Researchers at the new UW Center for Health Disparities Research will study how an individual’s environment and social conditions may impact their health.
UW research center studies environmental, social conditions’ effects on health
NBC-15
May 26, 2021
Research
The Edge: The Best Ways to Spend Some of the Billions in Biden’s Big Jobs Proposal (subject line below is just proposed for now
Chronicle of Higher Ed
A new study of online internships shows that, among more than 10,000 students at 11 colleges, most virtual internships last year went to students in middle- and upper-income families, and more positions were unpaid than paid. The analysis, by the Center for Research on College-Workforce Transitions at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, also found higher levels of dissatisfaction with virtual internships versus in-person ones, mostly due to limited opportunities for engagement and learning.
Higher Education/System
Top Republican says Wisconsin schools shouldn’t get a general funding increase for the next two years
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The president of the Wisconsin Senate doesn’t want to increase general aid for schools in the next two years because they have received billions of dollars in federal aid since 2020.
State news
After Slow Start, Nearly Half Of Wisconsin’s Prison Population Has Been Fully Vaccinated
Wisconsin Public Radio
Quoted: Health experts highlight that incarcerated individuals are at higher risk for COVID-19 outbreaks due to a limited ability to social distance and other societal factors, said Dipesh Navsaria, a physician and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health.
“People who typically are in carceral settings like jails and prisons (that) are disproportionately people of color, people with lower educational attainment and people who come from backgrounds of poverty, trauma, stress, and are often subject to racial bias and discrimination,” said Navsaria. “And all of these elements tend to play into just being at higher risk.”
Republican Lawmakers Reject Badgercare Expansion
WORT FM
Quoted: Evers’ bid to bolster Medicaid is less an “expansion” and more of a “restoration,” according to Donna Friedsam, a researcher with UW-Madison’s Institute for Research on Poverty.
Friedsam says that, prior to the Affordable Care Act, Wisconsin’s medicaid program covered parents and caretaker adults at up to double the federal poverty level.
“So, when the ACA came along, it said all states should cover everybody, no matter who they are, up to a certain level of 138% of the federal poverty level,” she told WORT. In 2021, 138% of the federal poverty level is about $17,700 for a single person.
Wisconsin bills banning transgender athletes get hearings
Associated Press
The Wisconsin bills would allow students to join teams only that correspond to their biological sex as assigned by a doctor at birth, unless the sport is classified as “coed.” It would apply to public and private schools, as well as the University of Wisconsin and technical colleges.
Wisconsin Republicans to hold hearing on UW abortion ban
Associated Press
All University of Wisconsin System and UW health workers would be banned from performing abortions or training others to perform abortions under a Republican bill up for a public hearing Wednesday in a state legislative committee.
The Full Scale of Anti-Trans, Anti-LGBTQ Bills in State Houses Will Shock You
The Daily Beast
A second bill, AB 195, would require the same policies at University of Wisconsin System schools and state technical colleges for women’s teams. The State Senate has similar bills, SB 322 and SB 323, respectively.
Health
UW Health shares safety advice for those who can’t yet get vaccinated against COVID-19
WISC-TV 3
Dr. Matt Anderson, senior medical director at UW Health, said those still vulnerable to COVID-19 should continue to follow the public health guidance that has gotten them through the bulk of the pandemic so far.
How Critical Is It To Reach Herd Immunity? Medical Experts Say It’s Not Clear-Cut
Wisconsin Public Radio
Quoted: While some estimates suggest communities can reach herd immunity when around 70 percent of the population is vaccinated, Dr. Matt Anderson, UW Health senior medical director of primary care, explains it isn’t an on-off switch.
“It’s really hard to say at what point we’ll reach it as though it’s a critical threshold,” Anderson said. “It’s more of a gradual decline in the case rates that we’ll see as we have more and more people being immune, and the best immunity is through vaccinations.”
Ajay Sethi is a professor of population health sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is faculty director of Master of Public Health Program. He said it will be clear that communities have reached herd immunity when there are no longer outbreaks of COVID-19 despite people returning to pre-pandemic daily activities like going maskless to concerts, sporting events, movie theaters, or restaurants without social distancing.
“In order for this to happen, most everyone will need to have protective immunity from either vaccination or past infection, but immunity from the latter may not be as long-lasting or durable,” he said.
Editorial: UW Health nurses should be able to collectively bargain for themselves and their patients
The Capital Times
The nurses at UW Hospitals and Clinics have been among the greatest heroes of the coronavirus pandemic that is finally beginning to ease after an often overwhelming year of infection and death, testing and treatment, recovery and vaccination. Nurses have been widely praised for their humanity, for their caring, for their sacrifices. We have no doubt about the sincerity of those words. But now it is time to honor these heroes with something more than words. They need a place at the bargaining table.
Opinion
What Honest Abe Learned From Geometry
Wall Street Journal
Knowing geometry protects you: Once you’ve experienced the sharp click of an honest-to-goodness proof, you’ll never fall for this trick again. Tell your “logical” opponent to go square a circle.—Mr. Ellenberg is a professor of mathematics at the University of Wisconsin. This essay is adapted from his new book “Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy and Everything Else,” which will be published May 25 by Penguin Press.
UW Experts in the News
How George Floyd’s death will impact American history
NBC-15
How to tell the racial history of America is something often debated by historians. As we reach the one year mark since George Floyd died at the hands of a former Minneapolis Police officer, UW-Madison expert Pam Oliver says how this moment in time shows up in the history books remains to be seen.
Obituaries
Doolittle, Richard I.
Wisconsin State Journal
After nine years with AIB, he went to the American Banking Association, rising to Associate Director/Chief Operating Officer of the Stonier Graduate School of Banking at Rutgers, with emphasis on financial and information systems, communications and marketing. Nine years later, Dick moved on to the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Herbert V Prochnow Foundation, where he served as President and CEO for 21 years, overseeing all functions of this advanced bank management education provider and its supporting foundation. He retired in 1995.
UW-Madison Related
Anna Halprin, teacher and choreographer who embraced improvisational style, dies
The Washington Post
Upon completing high school in 1938, she was offered a chance to perform in New York with the company of influential modern choreographer Doris Humphrey, but she declined so she could attend college. She studied modern dance at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she was mentored by Margaret H’Doubler in one of the country’s first university-level dance programs.