Data Privacy Week concluded on Saturday amid a rise in ransomware attacks in the health care industry.

Hannah Neprash, a University of Minnesota researcher and assistant professor at the School of Public Health, published data in late December on a documentation device that tracks the frequency of cyber attacks in the health care industry.

The Tracking Healthcare Ransomware Events and Traits (THREAT) database is used to categorize ransomware attacks, which the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency defines as a type of malware created to convert data into a code to prevent access followed by hackers demanding money to release the data.

Neprash said she describes the database as a documentation device that records the time and date of each attack. Since attacks have increased by 44% from 2016 to 2021, it also takes into account the degree to which patient information was exposed, how many facilities were affected and if law enforcement was involved within the timeframe, she said.

Neprash said in the THREAT database research, the effect of ransomware on overall patient care was a core concern.

“There were instances where hospitals may have had to divert ambulances because they were receiving a bunch of cyber attacks,” Neprash said. “In any other industry, this is inconvenient and costly, but in health care, it means that places can’t care for their patients, potentially leading to higher mortality rates.”

Neprash said the majority of the data used to create the database was from public sources, local news or press releases, although there was also source information gathered off the “dark web.”

Fairview Health Services conducts employee training and security control at all of its facilities to ensure cybersecurity, such as highlighting the importance of managing login information, said Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer Jim Brady.

“It’s important that users don’t share their passwords with others, and that they only access systems and information that they have a need to access,” Brady said. “We have multiple security controls and technologies to help stop ransomware and keep it from entering into the corporate network.”

Security Analyst with the University of Minnesota Foundation Marcia Cole said ransomware attacks on health care facilities are economically straining because they can cost up to millions of dollars depending on the facility type.

“From the technology standpoint, IT departments have to take the time to do testing on software systems, ensuring that information is not stored locally,” Cole said. “As a health care organization or clinic, you probably want to test quarterly.”

Cole said another threat that is important to consider is the impact of hacking and ransomware on medical and infusion devices in health care facilities, such as the devices running a chemotherapy delivery clinic.

Brady said there is an increase in demand to hire those in the cybersecurity field, such as cybersecurity analysts and engineers, due to the increasing risk factors organizations are dealing with.

“The skill set that’s needed the most is found with experienced cybersecurity analysts and engineers,” Brady said. “But many companies are developing pipelines to bring emerging professionals and those graduating from college into the workplace.”

Cole said at the College of Science and Engineering’s Technological Leadership Institute, members conduct international awareness programs to get people involved and educated in cyber security issues. All members participate in a staged office filled with informational security violations, which mimics an escape room, with the goal of finding issues or scenes that could result in hacking.

“I really don’t think that patients are the ones that need to take action here. I think there’s some kind of basic minimum actions that everybody should be taking,” Neprash said.“If I could see this database changing something, it would be the cybersecurity aspect of hospitals.”

University of Minnesota book club Books and Beyond is bearing witness to a modernization of book culture, as noted at its first meeting on Jan. 18.

“BookTok” refers to the hashtag influencers use on the video-sharing app TikTok to accompany videos promoting book reviews, memes or recommendations. Within the app, certain aesthetics romanticize the act of reading as an immersive and pleasing experience, according to University alumni Paul Eaton.

Eaton is a member of the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) Alumni Book Club, which connects grads around the country with literary discussions about assigned readings.

Eaton said he describes the increased aestheticization of book reading across social media as a transformative experience used as a cut-off from reality.

“It comes from a kind of romantic belief about what reading does to one and how you should be in a reading situation,” Eaton said. “I follow a lot of social media accounts that feature reading, and they have their little coffee, the perfect lighting and the comfy seats.”

Books and Beyond Co-President and third-year student Siobhan Crowley said since her elementary school years, she has noticed a shift in the way reading for fun is viewed.

Crowley said she also recognizes the importance of being critically engaged with the textual elements of books in the rise of BookTok.

“I think there are drawbacks to not being willing to criticize or investigate the materials with a strong perception and knowledge of media literacy,” Crowley said. “I think where we’re at right now, there is a pretty good perception of reading, and I am glad people are getting back into it.”

Colleen Hoover, a number one New York Times bestselling author of more than 23 novels, is often credited with creating the BookTok culture, according to the New York Times. Books and Beyond club treasurer and fourth-year student Meg Geller provided insight into the unpredictability within Hoover’s romance novels.

