News | September 7, 2021
2021 Urban@UW Spark Grants awardees announced
Urban@UW is excited to announce awardees for the second round of funding through our Spark Grants program. The two projects selected address critical urban challenges, with a focus on transdisciplinary scholarship and engagement with vulnerable populations. Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Among Vehicle Residents: A Case Study of the Seattle Public Utilities’ Recreational Vehicle Wastewater…
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Ali Rowhawni-Rahbar
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Allison M Cole
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Andrew Saxon
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As Central District gets whiter, new barriers to health care
Last week while lawmakers in Washington, D.C., were gnashing their teeth over what health insurance in the U.S. should look like, patients and providers in King County were wrestling with some of the same challenges they faced before the Affordable Care Act was in place. In 2014, students in King County who are black,…
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Benjamin Danielson
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Biden’s COVID-19 strategy should prioritize low-income communities like Philly’s
As America focused on the presidential election, COVID-19 cases surged. This alarming trend underscores the task now before President-elect Joe Biden and his COVID-19 task force: to “listen to science” and implement strategies that minimize pandemic-related suffering for Americans — particularly those living in poverty. The pandemic has hit poor communities like much of Philadelphia…
News | June 11, 2024
Bird Flu Tests Are Hard To Get. So How Will We Know When To Sound The Pandemic Alarm?
Reported by Kaiser Health News for Patch PALO ALTO, CA — Stanford University infectious disease doctor Abraar Karan has seen a lot of patients with runny noses, fevers, and irritated eyes lately. Such symptoms could signal allergies, covid, or a cold. This year, there’s another suspect, bird flu — but there’s no way for most…
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Brian E. Saelens
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Burien takes a new, compassionate approach to criminal justice
At a time when angst about homelessness, drugs and other causes of arrests seems to have reached a breaking point in the region, King County officials are expanding a number of key programs meant to tackle some of society’s stickiest problems. Instead of delving further into the urban core, though, these new programs are being launched in…
News | October 31, 2019
California fires, from the Getty Center to Kincade, unleash another danger: Air pollution
The defining story of the raging Sonoma and Los Angeles wildfires is one we’re barely talking about: Wildfire smoke, and its contribution to rising air pollution levels across much of the United States, is irreversibly harming human health. While the blazes may seem like a problem limited to California and the West Coast, it’s a dangerous and increasingly frequent contributor…
News | February 12, 2021
Campaign: TC3 stay at UW
Tent City Collective, a group of UW students, alumni, community members, and people experiencing homelessness, are working with UW faculty and staff to bring Tent City 3 to the university for the second time since 2017. Tent City 3 is a self-governing community designed to shelter and aid people without homes around Seattle. Their mission…
News | August 10, 2021
Co-designing a technology intervention to support the health and development of children
The King County’s 2018-2019 Community Needs Assessment revealed that infants from racially and economically marginalized groups encounter the highest rates of infant mortality and lowest birth weights compared to any other population. King County has offered developmental screening services and virtual information to help child caregivers address this issue. However, there is growing consensus among…
News | March 23, 2020
Continued Support for the Homeless from The Doorway Project
Urban@UW is a proud partner in The Doorway Project. Below we share their quarterly update: Like everyone else, we at the Doorway Project are practicing flexibility to quickly-changing systems and environments as a result of the covid-19/coronavirus global pandemic. Because of these changes, we have prioritized the health and safety of our Community Advisory Board…
News | March 12, 2020
Coronavirus is a Serious Threat to the Seattle Homeless Population
At a nonprofit providing health care and housing to the homeless population in the city, employees have begun a sprint to sanitize their facilities. Because the organization, the Downtown Emergency Service Center (DESC), is located in one of the U.S.’s first hotbeds of novel coronavirus infection, workers are bracing themselves for a wave of medical…
News | September 24, 2020
COVID-19 testing in King County homeless shelters shows need to create safer conditions in crowded settings
Border detention facilities, prisons and refugee camps have something in common with communal homeless shelters, University of Washington School of Medicine researchers say. They’re home to “closed, crowded conditions where people have to live in small spaces and share a lot of common facilities,” said Dr. Helen Y. Chu, associate professor at the UW School…
News | December 13, 2019
Creating mental health friendly cities for youth
What would it take to make Seattle a mental health friendly city for young people? What innovations and actions might promote adolescent mental health in Seattle, as a model for other cities? The Population Health Initiative recently partnered with the University of Washington’s Global Mental Health program and Urban@UW to host an in-depth conversation with a multidisciplinary group of…
News | December 16, 2019
Doorway Project Winter Update: Building at the Speed of Trust
The Doorway Project, a cross-campus and community-engaged project under Urban@UW’s Homelessness Research Initiative, has been busy! Check out their activities and plans for the future in their latest blog post: With the end of the year and the end of the decade approaching in the next few weeks, this moment feels like a perfect time to…
News | September 10, 2021
Doorway Project: 2020-2021 Year End Report
The Doorway Project is an initiative co-led by the University of Washington and YouthCare, an agency offering individualized services to young people experiencing homelessness in Seattle/King County. The Doorway Project works to address youth and young adult homelessness in the University District through centering youth wellbeing and agency in the development of emancipatory and creative…
News | July 2, 2018
Driving? Your phone is a distraction even if you aren’t looking at it
I was in the car with a friend recently when she pulled up to a stoplight, picked up her phone and replied to a text. I gave her the side eye. What? she glared back. “I only use my phone when we’re stopped.” “OK, fine,” I said. But, I wondered, is it? We all know that…
News | February 25, 2020
Fatal Fentanyl Overdoses Continue to Climb in King County.
