WUSTL School of Social Work News

African-American health and well-being subject of new study in St. Louis area

2013-05-22 00:00:00

A new comprehensive, multi-disciplinary study on the health and well-being of African Americans in St. Louis could have significant local impact.

The research findings and a series of related policy briefs will culminate in a community conference in 2014, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The project is funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health and includes faculty from Washington University in St. Louis and from Saint Louis University. WUSTL's Institute for Public Health, the Brown School’s Policy Forum, and the St. Louis American are partners as well.

Purnell

“This is unprecedented in that it will focus not only on the health issues of African Americans, but also education and economics,” says Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School and lead researcher on the project.

“African Americans bear a considerable burden of disease, disability and death in the St. Louis region,” Purnell says. “The goal with this project is to produce a series of policy briefs and a report that will identify the issues and offer real solutions.”

The research will focus on African Americans in the City of St. Louis and in St. Louis County. Policy briefs will be prepared in five areas:

A Multi-Sector Approach to Health Disparities in St. Louis
African American Educational Attainment and Health in St. Louis
Mental Health’s Impact on Education, Employment, and Physical Health among African Americans in St. Louis
Racial Composition of the St. Louis Region and the Association with Health
Addressing Risk Factors for Chronic Disease in African Americans in St. Louis

“Several important recent reports on health have included a focus on African Americans in St. Louis, but much of the emphasis has been on access to health care,” Purnell says. “We’re looking to broaden our focus to include the reasons there is such need for expanded health care access in the community.”

To do the research, Purnell assembled a team of African-American scholars that cuts across disciplines and institutions.

“We’re going to need all hands on deck to get things done,” Purnell says. “That’s another key to what we’re doing: Change is going to require a multi-sector approach – business, education, government, and non-profit organizations.

“Everyone’s going to have to be part of the process.”

The participating scholars from Washington University, in addition to Purnell, are:

Bettina F. Drake, PhD, assistant professor of surgery in Public Health Sciences at the School of Medicine;

Melody S. Goodman, PhD, assistant professor of surgery in Public Health Sciences at the School of Medicine;

Darrell L. Hudson, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School; and

William F. Tate, PhD, the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences and chair of the Department of Education.

Saint Louis University faculty partners are:

Keith Elder, PhD, associate professor and chair, Department of Health Management & Policy for the College for Public Health & Social Justice; and

Keon Gilbert, DPhil, assistant professor at the College for Public Health & Social Justice.

A Community Partner Group with representatives from key sectors in the region is being formed to advise the scholars on the policy briefs and the final report.

I-CARES announces 2013 funded research projects

2013-05-14 00:00:00

The International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES) has announced the award winners for its 2013 Call for Proposals.

As part of its mission, I-CARES awards seed funding to WUSTL faculty undertaking innovative and collaborative research in the broad areas of renewable energy and sustainability through an annual call for proposals.

This year, special emphasis was placed on projects related to climate change.

I-CARES has awarded 12 projects with 25 Washington University faculty from five schools: Arts & Sciences, the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, the School of Engineering & Applied Science, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and the School of Medicine.

For a full list of winning projects and the faculty members involved, visiticares.wustl.edu/research/Pages/Projects.aspx.

I-CARES supports a network of national and international researchers all with a focus on renewable energy, the environment and sustainability, extending beyond Washington University’s seven schools. With the addition of the 2013 research awardees, I-CARES now supports 99 individual researchers across 71 projects.

Three doctoral candidates named Bouchet Fellows

2013-05-15 00:00:00

Three doctoral candidates at Washington University in St. Louis were inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society at the annual Bouchet Conference on Diversity in Graduate Education April 19-20 at Yale University.

Inducted as the seventh class of WUSTL Bouchet Fellows are Stephanie N. Rodriguez, a doctoral candidate in the immunology program in the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences; Beverly A. Tsacoyianis, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History in Arts & Sciences; and Sha-Lai L. Williams, who will be conferred a PhD from the Brown School during the university’s May 17 Commencement.

The Bouchet Society, named for the first African American to earn a doctorate in the United States, recognizes outstanding scholarly achievement and promotes diversity and excellence in doctoral education and the professoriate.

The society seeks to develop a network of preeminent scholars who exemplify academic and personal excellence, and serve as examples of scholarship, leadership, character, service and advocacy for students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the academy.

Rafia Zafar, PhD, associate dean for diversity and inclusiveness in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, coordinates the WUSTL chapter of the Bouchet Society.

“Washington University’s graduate students are known to be among the best in America; our Bouchet honorees take their place among the ranks of the highest achieving doctoral candidates in the nation,” Zafar said.

Rodriguez

Rodriguez, who works in the laboratory of Paul M. Allen, PhD, the Robert L. Kroc Professor of Pathology and Immunology, studies the intricate mechanisms of T cell development and how these important immune cells mediate protection to pathogens.

Using a novel CD4 T cell system unique to Allen’s laboratory, her dissertation work investigates the dependence of CD4 T cells on self-molecules for their development into functionally mature and self-tolerant mediators of immune protection, and for continued survival in this mature state.

Her research will address longstanding questions in the field of CD4 T cell development, including the timing, number and duration of immature T cell interactions with cells presenting self-molecules, as well as directly assessing the controversial role of self-molecules in the maintenance of mature CD4 T cells.

The recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Rodriguez has co-authored an article in the Journal of Immunology.

She is director of WUSTL’s Young Scientist Program, which was created in 1991 by medical and graduate students to attract high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds into scientific careers through activities emphasizing hands-on research and interaction between young people and scientists.

She has been involved with the organization since 2009 when she joined as a mentor and tutor.

Rodriguez earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with honors in microbes and immunity from Stanford University in 2009.

Tsacoyianis

Tsacoyianis, a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow, is completing her dissertation, “Making Healthy Minds and Bodies in Syria, 1903-1961.”

She studies the social and medical history of mental illness in 20th-century Syria, arguing that psychiatrists in Syria presented mental health treatment to Syrians as more than a way to control or cure mental illness, but as a modernizing worldview to suppress and delegitimize spirit-based vernacular treatment.

Her work contributes to scholarly debates in the history of medicine, particularly in the role of religion and science in healing, and debates about the role of the state and various non-state actors in preserving health and shaping the bodies and minds of citizens.

Tsacoyianis has received numerous honors, including a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship and a P.E.O. Scholar award.

She is the book review editor for the Syrian Studies Association, an interdisciplinary, international organization, and speaks and reads multiple languages, including Spanish, French, Hebrew and Arabic.

Through the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund, she also has actively worked to secure safe academic positions for international scholars at risk for discrimination and/or political unrest in their home countries.

Tsacoyianis earned a bachelor’s degree in Near Eastern and Judaic studies with a minor in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies from Brandeis University in 2004. She will start a tenure-track position in Middle Eastern history at the University of Memphis this fall after earning a doctorate in August.

Williams

Williams earned a bachelor’s of social work in 1995 from North Carolina State University and a master’s of social work in 1996 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She was a licensed clinical social worker for more than 10 years and a supervisor to provisionally licensed clinical social workers in North Carolina for three years.

Her dissertation, “Mental Health Service Utilization Rates Among African-American Emerging Adults,” draws on her research in cultural competence among social work and helping professionals and racial/ethnic disparities in access to and use of quality mental health services.

A Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow, Williams also has received a pre-doctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health under the auspices of its training grant program.

She has co-authored articles in Perspectives on Social Work, Health Promotion Practice and Patient Education and Counseling.

Williams, an ordained evangelist, has volunteered as a youth and young adult counselor with the New Destiny Apostolic Church in Maplewood, Mo., since 2009.

She will join the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri-St Louis as a tenure-track assistant professor in the fall.

About the Bouchet Society

Yale and Howard universities established the Bouchet Society in 2005 to recognize the life and academic contributions of Edward Alexander Bouchet, the first African American to earn a doctorate from an American university.

Bouchet was the sixth person in the Western Hemisphere to be awarded the PhD in physics, which he earned from Yale in 1876. He also earned an undergraduate degree from Yale in 1874 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

WUSTL was invited to become a Bouchet chapter member in 2007, joining Georgetown and Cornell universities and the universities of Michigan and Washington, among other peer institutions.

A WUSTL committee selected the university’s latest class of Bouchet Fellows. Members of the committee are: Zafar; Adrienne D. Davis, JD, vice provost and the William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law; and Elaine P. Berland, PhD, associate dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and director of the Liberman Graduate Center.

