Feed of Latest U-M Research News
Public Health
The Other Side of the Dream
For some immigrant groups, the stress of migrating to the United States can lead to substance use and abuse. In the process of migrating to the United States, Latino men who have sex with men face the additional burden of having to redefine their sexual identity to meet the cultural norms of mainstream white gay culture, says Jose Bauermeister, a research assistant professor in health behavior and health education and supervisor of the newly founded Sexuality and Health Research Lab at the School of Public Health. In his research, Bauermeister finds that homosexual activity can be a catalyst for drug use. [Read more...]
Improving Care for the Vulnerable
U-M's Kyle Grazier, a professor of health management and policy in the School of Public Health, says society also pays a high price for failing to care for vulnerable populations. Untreated addiction often leads to drunk driving, suicide, broken families, and juvenile delinquency. Lack of transitional housing and job training programs brings more homelessness and crime. In recent research, she interviewed individuals receiving services and developed a guide to the essential features of successful programs. [Read more...]
U-M joins the launch of new web site: ScienceWorksForUs.org
The University of Michigan and other leading public and private research universities today announced the launch of ScienceWorksForUS, an initiative that will highlight the scientific research and related activities that have been made possible by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), also known as the stimulus. The centerpiece of the initiative is a Web site that highlights Recovery Act-sponsored research in all 50 states, telling the stories of the research and the researchers contributing to America's recovery. The web site went live today at www.ScienceWorksForUS.org.
Homicide rates correlate with traffic death rates
States with high homicide rates also tend to have higher rates of traffic deaths than other states, says a University of Michigan researcher. In a new study in the current issue of the journal Traffic Injury Prevention, Michael Sivak of the U-M Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI) found that the homicide rate per 100,000 was 5.7 for the 25 states with the highest traffic fatality rates, but only 4.8 for the 25 states with the lowest traffic fatality rates and the District of Columbia. Excluding Washington, D.C., the homicide rate for the 25 states with the lowest traffic fatality rates was 3.8. "While it is important to note that this result should not be interpreted as implying that a significant fraction of traffic fatalities are homicides, it does suggest that the same aggressive tendencies that contribute to homicides also demonstrate themselves, to a certain degree, in interpersonal behaviors on the road," said Sivak. [Read more...]
U-M has received more than $200M in stimulus funds through October 2009
In data assembled by the U-M's Division of Research Development and Administration, the U-M has received funding for 342 projects through October, 2009 under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The total dollar value of these projects is $206.4M. To date, the five largest grants support solar energy research, diabetes research, an ongoing study of health and retirement issues in the U.S., the creation of a database to support genetic research in the behavioral and health sciences, and a study of pulmonary fibrosis. [Download table of project awards by U-M schools, colleges and other major units...]
Deal of the Year - University of Michigan’s North Campus Research Complex
Pfizer departure paved the way for major university expansion
The 2008 departure of pharmaceutical giant Pfizer from its 174-acre campus in northern Ann Arbor was the single biggest blow to the region's economy in decades. But Pfizer's exodus, which displaced more than 2,100 workers, paves the way for the University of Michigan's biggest expansion in five decades. U-M, which acquired the site in June for $108 million, plans to hire 2,000 to 3,000 workers to populate the 2 million square feet of facilities over the next 10 years. The acquisition of the ex-Pfizer site, renamed the North Campus Research Complex, is AnnArbor.com Business Review's "Deal of the Year" for 2009. [Read more...]
Professor co-authors new book on conservation, food sovereignty
Ivette Perfecto, a professor at the U-M School of Natural Resources and Environment, has co-written a new book that offers a radical departure from traditional theories related to biodiversity and food sovereignty in tropical regions of the world. In Nature's Matrix: Linking Agriculture, Conservation and Food Sovereignty (Earthscan, Ltd, 2009), Professor Perfecto and her co-authors say that such goals cannot be achieved without embracing rural social movements and local peasant farmers. This new approach to the conservation of biodiversity is based on advances in ecology science and modern political realities found in rural areas, particularly tropical regions. [Read more...]
Viewing sneezing and coughing in public raises fears
Seeing other people sneeze and cough affects how people view the U.S. health care system and how likely they are to support federal spending to develop a flu vaccine, a University of Michigan study shows. "We found that exposure to public sneezing and coughing increased risk perception even for risks that are completely unrelated to the flu," said Norbert Schwarz, a research professor at the U-M Institute for Social Research, a professor in the U-M Department of Psychology and a professor at the U-M Ross School of Business. "We also found that people were unaware that exposure to public symptoms of the flu had influenced their judgments of risk, their views about government spending on flu research or their opinion of the U.S. health care system." [Read more...]
Whooping cough immunity long-lasting, study shows
Immunity to whooping cough lasts at least 30 years on average, much longer than previously thought, an analysis by researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of New Mexico shows. The research, by U-M professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Pejman Rohani and his former postdoctoral fellow Helen Wearing, now an assistant professor at the University of New Mexico, is scheduled to be published Oct. 23, 2009 in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens. Once thought to be under control, thanks to widespread childhood vaccination, whooping cough (pertussis) has been on the rise since the 1980s in the United States and several other countries. This increase has fueled concerns about the effectiveness of current vaccination practices and raised the question of whether whooping cough can ever be eradicated. [Read more...]