“The subject material is shock based, and it was very enjoyable for me personally to read,” Geller said. “I think this factor is what Colleen Hoover monopolizes on because people who aren’t big readers may not read a lot of books from other authors and won’t necessarily think that her writing is just okay in terms of the overall style.”

Trendy aesthetics converge with personal preferences
Within the realm of aesthetics, it is not just the experience that readers evaluate, it is also the physical appearance, as Eaton believes the cover matters a lot regardless of the saying that we “shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.”

CLA Alumni Book Club member William Herlofsky said the design and overall look of Vintage Penguin Books draw him in due to their interesting nature. In Japan, where he currently lives, he said he generally sees book covers with a more vivid and creative design style.

University English Professor Elaine Auyoung said in an email to the Minnesota Daily that she thinks publishers are chasing trends that “come and go.” One trend in particular she said she had noticed is the vintage aesthetics from the late 1900s appearing on book covers.

“I think cover art can also play a role in a reader’s desire to associate themselves with a certain vibe, although the vibe that you get while actually reading the book might be very different than the one evoked by the cover,” Auyoung said.

Auyoung said even if something is coined as trendy, people’s unique backgrounds and values still mean their reading preferences are personal.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated William Herlofsky’s last name. His last name is Herlofsky. 

With the upcoming University of Minnesota apparel design fashion showcase on Feb. 18 as a rite of passage for the senior class, it’s time to say goodbye to many of the 2022 trends and hello to a taste of what’s to be coined “in” for 2023.

Fashion trends change due to many factors, and social media is playing a bigger role in fashion than ever. A social media influencer is typically someone who promotes certain brands for compensation, with “fit checks” often at the beginning of videos to showcase where certain pieces they are wearing came from, as a form of promotion.

Along with social media influencers, other aspects of the fashion industry – leaders in color prediction, sustainability and popular brands – could influence how many people might strive to dress for the next 12 months.

Color
Adjunct professor in apparel design and retail merchandising Kathryn Reiley said bright, saturated colors will be among this year’s trends. She said while variety will be present based on personal preference, she thinks 70s earth tones will be coming back in addition to a “goth trend” that could consist of whites and blacks.

One way to predict a prominent color for fashion every year is to look at the Pantone Color Institute, which conducts color trend forecasting that links the scientific and emotional aspects of color. As a company, they set the tone for what color will be “trendy” each year.

“The Pantone color of the year is magenta,” Reiley said. “Companies make products and fabrics based on the pantone color, so you can expect to see a rise in saturated colors like the chosen magenta.”

Ava Wagner, a featured designer in the University’s upcoming fashion showcase, said she views fashion as “a display of our worldly experiences, our clothing reflecting growth, perseverance and a newfound chapter.”

While researching the World War II era, Wagner discovered during wartime, there were a lot of grays, browns and blacks; then bright colors emerged postwar. She said she compares this trend to the recent pandemic, and as we ease into a somewhat post-pandemic society, we will see people drawn to brighter colors.

“I think there’s just kind of this sense of celebration, of liberation, after these dark times,” Wagner said. “It makes people just want to start experimenting with colors and patterns.”

Sustainability
Fourth-year student and Co-President of the Business of Fashion (BOF) club Morgan Trajkovski said BOF is a space to express members’ passions to make fashion more sustainable.

According to Trajkovski, the thrifting phenomenon has distinguished itself recently in the fashion world. She predicts it will continue to grow in popularity and how people thrift will transform when they become visible in mass-scale shopping centers.

“For back-to-school shopping, we could see people decide to go thrifting instead of going to malls, which I think can definitely change the aspect of malls,” Trajkovski said. “I think it’d be really cool for malls to start incorporating thrift stores into them because that draws in a sustainable aspect … rather than just buying everything new.”

Wagner said she believes sustainability will be a core value for creating clothing this year.

“I don’t like calling it a trend because I think it’s definitely here to stay,” Wagner said. “People are becoming aware of what actually happens in the fashion industry regarding the amount of waste and workers’ rights that are not being followed by companies.”

Brand
Trajkovski said she thinks brands like Zara or Aritzia will be trending because they carry basic pieces that are considered staples.