Local health departments find Twitter effective in spreading diabetes information

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2013-05-09 00:00:00

The web-based social media site Twitter is proving to be an effective tool for local health departments in disseminating health information — especially in promoting specific health behaviors.

Harris

The latest study, led by Jenine K. Harris, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, focused on diabetes, a disease that may affect an estimated one-third of U.S. adults by 2050.

“We focused on diabetes first, both because of increasing diabetes rates,” Harris says, “and also because people living with diabetes tend to use online health-related resources at a fairly high rate, so they are an audience that is already online and on social media.”

The study was published May 2 in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) electronic journal, Preventing Chronic Disease, and focused on how local health departments use social media to educate and inform the public about diabetes.

In a one-month period, Harris’ team collected all tweets posted from every local health department with a Twitter account that were diabetes-related. Harris and her team then compared the health departments who utilized Twitter with those who did not.

The findings: Of 217 health departments with Twitter accounts, 126 had tweeted about diabetes, with three diabetes tweets being the median since adopting Twitter.

Health departments tweeting about diabetes were in larger cities, had more staff including public information specialists, and had higher per capita spending than those not tweeting about diabetes. Local health departments tweeting about diabetes were more likely to provide programs in diabetes-related areas like nutrition, physical activity, and chronic disease.

“Social media reaches a large proportion of the population, including low-income and minority groups that are often hard to reach,” Harris says. “Some research has demonstrated that people are looking online for health information, making social media a potentially very useful way to reach a large audience already seeking health information.”

The study was co-authored by Nancy Mueller, project coordinator and an alumnus of the Brown School’s Master of Public Health (MPH) program; Doneisha L. Snider, a student in the MPH program and graduate research assistant at the Center for Public Health Systems Science; and Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, director of the Center for Obesity Prevention and Policy Research and the Center for Diabetes Translation Research at WUSTL and associate dean for research at the Brown School.

The study was supported by the Washington University Center for Diabetes Translation Research with a grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases of the National Institutes of Health.

To read the full study, visit www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2013/12_0215.htm

To listen to a CDC podcast with Harris, visit www2c.cdc.gov/podcasts/player.asp?f=8628116&s_cid=fb2342

With the right mortgage, home ownership builds wealth

Katie Stalter — 2013-05-09 00:00:00

The Great Recession, characterized by devastating mortgage defaults, has challenged the conventional wisdom that home ownership is a good investment, particularly for those with low and moderate incomes.

But the conventional wisdom on the benefits of owning vs. renting still holds when done right, according to a newly published study led by the Brown School’s Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St. Louis.

Homeowners with low and moderate incomes who participated in this study conducted between 2005-08 achieved higher net worth than their counterparts who rent.

Grinstein-Weiss

"This research provides new and important evidence for the current policy debate on low-income homeownership programs,” says Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, associate director of the CSD and associate professor at the Brown School.

The research, published in April in the journal Housing Policy Debate, documents a study measuring the impact of sustained homeownership on net worth. The study uses data from the Community Advantage Program, which awarded prime mortgages to those who otherwise would only qualify for subprime mortgages.

The Community Advantage Program is made possible through a partnership between the Center for Community Capital at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (a leading research and policy organization), Self-Help (a leading Community Development Financial Institution), the Ford Foundation, and Fannie Mae.

Grinstein-Weiss led a team of researchers who examined data from those who received these prime mortgages, as well as a group of renters in the same income bracket. Her team – Clinton Key and Shenyang Guo, PhD, of the University of North Carolina; Yeong Hun Yeo, PhD, of Jeonbuk National University in the Republic of Korea; and Krista Holub of the CSD – found evidence that low- and moderate-income homeowners experience greater short-run increases in net worth, assets and non-housing net worth than renters do.

“Our findings do not argue that all homeownership is beneficial, but rather that low-income homeowners with mortgages that are carefully underwritten with responsible terms, including low upfront costs and low interest rates – or what we like to call ‘responsible mortgages’ – can experience increased financial security and independence,” Grinstein-Weiss says.

The article points to skepticism that, although home equity represents a large amount of total wealth among the middle-class, potential benefits to low- and moderate-income homeowners are questionable due to challenging mortgage terms and lower home value and appreciation rate.

Grinstein-Weiss’ study addresses this skepticism by examining homeowners in this income bracket who have received “responsible mortgages” and comparing effects with a set of renters.

The study explores changes in five outcomes over a three-year period (2005-08): Total net worth, total assets, total debts, total liquid assets and total non-housing net worth. Over the three years, the homeowners in the study gained an average of $15,000 in total net worth, while the renters gained less than $11,000. Homeowners increased their total assets by $20,000 and total debt by $5,000, and those figures for renters were $15,000 and $4,500, respectively. Homeowners also showed greater increases in total liquid assets and total non-housing net worth, amounting to $3,660 and $3,036 higher, respectively, than renters’ increases.

These findings are particularly noteworthy because the period of the study coincides with the Great Recession. Low- and moderate-income households were most affected by the housing market downturn, however those involved with this study saw gains in net worth, indicating that homeownership may be “a pathway to asset security,” as Grinstein-Weiss puts it.

“Whereas paying rent guarantees a place to sleep, paying a monthly mortgage eliminates a portion of the principal of the loan, reducing debt and potentially increasing net worth,” she says.

A key element of the findings lies within the loan itself. The data shows evidence that a low-cost, low-interest mortgage can help households in the low- and moderate-income bracket build assets.

“Policymakers should note the loan characteristics offered by the program and consider policies that increase the number of quality affordable loan products on the market, particularly in low- and moderate-income communities,” Grinstein-Weiss says.

This study demonstrates that, with the right type of loan, even those with relatively few assets can begin to build their wealth. The security that comes from this increase in wealth may have great future bearing on these households’ ability to weather an unexpected major expense or loss of income.

This reaffirms that homeownership is a path that can lead to economic security.

Celebrating 'Uncommon Journeys': Brown School honors alumni, faculty member

2013-05-08 00:00:00

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis bestowed one Distinguished Faculty Award and five Distinguished Alumni Awards during its annual alumni awards celebration April 17 at Steinberg Auditorium. One of those alumni was selected as an outstanding Graduate of the Last Decade (GOLD).

This year’s theme was “Celebrating Uncommon Journeys” as the Brown School honored those who whose individual paths have created positive change for people in the St. Louis region and beyond.

A reception followed at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Distinguished Alumni Awards went to:

Villie M. Appoo (MSW ’76), chief executive officer of the Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois;
Elizabeth M. George (MSW ’96) vice president of the Deaconess Foundation;
Mickey Rosen (LA ’59, MSW ’61), former community organizer with the St. Louis Human Development Corp. and former executive director of the Mildred Simon Foundation. Rosen, who died April 1, 2013, was represented at the awards ceremony by his wife, Adrienne; and
Susan Dickens Schlichter (MSW ’76), retired executive director of Express Scripts Foundation.

The GOLD award went to Stephanie Krauss (MSW ’08), founder, president and CEO of the Shearwater Education Foundation.

Sarah Gehlert (PhD ’91), the E. Desmond Lee Professor of Racial and Ethnic Diversity, among other positions, was given the Distinguished Faculty Award. She has been at the Brown School since 2009.

To read more about the honorees, visit here.

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGAFnbW51ADXzEWw8hbieDKG7R8T57xnq

View video tributes to all of the honorees here.

Brown School conducts experiment with active learning classroom

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2013-05-07 00:00:00

Whitney Curtis

Amanda Moore McBride, PhD, interacts with students taking her “Social Work Practice with Organizations and Communities” class in Goldfarb Hall's experimental active learning classroom.

For the first half of the second semester, Room 37 in Goldfarb Hall was a normal, seminar-style classroom: tables and chairs in a “u-shaped” configuration; a podium in front of a whiteboard; and an instructor’s podium.

But over spring break at Washington University in St. Louis, Goldfarb 37 was transformed. For eight weeks, Brown School students in 15 courses took part in an experiment in pedagogy that brings teaching — and learning — into a new era.

This isn’t your parents’ lecture hall. Say hello to the wired world of interactive instruction — or active learning.

Goldfarb 37 is now a classroom with six tables arranged to encourage student interaction with each other instead of focusing on a podium. Six flatscreen monitors and laptop hookups are arranged around the room so students can project and share their work. Tables have chairs that easily can roll from station to station or be turned to join the larger group. These types of furnishings and technology facilitate active learning as juxtaposed to more passive learning, reflective of the prior room arrangement.

