Rose Ewald

ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5629-7419
I am a PhD student in the Public Health Education department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). I hold a B.S. in Nutrition Science with a minor in Biology from UNCG. Many of my earlier research papers were done as a way of exploring more deeply the myriad ways that physiological processes affect health. I also obtained an MPH in Public Health Education from UNCG, during which I broadened my research efforts to include environmental and social factors that affect health behaviors and health outcomes. My current research focuses on education as a social determinant of health (SDOH) with particular consequences for people with disabilities. In this respect, I have begun to examine how the intersectionality of the built environment, social-ecological factors, and campus culture impact students with disabilities in higher educational institutions. I use both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. As a public health educator and certified health education specialist, I distinguish disability from chronic illness, construe ableism as a systemic SDOH, and identify ableism and disability as being causal in nature, often leading to health disparities and chronic illness later in life. My goals are to bring these distinctions into public health education curricula, teaching, research, and practice, to end the stigma of disability on college campuses, and to increase cultural competence about ableism and disability among policy makers, administrators, faculty, staff, and students in higher education. To this end, in 2020 I started UNCG’s Zeta Phi chapter of the Delta Alpha Pi International Honor Society, which celebrates and supports academic achievement, leadership, and advocacy for college and university students with disabilities.