“I think in general, stores like Forever 21 that implement fast fashion will be trending downward, and their focus on short-lived micro trends definitely could be a major contributor,” Trajkovski said.

Reiley said she believes brands that hold sustainability as a core value and brand-wide mission will be considered trendy. She also thinks brands in general are increasingly becoming of lesser importance in a thrifting-based society.

“Patagonia has always been a brand that’s very concerned with the environment and could very well be a top upcoming brand,” Reiley said. “I think as consumers become more aware of … how important it is to be sustainable and shop for clothes that are environmentally friendly.”

“Build your own:” making an entire outfit that could be coined as trendy for 2023
Wagner’s prediction of a typical outfit in 2023 includes bright, clashing colors. The outfit would also definitely include feathers. She said the rules of fashion in the past dismissed wearing reds and oranges together, but now she believes it will become popular.

“A red top with feathers around the wrist, accompanied with orange pants for the clothing aspect,” Wagner said. “It could be paired with brightly colored blue shoes that are in contrast, and finally, a chunky little purse.”

Trajkovski’s predicted outfit is based on one overarching material: cargo. She said she has seen this theme appear on runway shows recently and among luxury brands, and she believes the trend will continue to grow.

“’I’ve just seen all over the place,” Trajkovski said. “Everything from cargo skirts to a full-on cargo set where it’s like a cargo jacket, cargo skirt and like a cute graphic tee.”

Wagner said although fashion trends certainly exist and play a vital role in our culture, individuality is also an important trend to honor.

“I feel like fashion has been emerging and will continue to emerge in that sense of breaking the rules,” Wagner said.

University of Minnesota researchers are raising discussions around how to navigate the frigid temperatures safely while under the influence of alcohol as the first day of winter approaches on Dec. 21.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates about 140,000 alcohol-related deaths happen each year, and 30,000 of those deaths are car crash oriented.

In an area as cold as the Twin Cities, the concern for intoxication related incidents can range from accessibility to alcohol in terms of the distance one must walk to obtain it, slippery roads and sidewalks, and a lack of regard for the light rail.

Traci Toomey is a University professor who teaches within the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health. Toomey works on policy-related solutions for alcohol-related problems and said it is a common misconception that the primary safety concern in the winter should be a higher rate of vehicle crashes.

“You’re less likely to die in a traffic crash in Minnesota in the winter than in the summer,” Toomey said. “In general, people drive slower in the winter, so we crash more because of the ice, but we’re at lower speeds; we may be less likely to die in the traffic crash.”

Toomey said there are cases seen in the summer and spring across Minnesota or Wisconsin campuses in which people who drink too much are found in rivers.

However, winter brings other dangers. An example can be if someone passes out outside in cold temperatures and they could get hypothermia, which can be fatal, Toomey said.

In 2013, a student at The University of Minnesota-Duluth campus was found unconscious on her own porch after intoxication. It was reported three men picked her up and dropped her off at her house but left without seeing her enter her home.

Although she survived, her arms had to be surgically cut open to restart circulation. Authorities said her hands were swollen to three times the size of a normal person, and her friends told authorities she showed “no signs of drunkenness,” according to CBS Minnesota.

Toben Nelson, a professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, said alcohol has depressive effects on the body’s central nervous system, which influences an individual’s perception of “risky” situations.

“Alcohol affects our ability to perceive sensory inputs that are coming in,” Nelson said. “In colder weather, people aren’t getting an accurate assessment of how cold it truly is, along with what risk it may be to one’s health.”

Other implications of alcohol overconsumption
Amy Krentzman is an associate professor at the School of Social Work and conducts extensive research on alcohol addiction recovery in rural communities, highlighting how the large geographical expanse of an urban community provides infinite social activities and resources in one’s recovery journey.

Krentzman said city communities can make it easier for an individual experiencing alcohol addiction to get sober, whereas in rural spaces, it can be difficult to avoid old friends the individual used to engage with in drinking.

There is an abundance of recovery support groups in urban communities such as Alcoholics Anonymous, while in small towns, people can face worries about seeing people they already know which hinder the “anonymous” aspect, she said.

Krentzman associates the possibility to “reinvent” yourself with urban living, while in a rural area, it may be difficult to discard that reputation you formally established, making it difficult to “start fresh.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, the reduction of sunlight in the winter may lead to feelings of depression from reduced serotonin levels. Therefore, those experiencing alcohol addiction in the winter may require an increase of practices that enable mood boosting properties.