Whitney Curtis

Features of the classroom include laptop hookups, flatscreen monitors and tables that facilitate group discussion.

“We are treating this as a research experiment,” said Amanda Moore McBride, PhD, associate dean of the Brown School, who is principal investigator for the study and who teaches “Social Work Practice with Organizations and Communities,” a core course in the Master of Social Work program, in this classroom.

“As a teacher, I like to work the room,” she said. “This setup enables me to facilitate the learning process, where I can interact with individual students, any of the six groups, or the entire classroom at any given time with fluidity and ease.”

While student groups are busy preparing presentations and papers, McBride and her teaching assistant walk among them, listening to their processes, answering questions and offering advice.

“If I hear a common theme or question that needs answering, I can stop the work that’s going on and say to the class, ‘This is the issue I’m hearing, here is how you might approach it,’ ” she said.

On a late-April morning just two weeks before finals, students in McBride’s class were working together preparing their end-of-the-year project that would culminate in a public multimedia presentation.

“This is unlike any of our other classrooms,” said Karen Lawrence, a first-year master of social work student working with four classmates.

“This class involves a semester-long group project. It was very difficult to interact in groups before, but this new arrangement enables us to bring our individual work together — including our group's 50-page paper — and then collaborate and discuss it as we go along."

Whitney Curtis

The flexibility of the classroom allows the students to tackle group projects and work easily in group settings.

McBride said every component of the active learning classroom is being evaluated — types of chairs, types of tables, even the technology — through surveys and focus groups with the faculty and students who have taught and learned in this space.

The Brown School intends to use the research to inform its classroom design.

“This project represents the Brown School’s commitment to professional graduate-level training,” McBride said, “where we are creating learning environments and applying active learning pedagogies that will develop the problem-solving competencies of our public health and social work graduates.”

New study examines social isolation of young adults with autism spectrum disorder

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2013-05-01 00:00:00

Young adults with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are more likely to never see friends, never get called by friends, never be invited to activities and be socially isolated.

That’s the finding of new research released online this week in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders that studies the social outcomes of young adults with an ASD.

Shattuck

The study is part of a pioneering program of research on adolescents and adults with autism led by Paul T. Shattuck, PhD, associate professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Lead author is Gael I. Orsmond, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy at Boston University and an expert on the social development of adults with an ASD.

“This is another study from our project that demonstrates the many difficulties awaiting young adults with an ASD once they leave high school,” Shattuck said. “Autism is a lifelong challenge for most, and we need to find better ways of supporting people during this transition to adulthood.”

The study used data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study 2 and examined social participation among young adults with autism vs. those with other types of disabilities: intellectual disabilities, emotional/behavorial disabilities or learning disabilities.

The study also focused exclusively on young adulthood, the period, authors say, most crucial in forming and maintaining lifelong relationships.

The findings, over a 12-month period:

almost 40 percent of youth with ASDs never got together with friends;
50 percent never received phone calls or were invited to activities; and
28 percent were socially isolated with no social contact whatsoever.

“Difficulty navigating the terrain of friendships and social interaction is a hallmark feature of autism,” Shattuck said. “Nonetheless, many people with autism do indeed have a social appetite. They yearn for connection with others. We need better ways of supporting positive social connection and of preventing social isolation.”

This study was supported by funding to Shattuck from the National Institute of Mental Health; Autism Speaks; the Emch Foundation; and the Organization for Autism Research. Other authors are Benjamin P. Cooper of the Brown School; Paul Sterzing, PhD, assistant professor at the School of Social Welfare of the University of California, Berkeley; and Kristy A. Anderson of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

To read the full article, visit http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10803-013-1833-8.

Financial capability lecture at Brown Hall Monday, May 13

2013-05-01 00:00:00

Sherry Salway Black, director of the Partnership for Tribal Governance, National Congress of American Indians, will be on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis at 12:15 p.m. Monday, May 13, in Brown Hall’s Brown Lounge (Room 218).

Her talk, “Securing Our Futures: Building Financial Capability for Life,” is sponsored by the Brown School’s Center for Social Development (CSD) and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The lecture, part of the CSD's Financial Capability Lecture Series, is free and open to the public. Lunch will be provided, but registration is required and can be made here.

Financial life is increasingly complex. Payments, credit, saving and investing are challenging for all households, rich and poor alike. Financial capability — knowledge, skills and access to quality financial services — is essential for managing daily affairs and maintaining household stability.

Salway Black joined the staff of the National Congress of American Indians as director of the Partnership for Tribal Governance initiative in May 2009. She has served on the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Capability, whose purpose is to assist the American people in understanding financial matters and making informed financial decisions.

For more information, email Tiffany Heineman.

Brown School hosts 'Research Without Walls'

Thu, 02 Say 2013 18:49:27 CST

sid hastings (2)

The Brown School held its second annual Research Without Walls student symposium April 25 in the hallways of Brown and Goldfarb halls on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis. Above, Kate Clitheroe (left), a first-year student in the Master of Public Health program, shares her research project with Edward F. Lawlor, dean and the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor, and Janny Jones, a student at Brown. Research Without Walls gives students practice in presenting their research to peers, professors and the public in a relaxed, informal setting. This year's guest speaker was Katherine J. Mathews, MD, director of clinical services at Casa de Salud. The dean’s award went to Ryan Bell, a master of public health candidate graduating this month, for his research "A Review of Relief Efforts After Superstorm Sandy." Award-winning posters were displayed in the Goldfarb Commons. Awards were given for outstanding posters depicting internationally, nationally, regionally and locally focused research projects. In addition, outstanding displays of quantitative and qualitative information also were recognized.

Washington People: Ross Brownson

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2013-04-26 00:00:00

Joe Angeles

Brownson (left), president-elect of the American College of Epidemiology, talks with former student Carlos Mario Arango (MPH ’13). Brownson says that students keep him energized in his work, which involves developing solutions to some of today's most vexing public health problems.

In 1986, Ross Brownson, PhD, was an over-educated triathlete and store manager in Fort Collins, Colo., when he got a call from a former Colorado State University professor, who was heading up a division in the Missouri Department of Health.

“He said, ‘Ross, I have a job for you as a cancer epidemiologist if you’re willing to move to Missouri,’ ” Brownson says.

“I had never set foot in Missouri, but I said, ‘OK, I’ll take a chance on this.’ So I packed up and moved to Columbia.”

That Brownson, a native of Grand Junction, Colo., was selling running shoes and bicycles with a doctorate in his pocket wasn’t all that unusual.

“There may be more well-educated people working in retail and restaurants in Colorado than anywhere else in the world,” he says, “because there are great college towns and no one wants to leave the mountains.”

But leave the mountains for the Missouri plains he did, and Brownson, professor in both the Brown School and the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, has never looked back.

Calm, amiable, unflappable

Brownson spent eight years with the state health department, learning, as he says, how public health works in practice — combining his academic training with real-world policy development.

It was a combination, he says, that prepared him well for the next phase of his career — one that would launch him into becoming one of the country’s leading experts in chronic disease prevention and applied epidemiology.

His vitae has a long list of honors and awards; service experience; editorial boards and positions, including his joining the faculty at Saint Louis University (SLU) in 1994, and then moving to WUSTL in 2008. But his reputation speaks for itself. In September, Brownson will become president of the American College of Epidemiology after serving a one-year term as president-elect.

And it is his demeanor — calm, amiable, unflappable — that, when combined with his experience in both the public sector and academia, makes him uniquely situated to effect real change in public health from his office as co-director of the Prevention Research Center in St. Louis.

Building bridges

The center is distinctive in that it is a joint effort of WUSTL and SLU. Funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), its mission is to develop approaches to prevent chronic disease and improve health in high-risk communities. A large part of the work of Brownson’s teams has focused on understanding and promoting physical activity in the United States and Latin America.

“It’s unique in that we’re ‘co-located,’ ” Brownson says. “Universities are not naturally structured to collaborate effectively, but we’ve found a way of making this work and creating an excellent model for others.

“Both universities get the benefit of this kind of applied-prevention research. In addition to conducting the research and bringing in dollars to our institutions, we have opportunities to train students, partner with practitioners, and work with community members, so that we can ultimately improve people’s lives, which is what we are here to do.”

Brownson, who also is a faculty scholar at WUSTL’s Institute for Public Health, is building bridges everywhere — department to department, center to center, university to university. It’s this multidisciplinary approach to everything he does that endears Brownson to his colleagues — and to everyone he meets.

