With this inaugural blog, the Rutgers School of Public Health’s Office of Community Engagement, Population Health, and Global Public Health is launching a monthly space to share our experiences, celebrate partnerships, reflect on lessons learned, and highlight the individuals and organizations working together to build healthier, more equitable communities.

More than 32% of participants in a Rutgers study reported using ChatGPT and similar chatbots for substance-use information. Rutgers Health researchers used survey data from nearly 1,000 participants to examine the frequency and characteristics of people turning to generative artificial intelligence (AI), a subfield of AI that creates synthetic content in response to user prompts, for substance-related information and their perceptions around the results produced by AI.

Federal funding cuts have brought hundreds of public health research projects to an abrupt halt, threatening years of scientific progress and leaving critical questions about disease prevention, health disparities, and community well-being unanswered. Now, two Rutgers School of Public Health scholars are working to ensure that valuable research interrupted by these decisions is not lost.

Knowing someone who died by firearm suicide is associated with greater recognition of suicide risk, but may not lead to safer storage practices, according to a Rutgers study published in Psychiatry Research.

The Rutgers School of Public Health welcomed New Jersey Department of Health (NJDOH) Commissioner Raynard E. Washington and members of his leadership team earlier this Fall. The visit focused on strengthening their longstanding partnership and identifying new opportunities to improve the health and well-being of New Jersey’s many communities.