UNE faculty and alum present at the American Public Health Association annual meeting

Titilola Balogun, M.B.B.S., M.P.H., Dr.P.H. practicum coordinator for the graduate programs in Public Health in the University of New England College of Graduate and Professional Studies, gave a presentation at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. Margaret Linnell, D.V.M., M.P.H. ’16, also gave a presentation from her capstone paper.

Based on her work with youth in the juvenile justice system, Balogun’s study, titled “Detained Latino youth: a need for connection to community resources,” compared detention history, mental illness and substance use of detained youth by race/ethnicity. She demonstrated that the Latino youth in her sample had worse outcomes than other detained youth. Her work suggested that cultural differences should be considered when designing interventions for detained youth to promote health equity, and community asset mapping specific to mental illness and substance use prevention should be conducted in neighborhoods where they live.

Linnell presented a paper on the assessment of compliance with the “Compendium of Measures to Prevent Disease Associated with Animals in Public Settings” at 13 petting zoos running concurrent with Maine agricultural fairs in 2016. The goal of the project is furthering the One Health collaboration between the Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry, which is the lead agency for auditing public health measures at animal contact venues. This collaborative effort is leading to site-specific recommendations that will reduce the risk of the public becoming infected with zoonotic diseases while attending Maine agricultural fairs.

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