Last year marked the fifth in row in which fentanyl overdoses continued to climb in King County. Three fatal overdoses on the same day earlier this month prompted county officials to issue statements. The three deaths, which happened in South King County, add to the grim toll health officials have documented in recent years. Already…
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Frederick Rivara
Visit scholar websiteNews | February 1, 2019
Got the flu? Seattle wants to swab your nose for a massive health data project
Calling all feverish, coughing, achy Seattleites: Your germs could help prevent the next big pandemic. At least, that’s the hope of a new project from the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine (BBI). The Seattle Flu Study will gather swabs from 10,000 resident schnozzes to better understand how contagious diseases spread in a community. Researchers have set…
Course | ORALM 651
Health and Homelessness
Addresses oral and systemic health issues in the homeless in Seattle. Service based learning and includes presentations, readings, reflections, health education, and dental care delivery with the goal of preparing dental students to work in an interprofessional environment with other healthcare providers.Course | UCONJ 624
Health Equity and Community Organizing
The second course, health equity and community organizing (UCONJ 624) will be taught in collaboration with Sound Alliance and will help students to learn the skills to develop effective, winnable community organizing campaigns that produce greater health equity. The goal of this course is for students to be able to work upstream to address the social determinants of health—so we don’t have to keep doing direct service and charity forever without ever addressing the reason why needs exist in the first place. The course meets Thursdays (from 5:30-7:20) and the bulk of the coursework is oriented toward actually getting involved in a Health Equity Circle campaignCourse | ORLAM 652
Health Issues in the Homeless and Underserved
Students learn about the causes and challenges of homelessness and lack of access to care and how it affects systemic and oral health. The course includes a minimum of 12 clinical service learning hours in the community (clinical opportunities are provided) as well as online learning.Course | MEDEX 510
Healthcare for Rural and Medically Underserved Populations
Overview of the nature and severity of disparities in health care access and delivery to rural and urban underserved populations for practicing clinicians.Course | UCONJ 550
Healthcare in the Underserved Community
Gives graduate/professional students in health sciences an introduction to health related issues faced by underserved populations. Credit/no-credit only.News | September 10, 2020
Here’s how to stay safe as wildfire smoke creates unhealthy air quality in Seattle
People in the Seattle area woke up Tuesday morning to hazy orange skies and the smell of smoke over the region as winds blew wildfire smoke from Eastern Washington into the Puget Sound. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency rated the air quality in the region as “unhealthy for everyone” and advised people to take precautions to stay safe….