Krentzman developed a journaling practice influenced by research on positive psychology and behavioral action to help those in addiction recovery.

According to Krentzman, positive psychology says certain activities such as writing a gratitude list can uplift one’s mood, while behavioral action says if an individual plans their day in a balanced, goal-oriented manner, that will increase their productivity.

“The whole idea is that because of the effect of addiction on the brain, people in recovery have a harder time feeling positive emotion in response to everyday ordinary activities,” Krentzman said. “This is an exercise for helping them to boost positive emotion by teaching the brain to feel positive emotion in response to everyday, ordinary pleasures again.”

Underage drinking policy and enforcement
Toomey said she believes the most effective nationwide underage drinking policy is the set age limit for drinking at 21 years old. Toomey said on a campus level, enforcing the drinking age is the most important thing that can be done to help with dangerous incidents during any season.

Nelson said he believes the alcohol policy and drug abuse prevention committee has been serving the community well in terms of their work addressing policy across the University. He said this work enables fewer opportunities to partake in risky and excessive alcohol consumption on campus.

“I think Boynton Health Center does a phenomenal job of offering resources, both for assessing consequences of one’s own drinking, working with psychological services to work through some issues that folks have,” Nelson said. “I also think the gopher chauffeur is an important part of the puzzle, especially in the winter months.”

The University of Minnesota Food Science and Nutrition (FScN) Student and Faculty symposium is scheduled for Dec. 16 to enable conversations surrounding the current curriculum and its future trajectory.

The symposium will be targeted toward FScN and food systems students but will be open to the public. It stems from the department looking at nutrients rather than the comprehensive system and students wanting to include the implementation of food systems education on a more significant scale.

On a national scale, the White House Conference on Nutrition on Sept. 28 addressed nutrition insecurity, food accessibility and food-centered education and generated conversation among undergraduates at the University about the lens through which nutrition is viewed within the curriculum.

Student and faculty panel members will discuss the department’s future, collective learning and maximizing transdisciplinary learning within FScN undergraduate education.

The University’s nutrition program is primarily focused on micro-sciences of nutrients, resembling “more of a calculation or equation,” public health nutrition instructor and chef Jennifer Breen said.

Breen said there are social and community components to some of the content taught in the department because there is a required community nutrition class for students. She said she sees a core adjective missing: the application of mathematical and scientific information translated onto human beings.

“The work of nutrition is always about humans, but it’s also about culture,” Breen said. “It’s about community, environment, politics, it’s about all of those things.”

Breen said she hopes to see more integration of food systems into the nutrition content that is delivered since it pertains to every part of human and environmental health.

Food systems represent numerous pieces of the puzzle in creating a more equitable curriculum focusing on the production, location, methods, engagement and distribution of food. It also takes into account accessibility, cost and a family’s or individual’s economic status.

Abby Gold, a nutrition specialist who works with Minnesota residents and serves at the Extension Center for Family Development, said she is seeing a general shift in interest among students. She said she has noticed students are less interested in people on a mass scale and more interested in seeing individuals with a cultural perspective in mind.

“People have different beliefs, cultures, ways of understanding the world and the things that happen within it, so having that cultural humility is really important,” Gold said.

Gold said embedding food systems education can provide cultural humility, which is the practice of evaluating how one’s own background can affect teaching and learning. This practice also requires honoring the culture and beliefs of individuals, in the classroom and community.

There are current University initiatives that could potentially create a “spiral curriculum,” where the themes of diversity, equity and inclusion are reiterated through several courses, FScN professor Francine Overcash said.

“I’ve seen an expansion in interest among students who are engaging in the diversity, equity and inclusion aspects, as well as wanting more project-based learning,” Overcash said. “They’re more willing to voice their interest in other areas outside just the micro and historically typical didactic program, it’s always good for the department to evolve along with the times.”

Gold said she hopes to see practitioners within public health programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants & Children or the National School Lunch Program, instructors, faculty, and past students on the symposium panel to hear about their current careers.

“It’s important to also have some alumni that have nontraditional jobs that are working in policy areas that aren’t practice-oriented,” Gold said.

