Arnold School faculty, staff, students and alumni are serving key roles in the fight against the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Collaborative efforts against this public health crisis include leading original research projects, providing expert input, and educating the public.
Published in PLOS ONE, the method leverages large amounts of data from electronic health records and enables researchers and clinicians to better understand the potential risks to both fetus and mother.
Over the past two years, the team discovered that building-level surveillance provides additional useful information, including the emergence of variants and the presence of viral transmission hotspots.
Researchers from the Aging Brain Cohort (ABC) Study have published findings from a study examining the effects of social isolation among older adults during SC's month-long stay-at-home/shelter-in-place orders in 2020.
Researchers have completed a study comparing the health behaviors of children learning virtually vs in-person during the COVID-19 pandemic, finding worsening trends in physical activity, screen time and sleep among children learning from home.
The latest Arnold School project to learn from and address impacts of COVID-19 comes in the form of a $3 million U01 grant to investigate the effects of telehealth on disparities in maternal care during the pandemic.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has awarded more than $400K to health services policy and management assistant professor Chen Liang as part of the Long COVID Computational Challenge.
The study, which was published in the Journal of American College Health, found that negative impacts on physical activity, sedentary time and anxiety persisted for this population from the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 until a year later in 2021 when the research was conducted.
The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases has awarded more than $400K to Chen Liang to curate a knowledge base for individuals with coinfection of HIV and SARS-CoV-2 by data mining a nationwide electronic health records repository.
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has awarded nearly $400K to Xueying Yang, a research assistant professor in the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior (HPEB) and with the South Carolina SmartState Center for Healthcare Quality (CHQ).
Already known for their training, capacity-building and technical assistance services, the Center has recently been awarded a $2.3 million grant to offer technical assistance (e.g., database development/training) to community health worker programs nationwide.
The team will assess community buy-in for at-home COVID-19 testing, evaluate intended use and self-reporting of results, determine perceptions of at-home testing for minority, rural and hard-to-reach populations, and measure testing performance of at-home diagnostics.
NEJM Journal Watch has included a paper led by Xueying Yang and Xiaoming Li in their top 10 list of 2021 COVID-19 research stories. The researchers found that certain groups of people living with HIV have worse COVID-19 outcomes.
Building on the success of the UofSC Patient Engagement Studio, researchers Nabil Natafgi and Ann Blair Kennedy, will use a $200K award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to create a COVID-19-Focused Virtual Patient Engagement Studio.
Health promotion, education, and behavior researchers examined changes in smoking frequency, quit attempts, stress/depression, and perceived severity of COVID-19 among more than 2750 smokers in Mexico during March and July of 2020.
One year after the launch of the SC Strong Project, UofSC interviews epidemiology assistant professor Melissa Nolan to find out what the team has learned about COVID-19 infections, spread, testing, vaccinations and risk factors in South Carolina.
UofSC traces the university's efforts to combat COVID with a timeline of activities over the past two years. The Arnold School is proud to have contributed to these collaborations throughout the process.
A study led by epidemiology researchers has investigated COVID-19 infection rates and deaths among long-term care facility residents and staff in South Carolina. The team found that the early detection of COVID-19 in these settings could serve as a first indicator of disease spread in the surrounding area.
The first statewide population-based study of COVID-19 symptoms and clinical outcomes has found disparities across different groups, particularly by race/ethnicity and geographic location (rural vs urban).
Professors Xiaoming Li and Jihong Liu will lead an NIH-funded study to better understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected severe maternal morbidity/mortality with a focus on the combined effects of pre-existing disparities and disproportionate rates of COVID-19.
Researchers from the Department of Exercise Science have published new research on impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s health-related behaviors (e.g., physical activity, diet, screen time, sedentary behavior, sleep).
Researchers from the Arnold School’s Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics have led a study examining the access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in health facilities in sub-Saharan Africa.
A study led by researchers at the University of South Carolina's Department of Exercise Science has found increases in body mass index (BMI) scores among school-age children - likely a result of school closures, food insecurity and fewer outdoor activity opportunities.
Researchers at the Rural and Minority Health Research Center found high levels of compliance with risk mitigation behaviors among all older adults; however, rural residents were consistently less likely than their urban counterparts to adhere to these recommendations.
Xiaoming Li and Bankole Olatosi, co-directors of the UofSC Big Data Health Science Center, are acquiring de-identified electronic health records for all COVID-19 patients in South Carolina to develop a statewide data-driven system to to respond to the pandemic.