News | June 11, 2024
Here’s why an Arizona medical examiner is working to track heat-related deaths
Written by Alejandra Borunda for NPR News Greg Hess deals with death day in, day out. Hess is the medical examiner for Pima County, Ariz., a region along the United States-Mexico border. His office handles some 3,000 deaths each year — quiet deaths, overdoses, gruesome deaths, tragic ones. From April through October every year, Hess…
News | October 26, 2017
Homeless artists showcase work at UW
One way to humanize the homeless is through art. “Telling our stories: art and home(lessness)” is a show Oct. 11-Dec. 15 featuring the work of six artists living in a low-barrier supportive housing project. They are part of an artists’ collective developed out of collaboration with University of Washington researchers, the Downtown Emergency Service Center…
Course | PEDS 530
Homeless Youth and their Medical Care
Seminar and interview practice; students learn how to deal with special health problems and other related problems of "street kids" through interviews and observations.Course | MEDEX 580
Homelessness in Seattle
Multi-disciplinary course developing knowledge and skills in the area of acute and chronic homeless health problems, understanding the history and social constructs as well as the services and disparities facing this population.News | October 27, 2017
Homelessness is Seattle’s public health crisis
In this Crosscut editorial, UW professors Ben Danielson in the Department of Pediatrics and Bill Daniell in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences discuss homelessness as a public health crisis: “In 2015, Seattle and King County each declared a homelessness State of Emergency. Both have made commendable efforts since then to intensify outreach,…
News | December 7, 2022
Homelessness Research Initiative convenes homelessness scholars from across the UW
Last Tuesday, faculty, staff, and students from across the University of Washington met in the Hans Rosling Center for Population Health for a convening of the Homelessness Research Initiative. Led by faculty co-chairs Rachel Fyall, associate professor in the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, and Gregg Colburn, assistant professor in the College of…
News | March 8, 2017
Honoring Women Collaborators at Urban@UW
In honor of International Women’s Day, we are highlighting just some of UW’s brilliant female professors, scholars, and and change-makers with whom Urban@UW is proud to collaborate. Click on their names to explore their work. Leadership: Thaisa Way, Executive Director, Urban@UW; Department of Landscape Architecture Executive Committee: Margaret O’Mara, Department of History Susan P….
News | April 4, 2024
How do wildfires affect mental health? A new UW study examines the connection
Originally reported in the Seattle Times by Taylor Blatchford Checking air quality and staying indoors when smoke inundates the Seattle area has become second nature during Washington’s wildfire season in recent years. But new research highlights how wildfires can affect a less visible aspect of well-being: mental health. A University of Washington study published in…
News | May 21, 2020
In Seattle’s polluted valley, pandemic and particulates are twin threats
From a boat on the Duwamish River, it’s easy to see giant yellow excavators plucking crushed cars off the ground and swinging them toward an open-air shredder. At Seattle Iron and Metal, mounds of shredded steel as big as apartment buildings loom above the river. “It looks like something out of Mad Max,” James Rasmussen…
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Isaac Rhew
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Jeremy Hess
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Joseph R Zunt
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Laxminarsimha Daram Reddy
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Less traffic means 40% drop in car pollution in Seattle but will it last?
Experts say our good air quality this spring is partially due to people driving less. However, they warn that unless big, long-term changes are made, these cleaner skies are not here to stay. From late March through the end of April, car pollution in Seattle dropped by roughly 40 percent compared to the same time…
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Maria Busch
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Mary Larimer
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Medical Overdose Training for Nightlife Workers and School Nurses
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan announced a plan Thursday to help combat fentanyl-related overdoses in the city. The plan is in response to the overdose deaths of three King County teens last year after they took counterfeit pills. Under Durkan’s plan, the city of Seattle in partnership with community-based organizations will purchase 700 naloxone kits that…
News | October 1, 2020
Meet the artists making comics in Seattle’s historic drawbridges
Seattle is home to more than a hundred bridges, four of which are historic bascule bridges spanning the Lake Washington Ship Canal — the massive earthmoving project that took from 1911 to 1917. Also known as drawbridges, the Montlake, University, Fremont and Ballard crossings are operated by bridgetenders who work in the towers and lift the double leaves…
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Nancy Sugg
Visit scholar websiteNews | August 20, 2024
Need anti-withdrawal meds? In King County, call this 24/7 hotline
Reported by Eilis O’Neil for KUOW and NPR News People addicted to opioids in King County can call a new hotline and get a prescription right away for a drug that can help. Buprenorphine reduces symptoms of withdrawal and can help people stay off fentanyl and other opioids. Buprenorphine “does cut overdose risk by 50%,…
News | October 10, 2019
