The Latest

While Hookah, a.k.a waterpipe, tobacco smoking is rooted in the middle eastern cultures, it is rising in popularity among young people worldwide. The high popularity of hookah is attributed mainly to the introduction of tobacco flavoring, a growing cafe culture, the spread of social media and the absence of strong hookah-specific regulatory or policy frameworks.

FIU’s Research Center in Minority Institutions (FIU-RCMI) recently brought together students, faculty, and community members for the 2020 Health Equity Symposium: Harnessing University-Community Partnerships to Eliminate Health Disparities.

“Addiction is a family disease. The entire family gets sick when one family member is addicted. When the addict gets better, the family can begin to heal,” said Ladis, who graduated from the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work’s School of Social Work with a master of social work (MSW) in 2012 and his Ph.D. in social welfare in 2018. “About 50 percent of my patients are families experiencing an addiction crisis; either the father, mother or kid has a substance user problem and I am trying to help the family heal.”
Ladis knows first-hand what it means to be a parent afflicted with addiction. A husband and father of four, Ladis was a successful businessman and CPA when he realized that he was in crisis and needed to go into treatment. He has now been clean and sober for more than 13 years.

An estimated 1.5 million Americans are diagnosed with diabetes each year with more than 25 percent of seniors (65+) currently living with the disease. Medical expenditures for persons with diabetes are more than twice as high as those for patients without diabetes.

Since its inception in 2017, the Research Center in Minority Institutions (FIU-RCMI) at the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work has worked recognize and boost health disparities research in and amongst the South Florida community.

For that reason, the FIU-RCMI’s community engagement developed a competitive community research capacity building grant program, linking community organizations directly with FIU faculty researchers. The FIU-RCMI Community Research Enhancement Grants (CREG) just announced it first round of $5,000 awards.

For people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), lack of stable housing can be a significant barrier to medical care, adherence to antiretroviral medication, and viral suppression. In Miami-Dade County, lack of affordable housing and expensive rental markets, coupled with large proportions of people living with HIV who are uninsured and live in poverty, make for a challenging HIV care landscape. In Miami-Dade County, the majority of women living with HIV are racial/ ethnic minorities, many of whom live in poverty. To promote viral suppression among women in Miami-Dade and to improve national HIV outcomes, strategies must be geared to address the situations of these women particularly Black/African American, Hispanic, and Black/ Haitian women who are living with HIV.