging information system may ultimately provide a faster, more accurate prognosis for certain cancers.

Laura Kelley | September 19, 2022

Forever chemicals, or phthalates, are ever-present in our lives, from plastic packaging to household products to personal-care commodities. We can’t avoid them entirely, but we can minimize their influence on our health.

Kiley Carroll | August 16, 2022

Jonathan Samet, MD, MS, the third and longest-serving dean of the Colorado School of Public Health (ColoradoSPH), will step down from the top post pending a completed nationwide search for his replacement, administrators announced today.

Debra Melani | June 08, 2022

The unusual spread of monkeypox from West and Central Africa, where it has occurred sporadically, has health experts on alert. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week issued a health advisory asking clinicians to be on the lookout for the virus’s characteristic rash and fever.

Chris Casey | May 23, 2022

A new study released by the Colorado School of Public Health evaluated the structural and outbreak factors associated with reporting foodborne outbreaks and found that the number and types of foodborne outbreaks reported varied substantially across states, with high reporting states reporting four times more outbreaks than low reporting states.

Laura Kelley | May 18, 2022

Worldwide focus on the novel SARS-CoV-2 reversed momentum that was halting an age-old killer. Tuberculosis (TB) remains the world’s most-lethal infectious disease after COVID-19, and, according to an infectious disease expert at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, health experts had planned to end the TB epidemic by 2035.

Chris Casey | May 10, 2022

Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus are joining efforts to improve the lives and healthcare of the 61 million Americans living with disabilities, a number expected to rise in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Laura Veith | April 25, 2022

Longtime University of Colorado benefactors and siblings, Alan Cogen and Judi Cogen, continue to have a significant impact on the Denver community. Thanks to their recent gifts, the Cogens are assisting underserved populations in the metropolitan area.

Danielle Davis | April 08, 2022

Years of targeted advertising by tobacco giants turned menthol cigarettes into a racial issue, hooking mostly Black Americans on the minty-tasting tobacco products. Now public health experts at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have rallied a powerful community effort to reverse a deadly trend and social injustice. 

Laura Veith | March 04, 2022

Since March 2020, the Colorado COVID-19 Modeling Group has tracked the COVID-19 pandemic in the state and provided projections on its course. Because the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 has so quickly moved into the United States and Colorado, the Modeling Group – led by the Colorado School of Public Health with additional members from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Denver, and Colorado State University – has issued a statement based on its tracking of the pandemic and the scientific evidence.   

Guest Contributor | January 03, 2022

In a new peer-reviewed paper in the American Journal of Public Health, physician and researcher Emmy Betz, MD, MPH, leads a diverse group in tackling how words used in relation to firearm injuries and deaths can impact prevention of firearm injury.

Julia Milzer | December 08, 2021

Three years ago, researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health’s Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health launched a forward-looking study. They looked to use social media and mobile application technology to reach out to young (16 to 20 years of age) American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) women living in urban areas. The goal: push out messages and virtual interventions aimed at preventing alcohol-exposed pregnancies (AEPs) and fetal alcohol syndrome disorders (FASDs) – serious health risks for both women and children.

Guest Contributor | November 19, 2021

In a new article published in Harvard Public Health Review, Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) students critically examine the role of public health in racism and oppression and how they, as the future leaders of public health, would like to see this addressed and changed.

Julia Milzer | November 03, 2021

A new public health survey reveals critical information regarding the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccine messaging and public policies on individual perception and behaviors in the United States.

Julia Milzer | October 26, 2021

Living in rural, isolated areas correlates with easier access to handguns and higher risks of suicidality among Colorado teenagers, according to a cross-sectional study recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Network Open. These findings can help inform public health and policy experts on how best to allocate educational firearm safety and suicide prevention resources in the state.

Kelsea Pieters | October 13, 2021

Maddie Godby, a graduate student in the Population Mental Health & Wellbeing Program at the Colorado School of Public Health, flew to her first Olympic Games this summer knowing full well the month in Japan would be unlike anything the world has seen.

Chris Casey | September 27, 2021

This brief essay takes on a topic that returns about 9 billion hits with a Google search on the phrase Why Science Matters. Here, I offer comments that are framed in public health and that dwell on public health sciences. Recently deceased, former Gov. Richard Lamm quipped (in 1986): “The major factors that brought health to mankind were epidemiology, sanitation, vaccination, refrigeration and screen windows.” I agree with Gov. Lamm.

Guest Contributor | August 09, 2021

Colorado researchers have published new findings in Emerging Infectious Diseases that take a first look at the use of SARS-CoV-2 mathematical modeling to inform early statewide policies enacted to reduce the spread of the Coronavirus pandemic in Colorado. Among other findings, the authors estimate that 97 percent of potential hospitalizations across the state in the early months of the pandemic were avoided as a result of social distancing and other transmission-reducing activities such as mask wearing and social isolation of symptomatic individuals.

Tonya Ewers | July 07, 2021

Alexa Hansen was in the final semester of completing her psychology degree at Metropolitan State University of Denver, when the career ahead didn’t seem to be a great fit.

Staff | May 25, 2021

Scientists examining the remains of 36 bubonic plague victims from a 16th century mass grave in Germany have found the first evidence that evolutionary adaptive processes, driven by the disease, may have conferred immunity on later generations from the region.

David Kelly | May 18, 2021

Growing up in big-city Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Papy Bawongo Boyamba, MD, looked forward to visits from the man in the white coat. Something about the man and his professional, caring manner gave the boy a vision of his own future.

Chris Casey | May 11, 2021

Schools and colleges of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus are again ranked among the best in the country on the 2022 U.S. News & World Report annual ranking of higher education programs.

Staff | March 30, 2021

Scientists have discovered that mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 virus can arise quickly in patients undergoing long-term treatment for the infection, allowing it to evolve into variants that pose new threats to public health.

David Kelly | February 11, 2021

Professors and faculty members at most research universities spend the bulk of their professional time in well-known academic pursuits: teaching, researching, collaborating with colleagues, and leading the next generation of experts in their respective fields. Less apparent are hundreds of hours some volunteer to present at conferences, provide testimony for policies, and collaborate on scientific committee work, publish papers, and review others’ work for publication.

Guest Contributor | January 26, 2021

Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have discovered a direct association between placental function in pregnant women and future metabolic disorders in children and adults, a finding that could lead to earlier intervention and diagnosis of disease. 

David Kelly | January 21, 2021

A cold front brought a blanket of snow to Colorado in late October 2020, a welcome gift for a state ravaged by wildfires. As the flakes fell, they helped tame record-breaking burns that had been threatening communities for weeks, racing from the Rocky Mountains above to the borders of Boulder below.

Debra Melani | November 10, 2020

The newest dean on campus has a lot to boast about. A recent invitation to the Vatican. An award presented by a king. But after 40 years in a career that landed him many top-level posts and prominent international recognition, the dean of the Colorado School of Public Health (ColoradoSPH) remains straight-forward and modest.

Debra Melani | November 28, 2017