Health and Exercise Science Commitment to Access and Success

Molly Gutilla, assistant professor, teaches epidemiology, research methods, and data analysis courses in public health. Dr. Gutilla believes learning about health equity is central to public health education and working within a community is the key to making positive changes that support health for all. In the classroom, she works with students to co-create inclusive learning environments since students do their best learning in environments where they feel a sense of belonging. Here teaching and learning philosophy prioritizes the importance of the application of material to the larger system in which students are living, learning, and working. While much of the content within epidemiology is technical, her goal is for the micro to translate into the macro and be used to save and improve lives, illustrating that health is a human right.

Using the lens of social determinants of health to explore and discuss health inequity

Kathy Hutcheson, senior instructor, provides her students in HES 355 Integration of Health Behaviors the opportunity to learn about the different Social Determinants of Health, such as economic stability, education access, and community. Social Determinants of Health are factors that impact the health of a community that is often beyond the control of their own personal choices. Students discuss how Social Determinants of Health influence health and health inequity and the communities that are often the most impacted by these factors.

The course content in HES 145 – Health and Wellness was recently expanded to educate students on the Social and Physical Determinants of Health, or the nonmedical aspects of health that are often beyond our control yet influence health outcomes.  Social Determinants of Health often lead to health inequities. Health equality is a human right and should be a universal goal.

The class, which was re-engineered by Wendy DeYoung and her team of other HES 145 instructors, identifies several health, fitness, and wellness disparities among various populations and discusses societal approaches and programming to help decrease and eliminate these inequalities.

Shift workers are at much higher risk for many diseases, and Josiane Broussard, director of the Sleep and Metabolism laboratory, is looking into how these workers can support their bodies despite working nontraditional hours. The goals of this NIH-backed lab are to understand how sleep and circadian disruption increase the risk for different diseases and to develop countermeasures when these behaviors are unavoidable.

There are sex and race disparities within work schedule styles, as African-American and Latinx people disproportionately work during less traditional hours, as well as those with family incomes below the poverty level are more likely to work at nonstandard times. Through her research, Dr. Broussard and her team look at methods to understand why these work schedules impact their employees, and how to diminish or eliminate the deleterious effects through intervention.

Brett Fling is an associate professor who directs the Cloud Family Rehabilitation and Mobility Laboratory. One of the lab’s ongoing studies, funded by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, is determining how the two sides of the brain communicate with each other to coordinate the movement of the legs while walking in people with MS.

“This work fits with our lab’s primary mission of improving mobility, independence, and quality of life for those living with neural injury or disease.” Dr. Fling also serves as the Graduate Program Director for the Department of Health and Exercise Science, where he places a specific emphasis on increasing diverse representation within the HES graduate student population and fostering an environment of inclusion and cohesion.

The Movement Neuroscience and Rehabilitation laboratory, directed by Assistant Professor Neha Lodha, studies driving and walking mobility in older adults. The lab is supported and funded by the National Institute of Aging and the American Heart Association. The current studies, the Come-Drive study, and B-fast study, are in the data collection phase and are recruiting older adults, individuals with stroke and mild cognitive impairments.

Having reflective study samples is important to the lab’s research as they strive to shed light on issues that impact underserved communities. The lab also offers screening for driving crash risk and fall risk for older adults in Larimer County in their summer mobility clinic.