These alumni would include farmers, agriculturists and those who work within production. Gold also hopes to see advocacy figures who have missions to eliminate hunger and promote local foods.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) plays a substantial role in the inequitable standards that are then transferred into students’ curriculum, Breen said.

Breen said she believes the USDA standards are problematic because they still label milk as a suggested food that all Americans should be drinking, although a recent statistic states that up to 80% of people of African and Asian descent are lactose intolerant.

Breen said these federally-established guidelines emphasize the dietary disconnects that are brought down from our federal government and that the University is not to blame for this issue.

Breen said she plans to be a panel member. She said it is important to emphasize the power in being not only a critical thinker, but also questioning with an independent mind and seeking to analyze dialogue and speech.

“We need to re-examine where our science is coming from and what’s influencing it, and then ultimately, how we’re translating it and presenting it to students,” Breen said.

University of Minnesota student group 365green promotes supporting small businesses, opting for a sustainable shipping process and gifting experiences this holiday season as supply chain issues persist following the COVID-19 pandemic.

With a change in supply chain stock, the environmental impact of the holiday season remains a concern to some people in regards to consistent landfill waste from excess products and gift returns.

365green is a sustainability club at the University with a mission to evoke direct change through the practice of environmentally friendly practices.

Megan Pangier, 365green president, takes on the holidays with a non-materialistic twist.

“I gift experiences instead of things,” Pangier said. “One year I made a video for my mom and this year I plan to update our family’s self portraits for my parents.”

Thrifting is gaining increasing popularity, but some stigmas still exist when it comes to gifting for others.

365green communication lead Isa Villalobos said the group’s favorite thrift store, “My Thrift,” is located in St. Paul. The store carries clothes, trinkets, dishes and CD’s; making it possible to find a gift for anyone, she said.

“I’ve been having conversations with adults who think thrifting is weird or hold stigmas around it to see where they are coming from,” Villalobos said. “Afterwards, I then explain to them where I’m at financially and my views on the environment.”

If you do choose to order from Amazon this holiday season, there are offers to opt for a more sustainable experience, however, Pangier and Villalobos still recommend buying from locally-owned, small businesses rather than big corporations.

“If you order from Amazon, there is a way to request less packaging, recycled materials to be used or even non-plastics,” Villalobos said.

Shoppers can also choose a later shipping date and to have all of their buys packed together to reduce the amount of cardboard Amazon uses for packaging, Pangier said.

Supply Chain and Operations Assistant Professor Necati Ertekin described these practices as a “win-win” strategy and by choosing to get your order at a later date, it allows retailers to send delivery trucks as full as possible as not only a sustainable shipping option, but also at a cheaper price for the consumer.

“The digital retail industry is super interesting, simply because the entire industry sits in the intersection of consumers and manufacturers,” Ertekin said. “It provides a lot of opportunities for many retailers to be more innovative and for consumers to learn from this industry.”

Additionally, with online shopping and delivery gaining popularity, major delivery carriers were forced to drop off customers (such as American Eagle) intentionally, according to Ertekin.

“If you look at the product portfolio, it’s no longer just fancy, efficient apparel coming from Brick-and-Mortar stores,” Ertekin said. “Demands moved from physical stores to online channels, creating problems within last mile delivery (UPS, FedEx carriers), where they were performing insufficiently.”

Although getting products from countries overseas has become less of a problem this holiday season, a shortage in delivery drivers is expected to affect product distribution times, Erterkin said.

Ertekin said the primary issue for retailers this season is the movement of product from ports to distribution centers and warehouses and eventually to the hands of customers. However, this is not a universal problem within retailers, as companies such as Macy’s are setting precautionary means by investing in data analytics to seek out potential mishaps without sacrificing prompt delivery times.

“For example if their ship has already arrived at the port and is number 50 in the line, they can immediately shift the ship to another port, changing their entire logistics accordingly to make sure that the product is still on the way to the warehouse,” Ertekin said.

A recent University of Minnesota study raises concern and advocates for increased food security on a national scale within food assistance programs’ distribution rollouts.

Stemming from a Project Eat cohort, postdoctoral associate Vivienne Hazzard analyzed 75 Minnesotans who experienced food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study is aiming to explore if their food insecurity was due to unpredictable and unpatterned food consumption on a daily basis.

