Public Health

Global impact Breaking boundaries beyond borders At the EPI, we strive to move Florida and the world forward through a strong collaborative spirit and innovative resources. Our members engage in…

A University of Florida research team is playing its part to stop the global HIV epidemic, applying the power of artificial intelligence to medical records.

For their study, the investigators, who are also members of UF’s Emerging Pathogens Institute, evaluated population normalization factors, which are used to determine the relative human fecal contribution in a sample. With this information, scientists can control for fluctuations in the population contributing to a wastewater sample throughout time while quantifying the SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentrations.

University of Florida researchers are refining wastewater surveillance techniques—a public health tool dating to the 1940s—to monitor cities, neighborhoods, and individual buildings for traces of COVID-19, fentanyl, and pesticides.

A team of UF researchers were early advocates that people should be tested for COVID-19 and monitored for viral variants—regardless of their vaccination status.

UF students and researchers address the links between intestinal pathogens, livestock, and children’s gut health.

UF researchers use molecular tools to detect dengue virus and West Nile virus in southeastern Florida and inform mosquito control in real time.

UF researchers track COVID-19 trends in an island community’s wastewater. The approach has broad implications as a public health surveillance tool.

When Hurricanes Irma and Maria lashed the Caribbean in 2017, the U.S. Virgin Islands experienced devastation similar to Puerto Rico, including massive disruption to their healthcare system, but with less media fanfare. The extent of damage unleashed by these storms on medical care in the U.S. Virgin Islands is only now coming into focus, thanks to research by UF's Emerging Pathogens Institute Director J. Glenn Morris and College of Medicine Interim Dean Adrian Tyndall.

New modeling by EPI researcher Burton Singer calculates that the substantial costs involved in developing a universal flu vaccine are worth every cent. Singer collaborated with a team from Yale University, University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Maryland to calculate that a universal flu vaccine would save $3.5 billion in direct medical costs annually and save 19,500 lives in the U.S. alone.