“Ross is widely known as not only one of the premier scholars in public health, but also one of the nicest human beings around,” says colleague Tim McBride, PhD, professor at the Brown School.

“He is a very generous person who is loyal, warm, and giving, and a great mentor to everyone, especially students and junior faculty,” says McBride.

Evidence-based practice

It was Brownson’s days in the public sector of the state that formed the basis for his research on evidence-based public health.

“I saw first-hand how much of public health practice was not evidence-based, wasn’t making the most effective use of the resources or making decisions based on the latest science,” he says.

Brownson cites an example. “When I started with the health department, we had no programs at all in cancer prevention. We did the estimates once and figured we were spending 3 percent of our public health dollars on chronic disease prevention — yet about 70 percent of the deaths were caused by chronic diseases.”

Brownson says the department didn’t abandon its traditional public health functions, such as maternal and child health and infectious disease control, but instead expanded its focus.

He was appointed as the first director of a new division focusing on chronic disease prevention.

“We raised the visibility (of chronic disease prevention) within the state, the governor’s office, and the legislature — in parallel with efforts at the CDC and the National Cancer Institute,” Brownson says.

“We consolidated existing programs and wrote grants to get new initiatives started.”

Energy and enthusiasm

Brownson says that’s where he realized that what you learn in school doesn’t always become reality when you’re out in practice. But he learned what had to change to makes things happen, and that’s been the basis of his prolific research in academia — at last count 325 articles and 11 books.

He cites two of them as being key texts in the public health arena: 2003’s Evidence-Based Public Health (with a second edition published in 2010) which “puts out the principles of what public health should be doing”; and 2012’s Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health: Translating Science to Practice, which, he says, spells out how to apply the vast evidence we have amassed on numerous topics in public health and medicine.

And what keeps him going – perhaps hearkening back to his student days at Colorado State – are the students themselves.

“I truly believe that being a college professor is the best job in the world,” Brownson says.

“At our research center, we get to hire the cream of the crop,” he says. “The students are unjaded and bring new energy and enthusiasm every year.

“I work with amazing staff and faculty colleagues who are solving the most vexing of public health issues.”

Graduate students recognize faculty mentors

2013-04-23 00:00:00

kevin lowder

The Graduate Student Senate at Washington University in St. Louis recognized eight faculty with Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards during its 14th annual awards ceremony, held April 10 in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge. Five of the 2012-13 recipients are (from left) John M. Doris, PhD, professor of philosophy in Arts & Sciences; David Wang, PhD, associate professor of molecular microbiology and of pathology and immunology at the School of Medicine; David Balota, PhD, professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences; Wendy Auslander, PhD, the Barbara A. Bailey Professor of Social Work at the Brown School; and Lynne Tatlock, PhD, the Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences. Not pictured are Gammon Earhart, PhD, associate professor of physical therapy; Nathan M. Jensen, PhD, associate professor of political science in Arts & Sciences; and Erik Trinkaus, PhD, the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor in Arts & Sciences. The awards are based on nominations by graduate students and designed to honor faculty members whose dedication to mentoring PhD students and commitment to excellence in graduate training have made a significant contribution to the quality of life and professional development of students in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Special recognition for excellence in mentoring went to six other faculty members at the ceremony. To see the list of faculty award winners, visit here.

WUSTL study on young adults with autism in the workplace continues to get recognition

2013-04-22 00:00:00

With awareness ever increasing about young adults with autism transitioning into the workforce, a 2012 study by Washington University in St. Louis researcher Paul Shattuck, PhD, associate professor at the Brown School, continues to get national recognition.

Shattuck

The study, titled “Postsecondary Education and Employment Among Youth With an Autism Spectrum Disorder” was published in June 2012 in the journal Pediatrics and tracked adults with autism over their first six years post-high school.

The study was one of 20 selected by the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and the Office of Autism Research Coordination for inclusion in the 2012 IACC Summary of Advances in Autism Spectrum Disorder Research.

The Summary of Advances, published in conjunction with April being national Autism Awareness Month, is a collection of studies selected by the IACC as the most significant biomedical and services research advances in the field of autism spectrum disorder research in the previous year.

Shattuck says very little is known about how life unfolds and what life looks like for adults with autism. “This study is really breaking new ground in terms of telling the story of what life looks like as people enter adulthood,” he says. “We chose to focus purposefully on young adulthood in the first few years after high school because that really is the beginning of adulthood. That sets the stage.

“If young people have a good launch during those first few years after high school, it sets them on a path that can spell success for many years to come. If they have a troubled launch on the years after high school, that can spell a troubled path,” he says.

A video of Shattuck discussing the study is below. To read more about the study, click here.

This is yet another distinction for Shattuck’s research. In December 2012, the study was chosen as one of the “Top Ten Autism Research Advances of 2012” by the advocacy organization Autism Speaks.

In 2009, his study on the age of diagnosis among children with autism was recognized as one of the most important autism studies of the year by both Autism Speaks and the IACC.

The IACC also recognized Shattuck's 2011 study on the use of services by adults with autism as one of that year’s 20 most impactful scientific studies in the field of autism.

http://youtu.be/Qyl2ZQRb4dsPaul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School, discusses the study chosen by Autism Speaks as one of the ‘Top Ten Research Advances of 2012.’

New faculty join Brown School, Law School

2013-04-22 00:00:00

Several new faculty members have joined the Brown School and the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis this academic year. Below are details about their backgrounds.

Brown School

Derek Brown, PhD, is an assistant professor.
Brown teaches courses in the Master of Public Health curriculum. Brown is also a scholar in the Washington University Institute for Public Health, a faculty affiliate in the Center for Violence and Injury Prevention, and senior research fellow at Duke Global Health Institute’s Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research. Brown is conducting research on the economics of child maltreatment, in particular among Medicaid populations using an innovative linkage of Medicaid claims and survey data. Begun with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) support, he continues this work as co-investigator of major grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. His research has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals such as American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Child Abuse and Neglect, Preventive Medicine and Vaccine. Brown is an active member of the CDC’s “Healthy People 2020” work group guiding federal health surveillance on health-related quality of life.

Sheretta Butler-Barnes, PhD, is an assistant professor.
Previously, Butler-Barnes was a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at University of Michigan’s School of Education affiliated with the Center for the Study of Black Youth in Context. She conducted research on how individual-level factors connected to black youths’ cultural backgrounds (for example, racial identity beliefs and religiosity) and ecological risk and resources (such as community violence, family and peer support) influence their achievement and psychological well-being outcomes. She also was a research assistant with North Carolina Central University’s African American Faith Communities Project. In this role, she investigated ways that faith communities support families and how families teach their children about their cultural heritage, examining such constructs as racial identity, racial socialization and theological orientation within black Protestant faith communities.

Amy A. Eyler, PhD, is an assistant professor.
Her research interests include cancer prevention, health education and behavior, as well as health politics and policy. Eyler conducts research as part of the Prevention Research Center (PRC) in St. Louis. She is principal investigator and coordinator of the Physical Activity Policy Research Network, integrating the work of 10 research sites studying the nature and extent of physical activity policy in a variety of settings. She is responsible for evaluation activities for core PRC projects and serves as collaborative investigator on cancer prevention and dissemination grants while procuring external research funding. Eyler received the Article of the Year Award in 1998 for Health Education and Behavior. Her most recent research has been featured in the American Journal of Health Education, Physical Education and Health and Health Politics Policy Law, among others. Eyler also has been tapped to edit and update the chapter on exercise and fitness in each new edition of the long-running introductory health text Access to Health.

Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, is an associate professor and is associate director of the Center for Social Development.
Grinstein-Weiss is a leading expert and researcher in the asset-building field and is an influential voice in the design of innovative savings policies, both in the United States and internationally. She is the leading researcher of the Refund to Savings initiative, the largest savings experiment in the United States, and is principal investigator of the first federal evaluation of the U.S. Department of Education’s GEAR UP program. Grinstein-Weiss also serves as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, as a research associate for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland and as a fellow for the Center of Community Capital. She previously was an associate professor at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Molly Metzger, PhD, is an assistant professor.
Metzger’s research explores the ways in which public policies interact with social structure and developmental factors to shape cities and lives. Metzger’s work focuses on affordable housing policy, racial segregation and the deconcentration of poverty in American cities. Her recent work includes a community-based participatory research project in which she partnered with residents of the Julia C. Lathrop Homes, the last major public housing on Chicago’s north side.
Her work also extends to other areas of social welfare, including education policy and early childhood development. She has contributed to the growing body of literature demonstrating the long-term health benefits of breastfeeding, particularly with regard to preventing obesity. And while working at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies, she managed data collection for an early-childhood intervention based at 35 Chicago Head Start sites. She has experience with Chicago’s urban poverty as a researcher, service provider and citizen and uses that experience in her research and teaching.

