Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior (HPEB) is an interdisciplinary department that applies the social and behavioral sciences to improve public health.
HPEB conducts innovative research and prepares future leaders to improve public health locally, nationally, and globally. Our faculty and students address how interventions, social context, health care systems, and physical environments influence health behaviors and health status, with an emphasis on disadvantaged populations.
Departmental strengths include:
In addition to an undergraduate minor, we offer four advanced degrees related to health promotion, education and behavior as well as three graduate certificate programs. Each graduate degree and certificate has specific application deadlines and requirements.
Are you an undergraduate student interested in doing research with an HPEB faculty member? Fill out this contact form for more information.
Researchers at the South Carolina SmartState Center for Healthcare Quality will use a $3 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to determine whether a resilience-based approach can mitigate the negative effects of HIV-related stigma.
NEJM Journal Watch has included a paper led by Xueying Yang and Xiaoming Li in their top 10 list of 2021 COVID-19 research stories. The researchers found that certain groups of people living with HIV have worse COVID-19 outcomes.
Professor Edward Frongillo and Angela Liese, along with Ph.D. alumna Chiwoneso Tinago, have co-authored papers published in a special series by The Lancet that focuses on adolescent nutrition.
Health promotion, education, and behavior researchers examined changes in smoking frequency, quit attempts, stress/depression, and perceived severity of COVID-19 among more than 2750 smokers in Mexico during March and July of 2020.
Researchers from across the Arnold School have completed a study on the importance of peer mentorship in creating diverse leadership representation in higher education settings. They published their findings in Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning.
The first statewide population-based study of COVID-19 symptoms and clinical outcomes has found disparities across different groups, particularly by race/ethnicity and geographic location (rural vs urban).