Seventy-two percent of the sample demographics were Black, Indigenous and people of color.

“We definitely see that food insecurity disproportionately affects marginalized groups in terms of race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation and socio-economic disadvantages,” Hazzard said.

The study modernizes traditional surveys by sending text messages to subjects five times a day for a two week period. Questions range from if they skipped meals or reduced the meal size due to economic insecurity, to what mental and physical symptoms they felt after binging.

Some participants engaged in what Hazzard described as a “trade-off-strategy” as a last resort, which is commonly used as a coping skill when food is extremely scarce. The scale included “skipping paying bills to buy food, asking friends or family for food (or money for food), to borrow to make it through the rest of the month,” Hazzard said.

Within the study’s first table of sample characteristics, 47% of participants reported using food assistance programs over the last month. Furthermore, 41% of participants reported the usage of charitable food assistance programs over the past month. Some of the most common food assistance programs used were the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

One of the primary motivations for conducting this study was Hazzard’s evidence beyond the study, suggesting behaviors people develop during periods of food insecurity may endure beyond these periods, even when food insecurity isn’t present in the household.

Anna Bishop, a registered dietician nutritionist who works with the Center for Collaborative Health MN, also highlighted the inequities those who experience food insecurity face in healing their relationship with food.

“I would categorize food insecurity as trauma,” Bishop said. “Like other forms of trauma that have life-long effects, the restrict/binge cycle often continues even when someone is no longer experiencing food insecurity.”

According to the National Eating Disorders Association, intuitive eating is the practice of instilling trust within your body’s unique needs to make choices around food that feel good for your body’s unique needs.

Bishop said this concept may look different within individuals experiencing food insecurity compared to other situations due to the lack of trust in food availability.

Part of Bishop’s approach is using a non-diet approach for clients to find balance and peace with not only their body, but also with food.

“Working with individuals experiencing food insecurity takes a different level of creativity. We work to create meals that meet their needs using the foods that are available to them,” Bishop said. “This often means having a limited variety and working to make foods last longer.”

The concepts of guilt and shame while at the grocery store within binge eating may also look different for those experiencing food insecurity. Bishop said she recognizes beyond just providing food to those in need, there should be food available that attributes to one’s cultural framework and practices.

“To create an environment that promotes food as something that should be intuitively enjoyed would mean making sure low-income people have access to enough food and enough variety to meet their nutritional needs. Not just once a month, but everyday,” Bishop said.

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) granted the University of Minnesota School of Public Health $2 million in September as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 in response to health care needs identified during the COVID-19 pandemic. This funding led to the University program Minnesota Prepared.

Pathways to strengthen the public health workforce is a core initiative within Minnesota Prepared. The goal is to establish student internships, case-study competitions and organize a seminar series to best prepare for a potential “pandemic relapse.”

Assistant professor in the Department of Veterinary Medicine Victoria Hall said as population growth drives animals and humans closer together, there is an increased risk for diseases to spread to humans and in turn, for there to be a “pandemic relapse.”

The term “zoonotic” describes a disease that is transmissible between animals and humans; COVID-19 is zoonotic. Hall said it is estimated that 60% of known infectious diseases and 75% of emerging diseases are zoonotic.

“These diseases are incredibly important to monitor as we do surveillance for the next pandemic,” Hall said. “[It] makes disease responses more complex as you must have human, animal and environmental health professionals working together to successfully respond to the outbreak.”

Each of Minnesota Prepared’s goals addresses COVID-19 preparedness specifically, with becoming more proficient in working within cross-institutional methods and learning the dynamics of practice needs.

The internships through Minnesota Prepared are paid opportunities funded by the grant and only open to School of Public Health students. The goal is to make students more desirable for future careers and also take an economic strain off of public health agencies.

Internship Project Coordinator Kinsey Mannebach previously worked at a local health department in Greendale, Wisconsin, on their community health assessment and improvement plan in the midst of the pandemic. Mannebach relocated to Minnesota and started working in collaboration with MDH in their emergency preparedness and response sector.

The traditional process in obtaining an internship is different from what’s seen within this project’s hiring process in which agencies seeking student aid can submit their project to Mannebach.

After a decision is made about the project submission’s details and stipulations, Mannebach can advertise it to public health students using the PH job board and student newsletter.

