SEIPH Hosts Public Health Awareness Day

The Shady Grove Public Health student club, SIEPH, students engaging in public health, hosted a Public Health Awareness Day at the Universities at Shady Grove on April 6, in honor of National Public Health Week.

Public health students partnered with the UMES Hospitality Program, UMB Nursing and the Shady Grove Center for Academic Success to hold an event to raise awareness of the importance of health and fitness, and to celebrate public health week.

Activities included fitness screening, healthy snack taste test, a yoga and relaxation session, bottled vs. tap water taste test challenge, and information on global health and malaria and a demonstration of a bed net.

Zofia Klosowska, the vice president of SIEPH, said, "As USG's only health awareness/prevention club, SEIPH knew how important it was to try and bring fun activities to the students that promote the idea of healthier living."

Klosowska said that the group decided during the fall semester that they would like to bring awareness to various health concerns to the USG campus, and they began to work towards that goal during the spring semester. With help from the USG Office of Student Services, who helped the group with funding the events prizes and with spreading the word, the event was a success.

"We had volunteers from several different programs: nursing students helped at our Physical Fitness booth doing BMI's and Blood Pressure screenings, Biology students helped with the infectious disease booths, and Hospitality students helped us bake foods for a taste test that we had, where students sampled two versions of a snack and had to guess which one was the healthier option," she said.

This was the first Public Health Awareness Day the group has held, but Klosowska said SIEPH hopes to hold the event again next year and maybe even once per semester.

"As the weather was very cooperative, we were able to hold everything outside in the main courtyard where we drew plenty of people," Dr. Jennifer Todd, director of the Public Health Science Program, said. "It was not only well attended, but enthusiastically attended! We had a lot of fun and the students did an amazing job."