David A. Patterson, Silver Wolf (Adelv unegv Waya), PhD, is an assistant professor.
Patterson has provided clinical, addiction-related services for more than 15 years and currently is an associated researcher with the University at Buffalo’s Research Institute on Addictions and the Buffalo Center for Social Research. His research focuses on barriers to best-practice implementation in human services organizations, specifically investigating worker and organizational characteristics and their roles in adopting proven practices. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has funded his research. Patterson’s other research focus is on Native American health and wellness, particularly on issues related to college retention. Some of his funded work has been directed toward adapting a Native American-specific HIV/AIDS risk reduction intervention. He is an Indigenous HIV/AIDS Research Training fellow and collaborates with University of Washington’s Indigenous Wellness Research Institute.

Zorimar Rivera-Núñez, PhD, is an assistant professor.
Rivera-Núñez teaches courses in the Master of Public Health program.
Previously, Rivera-Núñez completed post-doctoral training with the National Academies Research Associateship Program at the Environmental Protection Agency in Cincinnati. As part of this training, she examined exposure assessment tools related to drinking-water contaminants. This research has applications to epidemiological studies of adverse health outcomes. She also participated in forums to provide technical assistance on community based-efforts. In addition, she was part of a team examining how best to evaluate cumulative risk at the community level. At the University of Michigan, Rivera-Núñez was awarded a National Cancer Institute fellowship under the Comprehensive Minority Biomedical Branch to investigate urinary arsenic species as biomarkers of arsenic exposure through drinking water. She also participated in air pollution research projects such as “Air Pollution, Inflammation and Preterm Birth in Mexico City.” Rivera-Núñez is interested in the temporal and spatial variation of environmental contaminants and the effects of those contaminants on women’s and children’s health.

Jean-Francois Trani, PhD, is an assistant professor.
Previously, Trani was a senior research associate at the Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London. His work lies at the intersection of mental health, disability, vulnerability and poverty, with a focus on conducting research that informs policy and service design for individuals living in conflict-affected fragile states and other low-income countries, such as Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Sierra Leone and Sudan (Darfur). For example, Trani's research has contributed to the policy papers of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan regarding disability issues. Trani's research has been funded by a number of organizations, including the U.K. AID/Department for International Development, European Commission, U.N. Mine Action Center in Afghanistan, Handicap International, UNICEF and the World Bank.

School of Law

Goldburn P. Maynard Jr., JD, is a visiting assistant professor of law.
Maynard is a rising scholar in tax law and trusts and estates. His co-authored article in the Tulane Law Review, “To Pay or Delay: The Nominee’s Dilemma under Collection Due Process,” won the John Minor Wisdom Award for best lead article in the volume. Before joining the law faculty, he served as an estate tax attorney for the Internal Revenue Service in Oakland, Calif. He also was a tax associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Chicago. At the University of Chicago Law School, he was a staff member of the University of Chicago Law Review. He served as an intern at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and at the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago. Following law school, he earned his LLM in taxation with honors from Northwestern University School of Law. Maynard is a member of the Illinois bar.

Elizabeth Sepper, JD, is an associate professor of law.
Sepper is a health law scholar whose work explores the interaction of morality, professional ethics and law in medicine. Her most recent article, forthcoming in the Virginia Law Review, challenges the standard account of the role of conscience in health-care delivery, which limits conscience to medical providers who refuse to deliver controversial treatments. She also has published in the areas of human rights, women’s rights and international health law. Her articles have appeared in the Texas International Law Journal, University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law and New York University Law Review. She has clerked for Judge Marjorie Rendell of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and practiced at Human Rights Watch and at New York University School of Law’s Center for Human Rights and Global Justice.

Andrew F. Tuch, SJD, is an associate professor of law.
Tuch is an accomplished scholar in the fields of corporate law, securities regulation and the regulation of financial institutions, especially investment banks. His scholarship has appeared in the Virginia Law Review, as well as in peer-reviewed journals in the United Kingdom and Australia. His article “Multiple Gatekeepers” was named among the "Ten Best Corporate and Securities Articles of 2011" by Corporate Practice Commentator. He earned an SJD degree from Harvard Law School, where his research was twice awarded the Victor Brudney Prize for the Best Paper in Corporate Governance. Tuch clerked for Justice G.L. Davies of the Queensland Court of Appeal, practiced corporate law at Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York and London, and was a member of the law faculty at the University of Sydney. Tuch is a member of the New York bar and is qualified to practice in Australia, England and Wales.

‘Be a sponge’ and other advice to help students succeed at summer internships

Steve Givens — 2013-04-23 00:00:00

As students begin to leave campus for the summer, many will head off to internships, hoping to add to their classroom experiences and enhance their future opportunities by immersing themselves in the real world of work.

It’s a great way to spend the summer, said Mark Smith, Washington University in St. Louis’ associate vice chancellor for students and director of the Career Center, but to get the most out of the experience, it’s imperative that students have a clear plan.

“An internship can be the start of a great career, a way to make some money, a way to find out what you really like — and don't like — a way to confirm and fulfill your passions,” Smith said. “But you need to have a plan and the people you work with and for need to know about it.”

Essentially, Smith said, it comes down to these questions: What do you want to know about yourself, the industry in which you are working, and the function you are performing? And what can you can learn by the end of the summer and incorporate into your career planning and course choices when you return?

Smith offers four tips that will help make a summer internship more meaningful and productive.

1. It’s essential to communicate upfront to your supervisors what kinds of experiences you want to have before the end of the internship.

“Don't assume that the people you are working with will automatically know what you want,” Smith said. “You need to communicate the learning experiences and exposure you'd like to get in this very short time frame. Don't let past interns determine your summer. Your needs and goals are unique to you. Be professional, be clear, and don't give up. Most everyone at your firm is inclined to want to see you have a positive experience. Let them know what that experience looks like from your perspective.”

2. Find informal ways to meet others within the organization.

“Grab some coffee with folks you don't work directly with,” Smith said. “Set up lunches every week with people who are interesting to you, outside of your area. People love to talk about their work and careers — their achievements, their challenges, where they want to go next, and what they would recommend to you. By doing these things you will stand out, build a network of associates, and most importantly, learn what you need to know about where you want to direct your career passions when you return to school.”

3. Set high expectations and make the most of the experience, especially in the first four weeks.

“Be a sponge,” Smith said. “Do more than expected. Contribute in ways outside of the scope of the role they gave you. It will open opportunities that they, and you, hadn't considered at the beginning of your program. If you don't do this at the start, and you wait for the internship to evolve, you won't optimize your learning experience.”

4. Keep a journal and ask yourself questions such as:

• Do I really like working for this size of an organization?
• Is this type of organization the best way to start off my career?
• Would I want to spend eight hours a day working with people who do this kind of work?
• Would I be happy starting my career in a rigid culture that pays well, but which doesn't offer me the personal independence I am used to?
• Is it critical to get a graduate degree to be promoted in this industry?
• Where do those around me get their personal and professional satisfaction?
• How do professionals in this organization keep up with all the new developments?
• How do you get promoted in this industry?
• Which are the best organizations in this industry? Why are they the best?

Smith emphasizes that upfront planning and hard work are the keys to a successful internship.

“Every summer thousands of interns realize, too late, what they could have experienced, if they only communicated at the beginning what they wanted, and given 110 percent from Day One,” he said.

Bringing the world to Brown Hall

Son, 22 Apr 2013 20:08:18 CST

jerry naunheim jr. (2)

Brown School students representing Kyrgyzstan perform a traditional national Kyrgyz Dance during the Brown School’s 19th annual International Festival April 12. The event featured 13 performances from 17 countries. Below, Meimei Liu, 2, and her mom, Brown School student Min Liu, enjoy a meal from one of the myriad food booths set up in Goldfarb Commons. This year’s theme was International Journey to Greatness: Now Boarding!

Rising melanoma rates among adolescents, children are subject of new study

2013-04-09 00:00:00

With springtime temperatures and warm weather approaching, the inclination to spend time outdoors is a strong one – especially for children who have been cooped up all winter.

But parents should be vigilant about sunscreen. And teenage girls might want to rethink springtime tanning and tanning beds. A new study out of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis looks at the increase of melanoma, a form of skin cancer, in children and adolescents and what those trends might be telling us.

