Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine (DEPM)
Division of Gender-Based Epidemiology
Faculty
Description
The Division of Gender-Based Epidemiology (GBE) in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine was established in 2001. It seeks to promote a better understanding of issues related to improvement in the health status and functioning of women through interdisciplinary research.
The Division of GBE is currently conducting research on genes involved in ovarian development and function, racial differences in breast cancer, risk factors for menopausal hot flashes, female reproductive toxicology, female pelvic floor disorders, palliative care, lung cancer, and the prevention of lead exposures in women and children. In addition, research effort is devoted to exploring the mechanism of menopausal hot flashes and neuroprotection with estrogen in stroke and global ischemia. Other activities of this Division include teaching medical and graduate students from the University of Maryland as well as other institutions. The Division’s research draws interest from young professionals across campus. At present, faculty members mentor graduate students from the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, the Program in Toxicology, the Physiology Graduate Program, and the Program in Genetic Counseling.
In addition, a close partnership with the Women’s Health Research Group (WHRG) enables members of the Division to offer additional resources to research scientists, health care professionals, students, and consumers on the topic of women’s health. The WHRG was organized in 1992 as a means to provide an intellectual community for the study of women’s health through interdisciplinary collaboration and to create a forum for investigators at UMB to present information on current research efforts and share ideas for future research. Since its inception, the WHRG has sponsored annual interdisciplinary women’s health research symposia, seminars, a journal club, and a clinical epidemiology fellowship. The WHRG has also been instrumental in encouraging new investigators in the study of women’s health through its annual intramural grant competition. Since 1997, the WHRG has awarded 58 one-year grants for a total of $403,129.
The WHRG was awarded a NIH BIRCWH (Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health) grant to train faculty-level scholars to conduct interdisciplinary research in women’s health. The WHRG program, which is called Maryland’s Organized Research Effort in Women’s Health (MORE-WH), provides opportunities for individuals in the early stages of their research careers to work with experienced faculty scientists from a variety of different disciplines. The University of Maryland, Baltimore is an ideal training environment because of the strong basic, clinical, and epidemiological research in women’s health currently being conducted in four of the seven professional schools (dentistry, medicine, nursing, and pharmacy) on the UMB campus.
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