UToledo public health expert awarded Fulbright grant to Taiwan

May 15, 2019 | News, Research, UToday, Health and Human Services
By Tyrel Linkhorn



A University of Toledo public health expert will spend six weeks in Taiwan this spring to help one of that country’s top universities internationalize its public health curriculum.

Dr. Jiunn-Jye Sheu, a professor in the College of Health and Human Services’ School of Population Health, received a Fulbright Specialist Award to advance global health initiatives.

Dr. Jiunn-Jye Sheu showed off his Fulbright Specialist Award. He leaves this week for National Taiwan Normal University, where he will help revise and refine its public health curriculum.

The trip to National Taiwan Normal University in May will be his first as part of the Fulbright program.

“To become a Fulbright Specialist or Scholar really comes with enthusiasm. We have so many qualified, outstanding faculty at The University of Toledo, and I’m very proud and pleased to have been selected,” Sheu said. “I think it’s meaningful I’m able to make such a contribution to help people in Taiwan and the United States.”

He will provide guidance to National Taiwan Normal University, which is working to revise and refine its public health curriculum to meet the same standards set by the accrediting body in the U.S.

Sheu, who earned his bachelor’s degree at National Taiwan Normal University, also will help the school toward its goal of adding more English-instructed courses.

Taiwan has a robust health-care system, but as a fully developed country, residents face many of the same chronic health threats as the United States — heart disease, diabetes, cancer and stroke are among the 10 leading causes of death.

“Good patient education can prevent unnecessary costs in health care,” he said. “Unfortunately, patient education has not been mandated in Taiwan or the U.S. I want to investigate in collaboration with Taiwan scholars how they work patient education into the national health insurance system and how that is effective and efficient.”

Much of Sheu’s research work is focused on quantitative analysis of public health data, particularly on youth risk behaviors and the ways in which patients and health-care providers make choices that influence care.

Recently, using path modeling, he worked with Dr. Colleen Taylor, assistant professor in the College of Nursing, to investigate the factors that go into how nurses make decisions about administering pain medication in patients recovering from operations. The study was named the 2017 best research paper of the year by the journal Orthopaedic Nursing.

Sheu also collaborated on soon-to-be-published research into how pregnant women adhere to prenatal care recommendations and the health protective behaviors of women who had gestational diabetes.

“These types of studies provide a better understanding about how people make their decisions and how people act in terms of their health-related behaviors,” he said. “We’ve always known their stated reasons, but without this technique, we don’t know how those reasons interact with each other and which are direct and indirect influences.”

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