Johnson

“Melanoma,” said Kimberly J. Johnson, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School and senior author of the study, “is rare in children between the ages of 0 and 19 years with just 400-500 individuals diagnosed annually in the U.S.

“Similar to what we’re seeing in adults, rates have increased over the past several decades,” she said. “Although the exact reasons for this trend are unclear, parents should be vigilant about helping children and adolescents reduce their chance of developing melanoma by practicing sun-protective behaviors and avoiding tanning beds.”

The study, “Incidence of Childhood and Adolescent Melanoma in the United States: 1973-2009,” will be published online Monday, April 15, in the journal Pediatrics. The research was being presented during a poster session in Washington, D.C., on April 9, at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research.

Lead author Jeannette R. Wong, MPH, of the Radiation Epidemiology Branch of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics of the National Cancer Institute, started the study as a student in the Master of Public Health Program at the Brown School. In addition to Wong and Johnson, co-authors include Jenine K. Harris, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School, and Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, MD, of Harvard University.

“The study will help put melanoma on the radar of pediatricians,” said Johnson, who also is a faculty scholar in WUSTL's Institute for Public Health.

A large percentage of a person’s lifetime exposure to UV radiation occurs during childhood. Children and adolescents spend more time outdoors, especially in the summer months, and may receive three times more UV rays than adults. In addition, an individual’s childhood UV exposure is a risk factor for melanoma later in life.

Johnson and the researchers used Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results data from nine U.S. cancer registries and found that the incidence of childhood and adolescent melanoma has been significantly increasing in the United States from 1973-2009 — an average of 2 percent per year.

Among the risk factors for melanoma are fair skin, light-colored hair and eyes, family history, prevalence of such things as birthmarks, moles or blemishes; and an increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation.

“The true impact of this research will be to increase awareness of the dangers of too much exposure to the sun and artificial tanning,” Johnson said.

Sherraden moderates panel discussion on poverty alleviation at Clinton Global Initiative University

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2013-04-06 00:00:00

Joe Angeles

Michael Sherraden (right) moderates the panel discussion on poverty alleviation. Law student Kailey Burger is at left.

Michael Sherraden, PhD, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, moderated a panel discussion April 6 at the sixth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U).

The session was titled “Poverty and Promise in America’s Rust Belt” and was held in Umrath Hall on the Danforth Campus.

Sherraden, founder and director of the Brown School’s Center for Social Development (CSD) and known for his pioneering work on asset building for low-income people, moderated a panel that included Karen Freeman-Wilson, mayor of the city of Gary, Ind.; Kailey Burger, a third-year student at Washington University School of Law; and Annis Stubbs, executive director, Teach For America-Detroit.

"This was an incredible opportunity for the university community and I was honored to be a part of it," Sherraden said. "The energy on campus — both at this session and throughout the weekend — was palpable."

The 75-minute session included some viable suggestions for the approximately 200 students who packed into Umrath Lounge. The CGI U partipants heard the panel talk about everything from how to inspire volunteers, to how they overcame challenges such as funding and working in a neighborhood that might look different and feel different than anything they’ve experienced before.

One suggestion came from Burger, who returned to the WUSTL campus from an internship in New York, talking about her project, the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy projects. Burger stressed to the students the importance of having a plan.

“You have to come up with a real plan that’s going to work,” Burger said. “The last thing residents want is to hear a few ideas, take them out to lunch, then you leave. … You need to say, ‘Here’s what I see us doing together.’ ”

Burger also said her group found focus groups helpful.

“You want to make sure you’re not just providing services, but providing them in a way they feel tied to it and are growing the community together.”

Wilson-Freeman addressed the question of inspiring a group to work together.

“It’s one thing for me to jump off a cliff, because my name was on the ballot, but it’s another thing for 15 people to jump off with you,” she said. “So I tried to create a sense of responsibility. I told them ‘all of us came from the city and we were able to build lives based on the fact we went to public schools here; we had adults who made investments in us and we achieved success. Who’s doing that now?'

“I need you to help me and create the same – or better – atmosphere that we grew up in so we can create the same opportunities.”

After the panel forum, students held table discussions to help put the ideas into action as Sherraden and the panelists circulated among them.

Prior to the session, two CGI U projects were honored,including a WUSTL-based project called D*Serves (Design Serves), in which Brown School student De Andrea Nichols was called out for her project.

McArthur to speak April 11 at Brown School Policy Forum

Son, 08 Apr 2013 19:50:29 CST

International development economist John W. McArthur, DPhil, will speak on the Washington University in St. Louis campus at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 11, in Brown Hall Lounge.

McArthur

McArthur will appear on behalf of the Brown School’s Policy Forum. His talk is titled “The Millenium Development Goals, the Eradication of Extreme Poverty, and the Future of Global Inequality.”

The event is free and open to the public.

McArthur is an economist focused on interrelated issues of economic growth, technological advance, sustainability, poverty reduction and global collaboration. He is a senior fellow with the United Nations Foundation; senior fellow with the Fung Global Institute’s project on Evolving Growth Models; and a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution.

He was previously the chief executive officer of Millennium Promise, the leading international non-governmental organization solely committed to supporting the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to cut extreme poverty by half by 2015.

Among other achievements, McArthur served as manager and deputy director of the United Nations Millennium Project, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s independent advisory body mandated to recommend an action plan for achieving the MDGs. His research and writing has focused on how factors like agriculture, health, geography, institutions, technology and public finance link to economic growth and development.

His writing has appeared in publications such as The Bangkok Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Foreign Affairs, The Toronto Globe and Mail, The National Post and Stanford Social Innovation Review.

McArthur earned a DPhil and MPhil in economics from Oxford University, where he attended as a Rhodes Scholar; a master’s in public policy from Harvard University; and a bachelor of arts from the University of British Columbia. He is a native of Canada.

Trustees grant faculty promotions, tenure

2013-04-01 00:00:00

At recent Board of Trustees meetings, the following faculty members were appointed with tenure, promoted with tenure or granted tenure, effective July 1, 2013, unless otherwise noted.

Appointment with tenure

Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, PhD, as professor in the humanities in Arts & Sciences

Roch Guérin, PhD, as professor of computer science

Azad Bonni, MD, PhD, as professor of neurobiology, effective Dec. 6, 2012

Fumihiko Urano, MD, PhD, as associate professor of medicine, effective March 1, 2013

Promotion with tenure

Roya Beheshti Zavareh, PhD, to associate professor of mathematics in Arts & Sciences

Jeffrey G. Catalano, PhD, to associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences

Shefali Chandra, PhD, to associate professor of history in Arts & Sciences

Todd R. Decker, PhD, to associate professor of music in Arts & Sciences

Brett D. Hyde, PhD, to associate professor of philosophy in Arts & Sciences

Matthew D. Kerr, PhD, to associate professor of mathematics in Arts & Sciences

Liviu M. Mirica, PhD, to associate professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences

Frédéric P. Moynier, PhD, to associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences

Jamie L. Newhard, PhD, to associate professor of Japanese in Arts & Sciences

Alexander Seidel, PhD, to associate professor of physics in Arts & Sciences

Paul T. Shattuck, PhD, to associate professor of social work

Mariagiovanna Baccara, PhD, to associate professor of economics in the Olin Business School

Young-Shin Jun, PhD, to associate professor of energy, environmental and chemical engineering

Caitlin Kelleher, PhD, to associate professor of computer science and engineering

Robert Brophy, MD, to associate professor of orthopedic surgery, effective March 1, 2013

W. Todd Cade, PT, PhD, to associate professor of physical therapy, effective March 1, 2013

Joseph Corbo, MD, PhD, to associate professor of pathology and immunology

Michael J. Gardner, MD, to associate professor of orthopedic surgery, effective March 1, 2013

Andrew E. Gelman, PhD, to associate professor of surgery (cardiothoracic surgery), effective March 1, 2013

Chyi-Song Hsieh, MD, PhD, to associate professor of medicine

Sanjay Jain, MD, PhD, to associate professor of medicine

Conrad C. Weihl, MD, PhD, to associate professor of neurology, effective March 1, 2013

Kathleen Y. Wolin, ScD, to associate professor of surgery (general surgery), effective March 1, 2013

Granting of tenure

Jianxin Bao, PhD, as associate professor of otolaryngology, effective Dec. 6, 2012

Richard Grucza, PhD, as associate professor of psychiatry, effective Dec. 6, 2012

Mark James Miller, PhD, as associate professor of medicine, effective Dec. 6, 2012

Sarah K. England, PhD, as professor of obstetrics and gynecology, effective March 1, 2013

Passing the torch

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2013-03-28 00:00:00

James Byard

McBride addresses the crowd at Faces of Hope March 27 in the Danforth University Center.

