A third of adults over the age of 45 who don’t look like they could be at risk for developing diabetes — they’re slender — may actually meet the criteria for prediabetes. Based on the results of a recent study published in BMJ Open, authors Ara Jo, Ph.D., a clinical assistant professor of health services research, management and policy, and Arch Mainous, Ph.D., chair of the department, propose that body fat percentage is a better predictor of prediabetes and diabetes risk than body mass index.

Ashby Walker, Ph.D., an assistant professor of health services research, management and policy, and colleagues have received a $1.6 million grant from The Leona M. & Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust to study ways to improve access to care for underserved adults and children with Type 1 diabetes.

The Democratic Republic of Congo employed a new Ebola vaccine to combat an outbreak of the virus this spring, thanks in part to the work of Ira Longini, Ph.D., a professor of biostatistics. Longini and World Health Organization colleagues designed the vaccine’s clinical trial in response to the 2014 outbreak using an innovative “ring vaccination” method. A paper in The Lancet on the team’s final findings, which found the vaccine to be 100 percent effective, was ranked No. 9 on Altmetric’s list of the top 100 scientific articles of 2017.

John Lednicky, Ph.D., a research professor of environmental and global health, and fellow researchers made a number of significant discoveries over the past year involving emerging mosquito-borne viruses. These include evidence of Zika transmission through breast milk, a new “American” strain of chikungunya in mosquitos in Haiti, and detection of Madariaga in a Venezuelan child.

Scientists have long believed that following a significant weight loss, people are able to maintain the lower weight for a while. However, in a study published earlier this year in Obesity, Kathyrn Ross, Ph.D., an assistant professor of clinical and health psychology, reported that participants in a 12-week weight-loss program started regaining weight much sooner, right around the end of the program. She is working to develop interventions that address challenges of weight maintenance.

David Fedele, Ph.D., an assistant professor of clinical and health psychology, David Janicke, Ph.D., a professor in the department, and Robert Lucero, Ph.D., of the UF College of Nursing, recently received a grant to develop a mobile app that seeks to help children who have asthma achieve a healthier weight.

Knowing who is at risk for chronic pain could help clinicians tailor treatments to control pain and limit prescription drug use. In a study published in the journal Physical Therapy, Jason Beneciuk, Ph.D., D.P.T., M.P.H., a research assistant professor of physical therapy, and his team pinpointed patient characteristics associated with long-term musculoskeletal pain. Patients who had greater initial pain, a higher number of other health problems, additional symptoms from other body systems and more pain-related psychological distress were more likely to continue to have pain one year after physical therapy treatment.

In the spring, researchers announced that a new drug called edasalonexent had been shown to slow the progression of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The finding represents a significant advance in treatment for a disease that can lead to patients needing to use a wheelchair by their early teens. Krista Vandenborne, Ph.D., P.T., chair of physical therapy, played a major role in the study and in several other Duchenne clinical trials. Using MRI, Vandenborne has developed techniques to measure the earliest changes in muscle integrity, providing rapid feedback for Duchenne clinical trials and important information on the disease’s natural progression. Her methods have become the gold standard for measuring muscle changes in this disease.