New UW Data Collaborative seeks to bring latest computing tools and data to researchers
Imagine a researcher at work in a small, windowless “cold room” with an automatic locking door and a desktop computer with zero chance of connecting to the internet in order to protect highly restricted health and population datasets. Cold rooms offer a strict environment that keeps data safe. But in a highly collaborative institution such…
News | May 28, 2020
Pandemic lays bare the everyday stressors, inequities of marginalized communities
On March 14, two weeks after the first U.S. coronavirus death was announced here in King County and as an onslaught of social distancing policies descended on our communities, we began a research study to understand how 500 King County residents were coping with all of it. Every evening, study participants have been generously sharing with us…
News | September 9, 2019
Project aims to boost care for opioid use among homeless
On August 21, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and the University of Washington’s Alcohol & Drug Abuse Institute (ADAI) announced the Meds-First Initiative that expands an innovative approach to treating opioid-use disorder for high-acuity populations to four locations in Washington. The treatment sites are located across the state in North Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma and Walla Walla. “Medication…
News | June 2, 2016
Q&A: CLPP’s Sam Méndez on Washington’s pot industry and how marijuana is becoming like wine
The Cannabis Law and Policy Project, based in the University of Washington School of Law, was formed by professor Sean O’Connor in fall 2014 to be a center for researching regulatory issues around the state’s new legal cannabis industry. The group recently published its first report for the Washington state Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB),…
News | February 24, 2021
Racial disparities prompt calls to repeal King County’s bicycle helmet law
In the fall of 2019, a white man spat on Edwin Lindo while he was riding his bicycle with a friend around Mercer Island. “It gets on my jersey and I’m like, ‘I can’t believe this is happening right now,’” he recalled. Lindo, who identifies as Central American Indigenous from Nicaragua and El Salvador, and his friend,…
News | July 9, 2020
Racial justice is an urban issue: A curated list of resources from UW BIPOC scholars
Racial injustice is not a new issue. Segregation and discrimination on the basis of race has long been tied to the built environments across the country, from redlining and restrictive covenants in the mid-1900s, to white flight and suburbanization after World War II, to the current trends of gentrification and displacement in cities throughout the…
News | August 26, 2022
Seattle Approaches to Homelessness Highlighted in NYT Guest Essay
Urban@UW occasionally shares opinion pieces that touch on research related to urban topics. Here, we share a guest essay in the New York Times, titled, “Something Better Than a Tent for the Homeless”: The needs of homeowners and businesses and those of people who are unsheltered often conflict. Community leaders, faced with increasing crime and…
News | February 5, 2021
Seattle lab tracking spread of COVID-19 variant across Puget Sound
There are four confirmed cases of the B117 variant, which originated in the U.K, in the Puget Sound Region. “The B117 variant is definitely here and circulating in the U.S,” said Dr. Pavitra Roychoudhury, Acting Instructor for the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at UW Medicine. “Right now, in Washington state, it appears to…
News | July 10, 2024
Seattle Nurses Take Heart Care to the Streets
Written by Christine Clarridge for Axios. Two Harborview nurses are leaving the hospital to make “house calls” at tents, bus stops and cars to bring life-saving heart care to people where they are. Why it matters: The Community Heart Failure Program not only stabilizes patients’ cardiac health but also reduces hospital admissions, lengths of stay…
News | June 30, 2020
Seattle OKs transfer of old UW laundry near Mount Baker light rail station to build affordable housing
The Seattle City Council voted unanimously on June 22 to acquire a former UW Medical Center laundry next to the Mount Baker light rail station to develop affordable housing. The transfer comes at no cost to the city, and the project will count toward the 450 units of affordable housing the university agreed to build when the council…
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Seema Clifasefi
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Shireesha Dhanireddy
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Susan E. Collins
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The Doorway Project & U-District Community Partners Community Resource Fair
The Doorway Project is a University of Washington and YouthCare-led initiative focusing on addressing youth homelessness in the University District through continuous community-engaged collaboration with U-District service providers and community members. They are currently in Phase 1 of a four-year plan, developed through the lens of the project’s legislative intent. The primary aim of the…
News | July 8, 2016
The healthiest cities in America
At 78.5 years, life expectancy in the United States, while trailing several dozen other countries, has continuously risen in the past century. Leading this upward trajectory are the 25 healthiest U.S. cities. These cities span 14 states and are located across multiple regions, from the Northeast to the Southwest — yet most share several common…
News | August 30, 2024
The pros and cons of spraying pesticides to keep disease-carrying mosquito populations down