Scholarly and popular press articles have been published about the change in work environments, the effects of children learning from home, and the innumerable other changes that have affected daily life during the pandemic. Recent research reveals the unique pandemic experience of academics who mother.
Melissa Nolan has built the Laboratory of Vector Borne and Zoonotic Diseases by engaging an enthusiastic group of students whose membership swells up to 30. From freshmen to veteran doctoral students, these budding scientists are eager to learn the ropes of research.
Existing health disparities, including healthcare resources and socioeconomic barriers, have exacerbated infection rates and posed additional challenges to COVID-19 vaccine uptake among underserved populations, such as non-Hispanic Blacks.
A recent study, published in Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care, has found higher percentages of pregnant women have experienced symptoms of depression, thoughts of self-harm and anxiety during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Doctoral students Gabriel Benavidez and Jennifer Mandelbaum have published a paper, noting that despite an abundance of support for and findings from COVID-19 research, the lessons learned often appear in silos.
With the establishment of community vaccination sites in larger areas across the state at the beginning of 2021, it became apparent to Jacob Evans that access to the vaccine was not readily available in rural communities like Laurens.
Neha Sood believes her academic programs and research/practical experiences with the SC Statewide Cancer Prevention and Control Program, SC Tobacco-Free Collaborative, and the UofSC School of Medicine helped prepare her for her career.
Health Services Policy and Management Distinguished Professors Emerita Janice Probst and Saundra Glover (also director/deputy director emerita for the Rural and Minority Health Research Center) talk to New York Magazine about the next COVID 19 obstacle: vaccine deserts.
Distinguished Professor Emerita Saundra Glover talks to ABC News4 about the virtual meeting for the SC minority population that she led with assistant state epidemiologist Jane Kelly to debunk vaccine myths.
Janice Probst, Distinguished Professor Emerita of HSPM and director emerita of the Rural and Minority Health Research Center, explains to the Washington Post how the lack of health services and transportation impede access to the COVID-19 vaccine in communities of color.
The Rural Monitor interviews Arnold School alumnus Graham Adams about how the SC Office of Rural Health is responding to COVID-19 and addressing social determinants of health.
Ph.D. in Epidemiology student Gabriel Benavidez is collaborating with three other members from his cohort to lead a Health Policy Research Scholars COVID and Anti-Racism Pilot Project with support from a $35K grant from the program.
Melissa Nolan, assistant professor of epidemiology, and Virginie Daguise, director of DHEC's Bureau of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention, are launching a new representative testing strategy to prospectively assess and monitor COVID-19 within South Carolina.
Bridget Armstrong, assistant professor of exercise science, talks to the Washington Post about the ways she has adapted her research on children and physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Monique Brown and Sharon Weissman (School of Medicine) have published a paper on the impact of COVID-19 on older adults living with HIV, describing HIV care and psychosocial effects for this group during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Aging Brain Cohort (ABC), one of eight high-impact projects established by UofSC’s Excellence Initiative in 2019, has launched a study to learn more about the negative cognitive and neurological effects of COVID-19.
Led by Big Data Health Science Center co-principal investigators Xiaoming Li and Bankole Olatosi, this two-year NIH grant will allow the team to develop a database system via REDCap and a mobile application for collating surveillance, clinical, multi-omics and geospatial data on both COVID-19 patients and health workers in SC.
UofSC talks to epidemiology assistant professor Monique Brown, who is also a researcher with the Rural and Minority Health Research Center and the SmartState Center for Healthcare Quality, about how COVID-19 highlights underlying racial health disparities.
UofSC features the research of environmental health sciences associate professor Sean Norman, who is partnering with CDC and SC DHEC to detect COVID-19 in 11 locations.
The COVID-19 pandemic has added a new layer to epidemiology professor Angela Liese’s SEARCH Food Security Study: providing much-needed support and resources to individuals with diabetes.
Director Julie Smithwick couldn’t have known about the impending COVID-19 pandemic that would ravage the world just one year later, but the Community Health Worker Institute launched just in time to prepare its first cohort of community health workers for a greater challenge than anyone foresaw.
Clinical associate professor of health services policy and management Bankole Olatosi answers UofSC questions about how hospitals are struggling financially because of strains brought on by the pandemic.
Swann Arp Adams researches disparities in cancer prevention and screening. Here, she provides insight into how the COVID-19 pandemic might affect current or recovering cancer patients and their families.
In the new world of distance learning, faculty are getting a crash course in online education — and the learning curve can be steep. But it’s not insurmountable, says Lucy Ingram, assistant dean for academic affairs and online education.