Affiliates honor student posters on suicide rates, fruit intake.

Several public health students were honored for their exceptional work during the APHA Committee on Affiliates annual student poster session contest in November. The event took place during APHA's 135th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

The top prize went to Sarah Ragsdale for her poster titled "Suicide on a College Campus: A Need for Prevention Through Policy and Programs."

Ragsdale, a health ecology major at the University of Nevada School of Public Health in Reno, won the cash prize for research demonstrating the need to identify and address barriers to preventing college student suicides.

Comparing 2006 data on student suicide deaths at the University of Nevada-Reno, Ragsdale found suicide rates at the Reno campus, at 26.9 per 100,000, to be alarmingly higher than the 2006 statewide campus suicide rate of 13.83 per 100,000 and the national rate of 12.21 per 100,000.

University of Nevada administrators and student government leaders used the data to identify barriers to suicide prevention, such as a large commuter student population that may not have access to campus resources.

Peace Juliana Nakayima received an honorable mention in the CoA contest for a poster titled "Comparing Apples to Oranges: How Does Cutting up Fruit Affect Consumption in Elementary School?"

Nakayima, a student at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health, collected data on all school lunches consumed at a rural Kentucky elementary school on two non-consecutive days. She found that serving cut fruit significantly increased consumption of oranges but did not have a similar impact on apples.

The CoA poster contest is open to students enrolled in public health-related classes and schools. For more information, e-mail [e-mail].