A review committee then “matches” students with internships “based upon the candidate’s levels of expertise and interest in the project,” said Elizabeth Wattenberg, who works with the internship program specializing in graduate students.

Collaboration with tribal public health is also part of the program, with a core focus on avoiding a “drop in mentality,” Wattenberg said. “Mentality” refers to a person obtaining experience and providing help then leaving the community after obtaining said experience.

Wattenburg said she believes students who are localized rather than living directly in the Twin Cities would be a better benefit to the tribal communities “not because they’re not good students, but we don’t want people to come in, get their experience and then leave,” Wattenberg said.

Mannebach said they have not yet received any submissions from tribal public health for the fall section of students. However, if submissions are made in the future, “building strong relationships and collaboration with the tribes and looking to support them in a way that would feel supportive to them is critical,” Mannebach said.

The projects for interns offer a diverse range of options. One program gives students the opportunity to configure a survey for businesses that experienced COVID-19 outbreaks among workers. This has led to discussions with the health department regarding future plans that draw from the knowledge and experiences gained through COVID-19.

Another intern project combed through data to “look at how COVID-19 highlighted and further exacerbated disparities that public health is seeking to address,” Mannebach said.

To reduce the impact of another potential pandemic, Hall suggested instilling an ecosystem health approach at the University level so the community will be better prepared.

“By breaking down silos between those working in human, animal and environmental sectors, we can better detect and respond to emerging or reemerging threats to global health,” Hall said.

Through outreach, University of Minnesota libraries are providing seasonal affective disorder (SAD) lights on campus to alleviate symptoms and give the subcategory of depression newfound awareness through the discussion of a holistic approach and healing.

SAD is defined as a subcategory of depression that occurs periodically within a year. Symptoms usually occur during the fall and winter months when there is less sunlight, which affects the natural chemicals that determine mood, according to the Mayo Clinic.

SAD has symptoms characterized by periodical season patterns in general, along with symptoms specific to winter patterns. The symptoms may appear similar to major depression but have different aspects of their root cause and nuances in symptoms. For example, within winter-pattern SAD, social withdrawal is a more common symptom.

Symptoms of SAD do not rise on a yearly basis but in cycles that typically last about four to five months per year.

Jeannie Larson, assistant professor at the Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing, said symptoms may include, but are not limited to, having low energy, losing interest in activities you once enjoyed, facing problems sleeping and feeling agitated, hopeless or worthless and depressed.

“Research suggests how essential nature is to wellbeing because being in nature can help to reduce anger, fear and stress and increase pleasant feelings,” Larson said. “Exposure not only makes you feel better emotionally, it contributes to your physical wellbeing, reducing blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tension and the production of stress hormones.”

Renovations to certain existing buildings pose potential alleviation of SAD symptoms on campus. To make transitions into colder seasons smoother, “more windows could be added for natural sunlight in buildings and solar tubes embedded underground,” Larson said.

On a more mass scale, Larson suggested the University campus introduces a campaign that aims to encourage students to go outdoors during colder months.

“Exposure to sunlight on the skin in winter may increase production of Vitamin D believed to play a role in serotonin activity,” Larson said.

Staff psychologist Jake Loeffler and Larson share a familiarity with the concepts of working from an integrated holistic framework. Loffeler describes the approach as understanding how our behaviors, thoughts, emotions and environment all interact with each other, enabling different effects for those experiencing SAD.

Working within the Office of Student Affairs, Loeffler has insight into the various resources available to students on campus regarding accommodation requests.

“The RecWell is a great place for somebody who’s affected by SAD to consider going to because they see exercise as medicine by taking a non-western approach to well-being,” Loeffler said.

Loeffler also said someone diagnosed with SAD can reach out to the Disability Resource Center to obtain accommodations and a suitable learning environment for individuals on a case-by-case basis. Students can request rooms with more windows, a portable SAD lamp and even preferred seating directly next to light sources in the classroom.

Loeffler said mental health is often an invisible battle people are fighting, highlighting the importance of structural support systems as well as simply believing an individual who says they are feeling different.

“We love seeing the leaves change every year, but the reason that they give us such a beautiful show is because they’re dying from lack of sunlight,” Loeffler said. “What’s hard is that we have a visualization of what a lack of sunlight does to trees, but we don’t have a visual representation of what sunlight does to us as people.”

