Health Behavior and Health Education

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Vic Strecher: Living with purpose

Vic Strecher, a professor renowned for his work in digital health, discusses the concept of purpose. Drawing from personal loss and research, he explains how a strong sense of purpose can lead to a longer life, with improved emotional and physical wellbeing.

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Alternatives to Policing

Two Health Behavior and Health Education researchers from Michigan Public Health, Bill Lopez and Fleming, provide a public health rationale for implementing alternative response programs informed by public health principles of care, equity and prevention.

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School safety

In this episode of the Population Healthy podcast, we'll speak with two University of Michigan School of Public Health researchers who are leading efforts to provide evidence-based solutions to promote school safety. We'll learn what encompasses school safety, who it involves, and how the National Center for School Safety—housed within Michigan Public Health—provides resources and information to school communities.

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Abortion access and reproductive justice - Part 1

In the last year, abortion access and reproductive rights have been a key issue in politics and the national discourse. We spoke with our experts about the health outcomes of limiting access to this care and why abortion is a public health issue.

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Difficult Conversations: Using Motivational Interviewing to Convince People to Get Vaccinated

Generally speaking, giving unsolicited advice to people only tends to annoy them and make them less likely to change any of their behaviors. Real change tends to come when someone sees a discrepancy between their own behavior and what they value as a person. So, how do you talk to a coworker, friend, or family member who is firmly entrenched in anti-vaccine beliefs? Preaching to them that COVID vaccines are safe and effective will most likely fail. But there are some lessons to be gleaned from a counseling style called motivational interviewing, where instead of trying to persuade someone, you subtly reflect back to them their own thoughts and feelings. In other words, you allow the other person to drive the conversation, with the idea that they themselves will see discrepancies between their actions and their beliefs. University of Michigan School of Public Health Professor Ken Resnicow has studied and used motivational interviewing since the early 1990s and has some timely tips for how to engage in these difficult conversations.

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Healing Flint Through Community Partnership

In this episode of Population Healthy Season 3: Race, Inequity, and Closing the Health Gap, we explore how the city of Flint faces a myriad of interwoven and complex public health challenges and how incorporating the voices of the city’s residents into research and decision making through the practice of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) can lead to more positive and meaningful health outcomes for the community.