In recent years the field of global health has been plagued by accusations of “neocolonialism.” Rather than genuine involvement in health research, physicians and public health researchers in Global South countries are relegated to menial positions in the research pipeline, and local priorities are not reflected in the research that receives the bulk of international funding. The multilateral donors which fund and manage this research are said to devalue the contributions of Southern researchers, who, many studies of global health journals have shown, are not allowed to take on leadership roles in public health research “collaborations” with Western institutions. Moreover, a large critical literature has characterized the field of global health as taking a narrowly conceived, “vertical” view of health in developing countries. This biomedical/technological bias leads donor-funded research to neglect the social determinants of health and illness. The current project contributes to our understanding of the origins and practical manifestations of these institutional biases of health research in Uganda. A historical analysis of colonial medicine in Uganda was conducted and it was found that medical research in Uganda indeed has historically neglected to address the social determinants of health such as poverty, labor conditions, and the presence or absence of social infrastructure (e.g., roads and sanitation systems). In addition, a review of recent COVID-19, Ebola, and HIV/AIDS research confirms the hypothesis of other scholars that donor-driven public health research tends to treat health in isolation from the larger political economy of development, and is biased toward a highly biomedicalized view of health. I conclude by offering an interpretation of these biases and how they vary by individual donor, as well as some suggestions as to what can be done to make Ugandan health science genuinely equitable and responsive to local, rather than Western, needs.

Recent studies and news sources have brought attention to the possible health risks associated with cooking on a gas stove due to the release of high concentrations of pollutants, such as NO₂, particulate matter (PM), and other chemical pollutants. But currently, there is little information on how individuals can monitor their own indoor air. Several low-cost air quality sensors are available, but little data to show if these work for home environments. Low-cost sensors are important because they can be more accessible to more people due to their affordability. Two brands of low-cost air quality sensors were used in this study to measure PM and various chemical pollutants: the TSI AirAssure and the Vaisala AQT530. We conducted several kitchen experiments that involved cooking on the stove or the oven while monitoring pollutant levels on these sensors. I found that pollutant levels rose significantly when cooking on both appliances. One experiment revealed that within minutes of cooking in the oven, NO₂ levels went above the recommended EPA standard of 100 ppb per hour. I also did a comparison experiment between the Vaisala AQT530 and a high-quality sensor from the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency at the downtown air quality station (10^th and Weller). Results showed moderate correlations between the sensors for NO, NO₂, and CO concentrations and a strong correlation for PM concentrations. We will continue to evaluate the sensors by doing a direct comparison of these sensors with standard regulatory methods in a test kitchen. The goal is to derive correction equations that can be applied to the data received from these low-cost sensors. My findings in the kitchen and sensor comparison experiments will provide valuable information on when pollutant levels impose health risks and information on the level of accuracy of the data retrieved from these devices.

Healthcare providers in rural areas face clinical challenges vastly different from their colleagues in urban areas. Researchers and providers have suggested different approaches, but it remains unclear how to best provide care in rural areas. My research contributes to rural medicine by examining how healthcare providers in Kodiak, Alaska, provide reproductive health in an under-resourced clinic, island, and state. I sought to answer three questions: First, what health disparities do providers and patients experience? Then, how do care providers and receivers navigate these barriers and work under these conditions? Lastly, what are the best practices, and how can they be supported in the future? To investigate these questions, I utilized clinical observation and ethnographic interviews carried out in 2022-2023 with reproductive healthcare providers. The data revealed three main barriers, including geographical challenges, a lack of general and specialty providers, and an overall lack of resources and necessary facilities. Providers commonly navigate these barriers by sending patients to Anchorage that has more resources and specialty physicians. Although this practice solves some immediate problems, many providers recognize that it can perpetuate systemic inequalities and inevitably lead to inaccessibility to care. As such, providers use numerous methods to keep patients on the island, including a rotating schedule of visiting providers and a close-knit, collaborative unit of providers. Overall, my research exposes the barriers to providing care in a specific rural and underserved community and highlights successes and the best strategies used by their providers to overcome these challenges. Additionally, it provides evidence that to support rural communities and their providers, we must first understand each communities unique experiences and circumstances before creating interventions tailored to that specific community. Therefore, my research can be used to inform health interventions and thus improve the quality and delivery of care in rural and underserved communities in and beyond Alaska.

(Bobola et al. 2020) has shown that ultrasound pulsed at a certain frequency and applied to the brain of an AD mouse model reduced the burden of plaque in the brain. This was key as plaque are tied to long-term poor clinical outcomes. Further research has demonstrated the ability of transcranial ultrasound to enhance cerebrovascular flow through upregulation of endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) - Eguchi et al. 2018. eNOS is an enzyme that produces the vasoprotective molecule nitric oxide, which Eguchi et al demonstrated caused a reduction in plaque buildup. In addition, up-regulation of eNOS might be applied to treat not only AD but also vascular dementia. We seek to demonstrate that transcranial applied ultrasound to wild-type and AD brains after TBI can delay the onset of AD and reduce the extent of associated symptoms. I contributed to this research project by performing (1) the surgeries to obtain a model of TBI in mice, (2) the transcranial ultrasound treatments on these animals, (3) computational analysis of plaque burden and brain activity, (4) and behavioral tests on the treated animals. Preliminary results indicate that differing protocols of US treatment can decrease amyloid beta plaque burden. Intraneuronal eNOS has increased with ultrasound treatment, of potential therapeutic utility for advanced AD. Finally, our results depend upon the age and total plaque burden, unexpected findings that will motivate more research.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Twitter became a central source of information and giving guidance to the public. This project seeks to better understand information quality from public actors during disasters and how they may influence the public's behaviors. For the past six months we, two undergraduate students, have been hand coding 16,597 tweets using a multi step coding schema. We code for two functions, Information and Action with secondary codes for community engagement and other health behaviors such as social distancing, wearing a mask, washing hands, and more. Our coding is done with the purpose of investigating patterns of health communication on Twitter during the first two COVID-19 surges. Specifically, we look into the communications of state government health agencies in Louisiana and Washington state. By investigating health communication in two states with varying demographic factors (ie. population, political affiliations, environments, etc.) we can better understand how these variables influence health communications and behaviors. Our qualitative coding thus far has demonstrated that most tweets are informatively based as opposed to a call to action. Furthermore, action based tweets ask the public to first, learn more about COVID-19, secondly to stay at home, and thirdly to practice general prevention behaviors. This research can be used by public health agencies to strategize more effective communication to the public during future disasters.