Category: Community, Health, Education, & Wellness

Four PhD Students Received the 2025 DHS Research Excellence Awards
Four PhD students, Ling Beiseker, Hsaio-Ting Su, Seth Mitchell and Rebecca Parkin, were recently awarded the Department of Health Sciences Research Excellence Awards and presented their work at the Department’s April Research Forum. Each year these awards recognize PhD students in the DHS “who showcase research excellence in their wider academic and professional communities.” Bei … Read more

Khalilah Johnson (’16 PhD) Receives Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Equity Scholars for Action Award
Dr. Khalilah Johnson has received the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Equity Scholars for Action award. Johnson is an assistant professor in the Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy in the Department of Allied Health Sciences in the .

Clare Harrop Receives 5-Year NIH Award to Study Sex-Specific Trajectories in Autism Spectrum Disorder
Clare Harrop, Assistant Professor in the Department of Allied Health Sciences, has received a 5-year, $3.28 million R01 award from the NIH (Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development) to chart the impact of assigned sex at birth on developmental trajectories in young autistic children. The objective of the project is to characterize how deve … Read more

Hospitalizations for Pediatric Opioid Use Disorders: Exploring Racial Disparities among US regions
Exposure to prescription opioids in the pediatric population is an important public health concern. Opioid hospitalizations among US children and adolescents have doubled in the last decade. There is an urgent need to better characterize the opioid epidemic in all pediatric populations, across different racial groups and regions in the United States. However, research on pediatri … Read more

Disparities in Health Care Access and Utilization of Children during Autism Insurance Reform
The prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has increased rapidly in recent years. At the same time, comprehensive ASD insurance reform laws have been enacted through legislation or administrative mandates in most US states since 2006. Legislation targeted toward private insurance was designed to facilitate access to and coverage of integrated medical and behavioral health s … Read more

Tar Heel Shared Reader Implementation Project
The purpose of the proposed Tar Heel Shared Reader implementation project is to develop products and services that support the implementation of shared reading with school-aged students with significant cognitive disabilities (SCD) who do not yet read with comprehension. Tar Heel Shared Reader combines the library of age and ability appropriate books in Tar Heel Reader with a new … Read more

Evaluation of a Novel Intervention for Infants at Risk for Neurodevelopmental Disorders Evaluation of a Novel Intervention for Infants at Risk for Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Our current ability to detect infants at-risk for neurodevelopmental disorders (NDs) such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that cannot be readily identified through screening for biological markers offers several unique opportunities for understanding the emergence of ND symptoms. Particularly important is the opportunity to test the extent to which very early interventions may … Read more

Auditory Behaviors of Children with Significant Cognitive Disabilities
School hearing screenings have the potential to identify children with hearing impairments not identified at birth. Students with severe intellectual and developmental disabilities, known in US public schools as students with significant cognitive disabilities (SCD), are at higher risk for hearing loss than children without disabilities (JCIH, 2007). Yet this group of students is … Read more

Hearing Screening of Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities
The purpose of this project, Hearing Screening and Audiological Assessment for Students with Significant Cognitive Disability, is to conduct school-based hearing screenings and audiological assessments of students with significant cognitive disabilities (SCD). Many students with SCD cannot use speech or have disabilities that compromise their ability to see, hear and/or move. Giv … Read more

Pathways to Auditory Processing Differences in ASDPathways to Auditory Processing Differences in ASD
Funded through an Autism Speaks Grant, we are using EEG to understand the emergence of auditory processing deficits/differences in infants at risk for ASD. Contact Person Clare Harrop, principal investigator, clare_harrop@med.unc.edu Investigators and Key Personnel Clare Harrop Linda Watson Aysenil Belger Alana Campbell Primary Funding Source Autism Speaks