Systematically and structurally, changes are being made regarding SAD awareness and resources available to both students and staff.

One of the tangible options available for students to check out from the libraries on campus is “SAD lamps,” which serve the purpose of acting as an artificial source of sunlight, a key source of Vitamin D. Currently, there are four available at Magrath Library and six available at Walter Library.

Outreach and instruction librarian Kristen Mastel recommended working “in tandem with a medical professional” upon checking out a SAD light for personal use. According to Mastel, the University libraries “just bought new lamps that are 10,000 lux, with adjustable brightness and timers to ensure that users do not go over the recommended time.”

Mastel said the potential side effects could be developing headaches from being exposed to brightness for more than the recommended period of thirty minutes.

“The libraries are trying to support students holistically by looking at students beyond academics and their success, and looking at all areas of their lives,” said Mastel.

Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the name of Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality and Healing.

University of Minnesota researchers and student groups are increasingly seeing how childhood weight teasing, social media workout, diet culture and weight stigma within the healthcare industry affects the likelihood of disordered eating in younger populations.

Weight stigma occurs when an individual has negative attitudes and thoughts toward another individual on the sole basis of their weight, size or shape of their body. Weight teasing is verbal insults directed toward another person, according to the National Library of Medicine.

University researcher Laura Hooper is a former registered dietician for Seattle Children’s Hospital in the Division of Adolescent Medicine and also worked in their eating disorder treatment program.

In 2022, Hooper conducted a research study that followed adolescents from the age 14 to 22 with an eight-year follow up period, which aimed to use a healthy equity lens to inspect cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between preliminary weight teasing and later signs of weight-related health-based behaviors.

Hooper’s research found links between high degrees of weight teasing and high voluntary screen time later in life, as well as a general high level of weight stigma within the healthcare industry.

According to Hooper, her patients reported past weight-teasing in many cases, and she saw weight stigma often occurring in individuals who “moved through the world in larger bodies.” Weight stigma at times is a precursor to disordered eating.

Additionally, Hooper collaborates with colleagues at the University’s Medical School with the goal of producing a new educational training for pediatric residents, which would push med students to “have these conversations with adolescents about nutrition, physical activity, weight and body image in a way that is not going to convey stigma or make them feel bad about their body.”

As social media creates space for fitness and diet culture, there comes a new movement that caters workout content toward teenagers, Hooper said.

With workout videos, weight loss challenges and “what I eat in a day” videos circulating the web, Hooper became a part of a team called “Move and Thrive,” which produces body positive workout videos where representation of various body types works to foster an “inclusive environment,” Hooper said.

“A lot more people are speaking about their lived experience with weight stigma. People are writing books, we have “Shrill” the TV show and my colleagues are sending me news articles all the time,” Hooper said. “It’s just been really fun to see this is getting so much more attention. It feels like the tides are turning.”

The environment created by healthcare workers plays a significant role in body image, Aimee Tritt, a registered dietician for Hennepin Healthcare, said.

“When I see patients in the clinic, if I weigh them and I enter their weight in the chart, then BMI will automatically show up on the after visit summary,” Tritt said. “I wait, and I don’t enter it until after a patient’s left the office, then it doesn’t show up, but I intentionally pay attention to that.”

Tritt is also the registered dietician advisor for Boynton Health’s Student Nutrition Advocacy Collaborative (SNAC). The group currently helps students who are confused and overwhelmed by the mass amount of nutrition advice on the web.

“We’re definitely now a group that learns about fatphobia and weight bias, understanding how to have these conversations and support people in ways that are not weight centric and diet focused,” graduate coordinator Brianna Caverzagie said.

Students can make appointments with SNAC, and one of the group’s primary focuses is having appointment options that are not weight centric.

“There’s three options of appointments that you can choose, and none of them are, ‘Unhappy with my weight;’ it’s ‘balance eating for energy’ or things like that,” Maddie Johnson, a third-year University student and SNAC member, said.

A key aspect of the appointments is they can be personalized by the patient based on their needs.

“In the appointments I’ve had, I’ve talked about everything from eating as a freshman in the dining hall, meal prepping and cooking,” Maya Ezekiel, a fourth-year student and SNAC member, said. “I’ve also talked more about the mental health aspect of nutrition.”