Newsroom
When
1 p.m., Wednesday, April 5
Where
MED 309L
Details
The Military Health Institute is hosting this workshop focusing on managing the execution phase of a Department of Defense-funded medical research project. The format of the workshop will be interactive, with ample opportunity to ask questions along the way. To attend, RSVP to mhi@uthscsa.edu
Over the past 12 months, Information Management and Services (IMS) has witnessed an increase in phishing messages that contain malicious software designed to automatically encrypt your computer and hold its contents hostage in demand of a ransom payment. The FBI and security professionals predict “ransomware” will continue to be a primary attack approach over the next several years; with the health care and education industries being the most susceptible to such attack campaigns.
In a ransomware attack, an email message containing a file that appears legitimate—typically a PDF that appears to be an invoice, electronic fax or other request—will contain malicious software that once opened or clicked will encrypt all files on the PC, any attached drives, backup drives and potentially other computers on the network. Ransomware attacks are not only proliferating, they are also becoming more sophisticated. You may also see targeted phishing (also called “spear phishing”) that appear to come from a colleague or other legitimate contacts here at UT Health San Antonio, or links on public websites may be hijacked to transparently download the malicious software onto your PC.
Security analysts have discovered that running Windows under an account without administrative rights could mitigate up to 94 percent of critical Microsoft vulnerabilities. By hijacking a user account that is assigned administrator permissions, malware can easily use an infected computer as a launching point to infect other computers on the network.
In response to these risks, IMS will implement a solution that eliminates the risk of allowing local user PC administrator privileges on PCs. The software, called BeyondTrust PowerBroker for Windows, is free to university departments with technical and non-technical TSRs and allows scaling of local PC privileges to ensure applications are allowed to seamlessly run without the risk of leveraging elevated local user rights. The PowerBroker for Windows will allow transparent execution (including installation, upgrades and configuration changes) to known and approved applications without user or IT intervention.
On March 17, IMS will begin removing Windows domain users from local PC administrator groups regardless of whether PowerBroker for Windows is installed. This effort is done in compliance with University HOP 5.8.8 and UT System Policy 165. For more information about this IMS initiative, please visit the Information Security website at https://infosec.uthscsa.edu/least-privilege-enforcement.
Please contact the IMS Service Desk at 210-567-7777 if you have any questions or need immediate support.
When
9 a.m. to noon, Tuesday, April 4
Where
Holly Auditorium foyer
Details
The School of Medicine Office of the Dean and the Office of Graduate Medical Education are co-sponsoring a poster day for medical students, residents and fellows. Attendance is open to the UT Heath San Antonio community.
Science is looking at what is happening to the brain on video games and the results are stunning. Dr. Charles Bowden, Ph.D. discusses an app he helped create that allows people to monitor their mood disorders.
Listen to the full conversation on digital medicine from TPR
Linked by what President William L. Henrich, M.D., MACP, called a common “desire to contribute in a unique and meaningful way for the benefit of others,” 19 members of the faculty and staff were honored March 6 with Presidential Awards from UT Health San Antonio.
Byron Hepburn, M.D., Major General USAF (Ret), director of the Military Health Institute, stepped in and served as emcee of the ceremony for President Henrich.
“There would be no UT Health without the efforts of individuals, like our awardees tonight, who give of themselves in the selfless service of others,” Dr. Hepburn said. “We are very proud to honor you tonight.”
On behalf of the president, Dr. Hepburn also thanked the selection committees chaired by Jacqueline Mok, Ph.D., vice president for academic, faculty and students affairs, and Maritza Ramirez from the Office of Human Resources.
The winners were acknowledged with a congratulatory Senate Proclamation from the state of Texas by state Sen. Jose Menendez of San Antonio as well as a monetary gift.
The winners are:
Distinguished Senior Research Scholar:
Distinguished Junior Research Scholar:
Distinguished Service to the Institution:
Teaching Excellence Awards:
Clinical Excellence Awards:
Employee Excellence Awards:
Salud America! gets 1-year grant to develop culturally tailored content to fuel healthy changes that reduce Latino childhood obesity
Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children has received a one-year, $1.5 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) to develop culturally tailored educational content and tools that empower people to work for policy changes to help Latino children grow up healthy.
Salud America!, established in 2007 and based at UT Health San Antonio, has a national online network of 100,000 parents, school and academic personnel, and community leaders who support its mission: “Promote a healthy weight for Latino children by communicating good health and driving people to start healthy changes in their schools and communities.”