Written by Julia Jacobo for ABC News Researchers are trying to find ways to quell growing mosquito populations that spread disease without putting recovering populations of important pollinators like bees and butterflies at risk. Pesticides are an important management tool for mosquito control as well as for other pests that impact agriculture, Laura Melissa Guzman, assistant…
News | December 1, 2020
The ununited state of juvenile justice in America
As a child in the United States, justice often depends on where you live, the color of your skin, which police officer arrests you, or which judge, prosecutor or probation officer happens to be involved in your case. Juvenile courts across the country processed nearly 750,000 cases in 2018. About 200,000 of these cases involved…
News | June 9, 2020
To address health inequities, Black folks need the right to move without harm
On a crisp afternoon last fall, Douglas Pullen, a 69-year-old Black man, was nearly hit by a white driver during his daily walk through his Seattle neighborhood. Having witnessed this, Kate Hoerster, assistant professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UW School of Medicine, checked on Mr. Pullen after he was safely on the other side…
News | June 30, 2022
Understanding the role of historical residential segregation on pediatric injury and violence
Approximately 265 pediatric deaths occurred as a result of injury or violence in Washington state in 2020. A team of researchers from the University of Washington and hospitals around the state are collaborating on a new Population Health Initiative-funded pilot project, “Residential Segregation and Pediatric Injury and Violence in Seattle, Spokane and Tacoma,” to better…
News | April 3, 2024
Urban@UW announces second cycle of Research to Action Collaboratory projects
Urban@UW is excited to announce the project teams selected for the second Research to Action Collaboratory (RAC) cohort. Throughout the next 18 months, Urban@UW will work with these teams to provide seed funds, dedicate time to building team cohesion and collaboration skills, and foster opportunities for peer support, shared resources, and learning. These two project…
News | July 11, 2016
UW researchers discuss data, trends of gun violence in U.S.
Before the horrific mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, before the U.S. Senate filibuster and House sit-in, and before the American Medical Association’s call for more federal funding into gun-violence research, two UW Medicine doctors were quietly conducting a rare study – without federal dollars – into what happens to gunshot victims after they are treated…
News | May 2, 2019
UW, WSU community partnership: Improving the health of homeless youth and their pets
Rivals in the sports arena, the state’s two largest public universities have teamed up off the field to improve the health of young adults experiencing homelessness – and their pets. The University of Washington and Washington State University are working with New Horizons Ministries and Neighborcare Health to provide health care and veterinary care to…
News | May 16, 2019
What you need to know before getting on an electric scooter
The possibility of electric powered scooters in Seattle will also come with the possibility of numerous personal injuries. Those unfortunate victims often end up at Harborview Medical Center and doctors at that level one trauma center said they want residents to take better care of themselves as they explore these new alternative ways to travel….
News | August 27, 2020
Will King County public transit survive COVID-19?
Despite coronavirus, hundreds of thousands of people living in King County continue to rely on buses, light rail, ferries and other modes of public transportation to get around. “There’s still a whole lot of people who are counting on transit as a lifeline,” said Alex Hudson, executive director of the Transportation Choices Coalition. “People know transit…
News | May 16, 2018
With world’s worst air, Indian city struggles to track pollution
In the world’s most polluted city, Kanpur in northern India, the biggest hospital is so overcrowded with patients with respiratory ailments that they are often bedded in the ophthalmology ward. Kanpur, home to 3 million people, is followed by 13 other Indian cities in a list of the places with the worst air in the…
News | February 1, 2017
Working with community to tackle homelessness
Seattle’s rapid rise in homelessness, coinciding with increasing costs in housing and living, have brought significant challenges to economically vulnerable populations in the Puget Sound. In spite of a sense of urgency regionally and in many areas of the country, sufficient resources, effective systemic fixes and broad support still have not come together to end…
News | April 28, 2023
Working with Vulnerable Populations for Greater Community Resilience
Urban@UW is excited to invite you to attend Working with Vulnerable Populations for Greater Community Resilience, a workshop organized by Urban@UW, the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). Put on as part of the NSF-funded MOHERE: Mobility, Health, and Resilience: Building Capacities and Expanding Impact, this workshop will focus…
News | December 1, 2022
Young kids who breathe polluted air can fall behind in school, study finds
Young children living in neighborhoods with high rates of poverty are more likely to be exposed to many different air pollutants, and that can harm their development during early childhood, according to a study published Wednesday. The children’s increased exposure to air toxins during infancy can reduce reading and math abilities and cause them to…
News | May 25, 2017
Your neighborhood may be driving you to drink: study
A new study shows that living in poor, “disorganized” neighborhoods matters more when looking at how much alcohol a person drinks than their proximity to bars or stores that sell booze. The link between poverty and alcoholism is established. But the new research out of the University of Washington throws quality of life into the…