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Stories by Sally Crocker

Hands-on service: building healthier communities by improving housing quality and safety

By Sally Crocker for UNT Health Center School of Public Health

How do School of Public Health faculty, staff and students from the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth spend their summers? Often, you will find them volunteering time in neighborhoods across the U.S., doing the hands-on work that builds healthier communities.

Numerous studies show that housing quality and safety is a key predictor of health and wellbeing. Our homes are the key to our health in many ways.

For HSC Regents Professor Dr. Scott Walters, his two teenage children and his father, it was a labor of love when they joined a weeklong mission trip to repair homes in West Memphis, Arkansas. The trip is an annual project organized by White’s Chapel Methodist Church and partnering organization Ozark Mission Project, which provides practical assistance to families needing home repair and yard work in Arkansas.

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Dusty Crocker
Led by his compassion and university's values, a physical therapy student rescued a family in distress
  • 2022 international Platinum Award winner, Association of Marketing & Communication Professionals MarCom Awards competition, print media/writing/brand journalism category, for news article about physical therapy who saved a family in distress.

    Internationally award-winning news article published by University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth, August 9, 2022, and reprinted by Wichita Falls Times Record News, 2022

“It was a moment no adult child ever wants to experience with their elderly parent. Susan Libby’s 92-year-old mother had fallen face-first onto Fort Worth’s busy 7th Street, near the HSC campus, during the high-traffic weekday lunch rush …”

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Dusty Crocker
PhD epidemiology graduate scores prestigious postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton

Esther Annan is moving to Princeton this summer.

The University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth School of Public Health student will complete her PhD in epidemiology in June 2022. She will then leave for a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship, which involves teaching and advancing her research in dengue fever, malaria and other mosquito-borne infectious diseases prevalent in hot, humid climates around the globe.

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Dusty Crocker
Article example: 'All roads lead back to UNTHSC for one of the world’s leading experts on supersized alcopops'

(As published by the University of North Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health Newsroom, Jan. 27, 2022) … What leads a student to a career, and a researcher to world-renowned status? … “I found myself interested in books like ‘Freakonomics’ at the time and the different influences that shape people’s behaviors,” Dr. Rossheim said, “and this sounded like a project fitting right along those lines. This ultimately led me to an MPH degree and then a doctorate in public health sciences.”

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Dusty Crocker
Article example: 'HSC alumnus leads Denton County Public Health’s nationally-praised vaccine efforts in the charge against COVID-19'

Denton County, Texas, was one of the top COVID-19 vaccine sites in the U.S. in 2021. The drive-up hub at the Texas Motor Speedway race track served thousands of families from across the North Texas area and those traveling from other states as far away as Pennsylvania. The efforts of Denton County were nationally recognized in this efficient, effective and well-planned program of the public health department.

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Dusty Crocker