Rachel Smidt, a master of public health candidate at the Brown School, remembers vividly one of her first days as a graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Amanda Moore McBride was speaking to our class at orientation,” Smidt says, “and she was telling us, ‘It’s true: A single person can change the world.

“And now, we have this incredible opportunity.”

The opportunity is the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), and McBride, PhD, associate dean of the Brown School, is helping to spearhead the April 5-7 effort as director of the Gephardt Institute for Public Service.

Smidt, who will be a participant in CGI U, says McBride’s enthusiasm for sparking change was a moment that stuck with her.

What’s more, McBride remembers the moment – and the person – who made her believe a single person could change the world: President Bill Clinton.

As McBride tells it, she was a senior at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., in November, 1992, when she and a few of her friends drove into Little Rock to see their governor make his first public speech after his election as president.

“We had to park miles away and we walked to the governor’s mansion,” says McBride, who grew up in Batesville, Ark. “The lawn was packed, but one of my buddies helped me up onto a fence so I could get a glimpse of the president-elect.

“It was so exciting – and inspiring. Bill Clinton’s entire campaign message was about opportunity and change.

“Listening to his speech that day was a touchstone moment that has stayed with me my whole life,” she says. “That’s the day I decided to commit my life to social change.”

Twenty one years later, McBride, an accomplished and acclaimed researcher, was emceeing the Gephardt Institute’s annual Faces of Hope event March 27, which this year served as the kickoff to CGI U.

“This will be a touchstone moment for you for the rest of your lives,” McBride told Smidt and the other students gathered at the event.

Clinton, himself inspired as a young man by President John F. Kennedy, inspired a career of service in McBride and now McBride is inspiring a new cohort of young people through the Brown School and events like CGI U.

A torch being passed, from generation to generation.

Faces of Hope rally readies campus for Clinton Global Initiative University

2013-03-28 00:00:00

The Faces of Hope rally -- complete with drummers, video remarks by Chelsea Clinton and the announcement of Washington University in St. Louis' $30 million commitment to sustainability -- helped excite the WUSTL community as the campus prepares to host Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) April 5-7.

CGI U is an annual meeting bringing together students and youth, experts and celebrities to discuss and work to solve pressing global challenges. To learn more about CGI U, including student projects, events and related programming and the important work WUSTL faculty, students and staff are doing, visit cgiu.wustl.edu.

james byard

Students who have committed to completing projects as part of CGI U gathered at Washington University's Danforth University Center to showcase and explain their plans to WUSTL community members during the Faces of Hope rally and celebration. The rally was also a zero-net waste event, with students using laptops instead of posters to explain their ideas. To learn more about students' commitments to action, visit cgiu.wustl.edu.

james byard

Members of the Crash Band drum line and the WUSTL cheerleading squad provide a rousing start to the campus' annual Faces of Hope event celebrating civic engagement and community service by WUSTL faculty, students and staff. This year's event focused on projects students are developing as part of CGI U, from helping St. Louis youth improve their neighborhoods to installing a wind turbine in Nicaragua.

james byard

Washington University Executive Vice Chancellor for Administration Hank Webber announces the university's $30 million Energy Conservation Investment during the Faces of Hope rally. "The inspiring work of our faculty, staff and students is helping to solve pressing global issues," he said. Amanda Moore McBride, director of the Gephardt Institute for Public Service, and Student Union President Julian Nicks also made remarks. Nicks encouraged people to make small changes in their own lives, such as taking shorter showers, saying such steps added together can have a meaningful impact.

james byard

Students explain their CGI U projects to Amanda Moore McBride, right, chair of the WUSTL CGI U effort, during the Faces of Hope rally. About 200 WUSTL students have committed to completing projects that address one of CGI U's focus areas: education, environment and climate change, peace and human rights, poverty alleviation and public health.

james byard

Students make their pledges to sustainability during the Faces of Hope rally. The display offers a visible sign of the university's "Less is More" campaign, a new initiative that encourages individuals to take simple steps such as turning off lights when they're not needed and recycling as much as possible.

University’s Commitment to Action brings $30 million to advance sustainability

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-03-27 00:00:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4R5GKfHUUg&feature=share&list=PLb9ODR3vzQJM-ZkBw7DngUgJU8enswKkw

Henry S. Webber, executive vice chancellor for administration, discusses the $30 million dollar sustainability commitment Washington University is making as part of its Clinton Global Initiative University efforts. The ambitious plan involves returning the university to 1990 emissions levels despite a doubling in size of the campus and its Medical School.

As part of its Clinton Global Initiative University efforts, Washington University in St. Louis has announced a major institutional commitment to action around the important issue of sustainability.

Webber

“Human health and environmental sustainability are inextricably linked,” said Henry S. Webber, executive vice chancellor for administration. “As a university community, one of the most important things we can do is consume less. Consuming less reduces greenhouse gas emissions; cuts down on fossil fuel consumption; and positively impacts air and water quality, public health, climate patterns, agricultural production and more.”

As such, Washington University is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 22 percent by 2020, reverting to 1990 levels.

To advance this goal, the university has established an Energy Conservation Investment of $30 million that will enable the university to accelerate investments in:

greater energy efficiency
improved heating and cooling
better waste management

Students, faculty and staff are committing to consume less as part of the university’s “Less is More” campaign.

Taking simple actions such as turning off lights and recycling as much as possible, combined with the institutional investment, will result in lower emissions and preservation of natural resources.

While the university has accomplished much in recent years to reduce its environmental impact, these commitments strengthen the institution’s resolve to push this initiative to the next level.

“Society expects great universities to provide leadership on critical social issues and to be very wise stewards of our resources,” Webber said. “Our sustainability work does both.

“We’re showing how as a $2.3 billion economic engine, we can significantly reduce our environmental impact, and we can do so in a way that’s also economically viable. That frees up resources to invest in our primary missions of teaching, research and patient care.”

Sustainability at WUSTL

Washington University in St. Louis is a national leader in sustainability, a core priority that runs through all aspects of the campus community, operations and the university’s work as a leading research and teaching institution.

The university already has made great strides in the area of sustainability. While the university’s square footage has more than doubled since 1990, to 11.5 million square feet from 5.7 million square feet, the university has reduced its overall energy usage by 4 percent during this time.

Sixty-eight percent of waste was diverted from landfills in 2012 and the university has amassed more than $109 million in avoided energy costs since 1990.

Washington University is the hub of an international laboratory, training leaders while creating and nurturing ideas aimed at forging a more sustainable future. Significant global partnerships are helping to address issues of energy, environment and sustainability through international collaborative research efforts.

For more information, visit sustain.wustl.edu. For more information about the Clinton Global Initiative University, visit cgiu.wustl.edu.

Faces of Hope campus rally to kick off Clinton Global Initiative University

Kelly Wiese Niemeyer — 2013-03-20 00:00:00

People around campus have been considering their personal commitments to action since it was announced that CGI U would be coming to Washington University in St. Louis. Above, engineering students Brittany Edwards, left, and Sara Fletcher are committed to alternative energy research. To view a gallery of commitments to action from WUSTL faculty, staff and students, visit the Washington University Facebook page.

Install a wind turbine in Nicaragua. Create a mobile app to help illiterate women in Pakistan access health and education information. Teach youth in distressed St. Louis neighborhoods leadership skills to improve their communities. Help people in China quit smoking. Get veterans to train horses for therapy use. Provide HPV vaccines to youths in Uganda.

These are just a sampling of the detailed and far-reaching projects Washington University in St. Louis students have committed to accomplishing as part of this year’s Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), which will hold its annual meeting on campus in April.

The Faces of Hope event on Wednesday, March 27, is an opportunity for the WUSTL community and friends to come together and get ready for CGI U.

UPCOMING CGI U PROGRAMMING:

6 p.m. March 25, January Hall, Room 110. Screening of Precious Knowledge documentary
2 p.m. April 5, Wilson Hall, Room 214. "Debt and Inequality" lecture, Louis Hyman, author of Borrow: The American Way of Debt. 3:30 p.m. April 6, Former President Bill Clinton and Stephen Colbert, host of The Colbert Report, hold the closing plenary session of CGI U.

- RSVP for Faces of Hope here.

