Laws intended to curb distracted driving have not kept pace with technology and can be difficult to enforce, according to a new study from the University of Washington School of Public Health and Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center.

Researchers interviewed 26 active-duty law enforcement officers from Spokane, King and Whatcom counties in Washington state to identify factors that influence how distracted driving is enforced.

Construction trainees are ready for work, thanks to a grueling 380-hour program that provides skills and safety training to adults in King County—many of whom have overcome adversity.

“It’s 11 weeks for the rest of your life,” says Jenaye Simpson, a single mother who graduated from the Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Education (PACE) program this year.

The Health Promotion Research Center (HPRC) in the University of Washington School of Public Health has been awarded $900,000 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for studies that address cancer disparities.

The University of Washington School of Public Health was awarded more than $4.7 million on Wednesday by the National Institutes of Health to investigate how the environment influences neurodevelopment and asthma risk in children.

During the first year of life, breastfeeding could protect infants exposed to HIV at birth from other infectious diseases, according to a study from the University of Washington School of Public Health, the University of Nairobi and the Kenya Medical Research Institute.

The study, published in the August 2016 edition of the Journal of Human Lactation, found that breastfeeding decreased a child’s risk of being hospitalized due to infectious disease by 61 percent.

Legionella, the bacterium that causes Legionnaire’s disease, was detected in several water sources at UW Medical Center. Five patients contracted the disease; two have died. The cases were isolated to the fifth floor of UWMC’s Cascade Tower. Hospital officials say the general public is not at risk.

Here’s what we know, based on information from UWMC, Public Health – Seattle King County, the CDC, and Jude Van Buren, senior director of UW’s Environmental Health & Safety.

What is Legionella?

Basia Belza, a core investigator of the Health Promotion Research Center at the UW School of Public Health, and partners in five states authored an award-winning guide for developing mall walking programs throughout the country.

“Mall Walking: A Program Resource Guide” received a 2016 APEX Award for Publication Excellence. Belza was lead author of the guide, which took home the award of excellence for one-of-a-kind publications in the education and training category.

The UW has begun a yearlong partnership with the City of Auburn under the new Livable City Year program. Students and professors in SPH and other UW programs will work with the city to advance its goals for livability and sustainability in the upcoming academic year.

The School of Public Health has a standing Diversity Committee of students, staff and faculty from across the Departments. This committee works to foster a diverse, inclusive, engaging, challenging, and supportive social, intellectual, and scholarly learning environment.

Professor Joel Kaufman has been named interim dean of the UW School of Public Health, effective Sept. 24.

A long-time faculty member and researcher at the School, Kaufman is an internationally recognized expert in the relationship between environmental factors and cardiovascular disease, and in the health effects of exposure to ambient air pollutants, such as diesel exhaust.

The International Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva Association (IFOPA) recently announced Marilyn Hair received the Jeannie Peeper Presidential Lifetime Leadership Award for her contributions to those in the rare disease community that have fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP). Hair is a staff member in the University of Washington School of Public Health where she manages outreach for the Interdisciplinary Center for Exposures, Diseases, Genomics and Environment in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences.

For two days in late August, more than a million people inundate West London to celebrate one of the world’s largest street festivals—the Notting Hill Carnival.

Gabino Junior Abarca, a third-year student in the University of Washington School of Public Health, may have found his calling in environmental health through the Supporting Undergraduate Research Experiences in Environmental Health (SURE-EH) program offered by the department of environmental and occupational health sciences.

Adele Kroeger, a Health Informatics and Health Information Management post-baccalaureate certificate student at the University of Washington School of Public Health, was appointed to the American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) Student Advisory Committee (SAC). She will serve in this capacity for one year.

The number of people without health insurance In Washington has dropped from 14.5 percent in 2012 to 7.3 percent in 2015. Though the effects of the Affordable Care Act are evident, about 500,000 people in the state still face barriers to gaining coverage.

For years, issues of taste, cost and convenience helped explain why the highest rates of poor nutrition are found among minorities and the working poor. Not only are fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains more expensive, they are also less likely to be available in low-income neighborhoods. The idea was: you improve access, you improve nutrition.

Researchers are a step closer to answering an important question about the health risks of climate change: Are people acclimatizing to higher global temperatures?

Increasing temperatures over the next several decades will expand the seasonal window of opportunity for mosquitos to transmit dengue fever in Europe, putting much of the continent at risk for an epidemic, according to a research paper in EBioMedicine.

Obtaining a second opinion could significantly improve the accuracy of breast cancer biopsies, according to a study from the University of Washington.

A large, multi-institution study has found no connection between suffering a traumatic brain injury (TBI) with loss of consciousness and later development of Alzheimer’s disease or dementia. Even when participants reported loss of consciousness lasting more than an hour after sustaining such an injury, they were at no greater risk for dementia later in life.