The new funding will allow Salud America! to expand its network and engage members with enhanced educational content—multimedia role model stories, social media events, online resources, digital action campaigns, and marketing—geared toward healthy change. In addition to reducing Latino childhood obesity, Salud America! will expand work to improve Latino family support, mental health, and early childhood development.
“We are excited by RWJF’s ongoing support, and are excited to continue to push the boundaries of communication to empower Latino leaders and families toward developing healthy children with a healthy weight,” said Amelie G. Ramirez, Dr.P.H., director of Salud America!
More than 38 percent of Latino children ages 2-19 are overweight or obese, compared to 28.5 percent of white youth and 35.2 percent of black youth. Latino children also face barriers in access to healthy foods and drinks, physical activity, social services, mental health care and proper early childhood development.
Salud America! was established to address these challenges.
In its first few years, the program developed the first-ever coordinated agenda for research on Latino childhood obesity, funded 20 research grantees who identified promising obesity-prevention strategies, and created an award-winning website with multimedia content that has been recognized by the AVA Digital Awards, Communicator Awards, Telly Awards, Aurora Awards, Digital Health Awards, HERMES Awards, Davey Awards, and W³ Awards.
More recently the network has developed foundational research on obesity among Latino children and helped raise awareness of shared use agreements among state PTA organizations and healthier food marketing among state grocery store associations. The program also developed Salud Report Cards, a web tool with localized data and research on equity, obesity, grocery stores, parks, primary care, insurance, etc.
With the new funding, effective Feb. 15, 2017, to Feb. 14, 2018, Salud America! will:
Enhance its digital footprint. Launched in 2014, the Salud America! website maps the latest healthy changes, resources, and stories and videos of role models who’ve created change in cities, schools, states and the nation. The program will work with consultants to enhance the website and fuel targeted content aligning with early childhood development, mental health, and family and social support, in addition to our ongoing focus on Better Food in the Neighborhood, Active Spaces, Healthier Schools and Healthy Weight by Kindergarten.
Develop new action campaigns. Salud America! will create new campaigns to encourage its network to take action and share information. Campaigns include grassroots systems-change experiments with community and school groups, video voting contests, member recognition awards, trainings and more.
Expand communications. Salud America! will enhance engagement with its network in a variety of ways, including e-communication, social media posts (via @SaludToday), and social media events, such as the #SaludTues tweetchats. These offerings will expand to include webinars, and geo-targeted social media awareness campaigns.
The program also will closely monitor its communications and evaluate its effect on developing change agents and motivating grassroots policy and environmental change.
“We believe our content will continue to connect with and empower Latinos to get involved in building a culture of health where everyone can live healthy lives,” Ramirez said.
About UT Health San Antonio
For current news from the UT Health Science Center San Antonio, now called UT Health San Antonio™, please visit our online newsroom, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, with missions of teaching, research and healing, is one of the country’s leading health sciences universities and is now called UT Health San Antonio™. UT Health’s schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions and graduate biomedical sciences have produced more than 33,000 alumni who are advancing their fields throughout the world. With four campuses in San Antonio and Laredo, UT Health has a FY 2017 revenue operating budget of $806.6 million and is the primary driver of its community’s $37 billion biomedical and health care industry. For more information on the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit www.uthscsa.edu.
More from the Institute for Health Promotion Research (IHPR)
For current news from the IHPR at UT Health San Antonio, please visit our blog or follow us on Twitter @SaludToday.
Salud America! The RWJF Research Network to Prevent Obesity Among Latino Children
Salud America! is a nonprofit network launched in 2007 that develops multimedia communications to educate and motivate its national online network—more than 100,000 parents, teachers, academics, healthcare providers, and community leaders—to take action to reduce Latino childhood obesity and build a culture of health. The network was created and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and is directed by Dr. Amelie G. Ramirez, a health disparities researcher and director of the Institute for Health Promotion Research at UT Health San Antonio. Visit Salud America! at http://www.communitycommons.org/groups/salud-america/. Follow Salud America! on social media via its @SaludToday handle on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and WordPress.
About the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)
For more than 40 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve health and health care. We are striving to build a national Culture of Health that will enable all to live longer, healthier lives now and for generations to come. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org. Follow the Foundation on Twitter or on Facebook.