- Stay tuned for watch party information.

- Visit cgiu.wustl.edu for the latest event and schedule updates.

Learn about more than 50 of the 118 projects that students have committed to for CGI U. Hear university leaders’ announcement of a major institutional commitment to action, and find out how you can be part of the WUSTL-CGI U effort that starts on campus next month.

Faces of Hope is an annual event at WUSTL, hosted by the Gephardt Institute for Public Service, that celebrates the faculty, staff and students’ civic engagement and community service. The rally provides a chance to learn more about particular service projects under way and network with like-minded community members.

Faces of Hope will run from 4:30-6 p.m. in the Danforth University Center’s first- and second-floor common areas. Attendees can support the WUSTL commitment by signing a pledge and choosing a giveaway item. To receive a giveaway, people must pre-register here by Friday, March 22.

Recognizing CGI U’s commitment to protecting the environment, the Faces of Hope gathering plans to be a zero-net waste and energy event.
The 200 students’ commitments address at least one of the five focus areas of CGI U: education, environment and climate change, peace and human rights, poverty alleviation and public health.

Here are just a few examples:

Claire Christensen, a senior majoring in economics in Arts & Sciences, aims to raise $10,000 to install a wind turbine in Sumu Kaat, Nicaragua. One turbine could provide 1,500 kilowatt hours of energy a year to 10 homes. Christensen plans events that would serve dual roles as fundraisers and educational efforts to teach people about climate change and the importance of sustainable development both in the United States and abroad.

Medical student Mengyang Sun plans to provide HPV vaccines, which protect against cervical cancer, to everyone, male and female, between 9 and 26 years old residing in Gulu District in northern Uganda. Cervical cancer is a leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women in developing countries. Rather than focusing on screening and early detection, as many efforts do, Sun’s project strives for cancer prevention through mass vaccination.

Closer to home, De Andrea Nichols, a graduate student in social work, proposes D*Serve, a program to empower young people in north St. Louis to turn around their neighborhoods by teaching them skills in design and civic leadership, offering lessons and projects in areas such as architecture, communications and public art.

To learn more about CGI U, including student projects, events and the important work WUSTL faculty, students and staff are doing today in CGI U’s five focus areas, visit cgiu.wustl.edu.

Co-sponsors for Faces of Hope are Dell Inc., WUSTL’s Office of Sustainability, Dining Services and Bon Appétit’s Eco-to-Go Program, and student initiatives Net Impact, Tote Green and the Student Union’s Green Events Commission.

Sherraden to lead panel discussion at Clinton Global Initiative University

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2013-03-19 00:00:00

Sherraden

Michael Sherraden, PhD, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, will be among a distinguished list of speakers for the sixth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) to be held April 5-7 at Washington University.

Former President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton made the announcement.

“It’s an honor to represent the Washington University in St. Louis faculty at the Clinton Global Initiative University," Sherraden said. "WUSTL faculty are leaders in social innovation. CGI U could not be in a better place.”

CGI U will bring together more than 1,000 college students with innovators, thought leaders and civically engaged celebrities to make "commitments to action" to address the most pressing challenges facing their campuses and communities in areas such as education, environment and climate change, human rights, poverty alleviation and public health.

In asking Sherraden to lead a working session on poverty, organizers have enlisted one of the most innovative thinkers of the last 25 years. Sherraden is founder and director of the Brown School’s Center for Social Development (CSD) and is known for his pioneering work on asset building for low-income people.

His 1991 book, Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy, proposed establishing for the poor individual savings accounts — also known as Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). His program calls for the government and private sector to match individual contributions to IDAs as a means of encouraging savings and breaking the cycle of poverty. IDAs have been adopted at the federal level and in more than 40 states.

President Clinton mentioned IDAs in his 1999 State of the Union address and a much larger program for universal retirement savings in his 2000 State of the Union address. In 2010, Time magazine named Sherraden to its “Time 100,” the publication’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Sherraden has been at the Brown School since 1979, where he has mentored graduate students and younger faculty.

“The Brown School is a special place committed to moving things forward in the world,” Sherraden said. “I am particularly excited about our young faculty, who are designing and testing social innovations in areas that matter, such as positive child and youth development, ownership of assets for educational attainment and improved health, civic service opportunities, adaptation to environmental changes, decarceration of America’s prisons, financial capability for all Americans, and productive engagement of older adults.

"These initiatives are all supported in one way or another by the Center for Social Development," he says. "The younger faculty are enormously capable. They will continue to expand the impact of the Brown School.”

At CGI U, Sherraden will lead a working session and panel discussion on “Poverty and Promise in America’s Rust Belt.”

He joins such notable speakers as Chelsea Clinton, board member, William J. Clinton Foundation; Stephen Colbert, host and executive producer of "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central; Hawa Abdi Diblawe, founder, the Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation; Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO, Square Inc. and co-founder and executive chairman, Twitter Inc.; Salman Khan, founder and executive director, Khan Academy; Jada Pinkett Smith, actress and advocate, Don’t Sell Bodies; and Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, chairman, the Yunus Centre and founder, Grameen Bank.

To learn more about CGI U at Washington University, visit cgiu.wustl.edu.

Pow Wow 2013: 'Honoring Our Cultures'

Thu, 21 Sar 2013 20:27:02 CST

James byard (2)

Participants in the 23rd annual Pow Wow at Washington University in St. Louis line up for the grand entrance in the Field House March 16. The annual event, hosted by the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies at the Brown School, offered visitors and participants a full day of dancing, singing, drumming, arts, crafts and food. Below, the AC Woodland Singers, from the Alabama Coushatta Reservation in Livingston, Texas, sing gourd dance songs for the surrounding gourd dancers. The gourd dance honors veterans. This year’s Pow Wow theme was "Honoring Our Cultures While Strengthening Our Communities." The theme was chosen as a reminder that when it comes to community development among American Indians, it is important to honor and celebrate traditions while strengthening community.

Mental health in Afghanistan: Poverty, vulnerability have bigger impact than war, study finds

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2013-03-06 00:00:00

With the United States and affiliated NATO troops preparing to pull out of war-torn Afghanistan by the end of 2014, attention will continue to focus on the 12-year war and the aftermath on its citizens.

Trani

But a new study on mental health in Afghanistan looks beyond the effects of war and identifies the root causes of mental distress and anxiety among its citizens: poverty and vulnerability.

“War exposure is undisputedly a factor of mental distress and anxiety, but other predictors, such as poverty and vulnerability, are stronger and probably more persistent risk factors that have not received deserved attention in policy decisions,” says Jean-Francois Trani, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University and lead author of a new study published in the online first edition of Transcultural Psychiatry.

“Political unrest and violence is fueled by despair and frustrations often associated with mental distress,” Trani says. “A lack of resources or inability to find work make it impossible to assume one’s social status. That, in turn, leads to distress that can conduct to young men choosing a path of violent opposition to authorities and an international presence.”

The study, "Vulnerability and Mental Health in Afghanistan: Looking Beyond War Exposure," is co-authored by Parul Bakhshi, PhD, research assistant professor in the Program of Occupational Therapy at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. It shows that even in a time of war, mental health is influenced by a combination of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics linked to social exclusion mechanisms — factors that were in place before war began.

“The conflict magnifies factors that were already in place,” Trani says, “and are redefined in relation to the changing social, cultural and economic contexts.”

Trani says that with limited resources, policy makers need to prioritize and target the needs of social groups that have multiple vulnerabilities.

“Our study shows these groups are less resilient and more at risk of mental health distress and disorders,” Trani says. “Genuinely addressing their needs can only help build a more stable and prosperous Afghanistan.”

Trani, who also is a faculty scholar in WUSTL’s Institute for Public Health, is in his second year teaching at the Brown School and came to the university from the Leonard Cheshire Disability and Inclusive Development Centre in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London.

He has firsthand knowledge of working among the poor in Afghanistan, having worked for a nongovernmental organization in Kabul eight years ago studying social exclusion in Afghanistan and identifying which groups are more at risk of poverty and vulnerability.

Trani also recently released a study on children and poverty in Afghanistan, “The Multidimensionality of Child Poverty: Evidence from Afghanistan” in Social Indicators Research.

Trani and Bakhshi have worked on a number of projects in Afghanistan in recent years and will keep a close eye on how the social climate evolves in Afghanistan as the international troops pull out.

“When reconstruction projects or humanitarian efforts come in, do all benefit, or are some excluded and why?” Trani asks. “What are the factors that explain these inequalities in terms of benefiting from economic or social intelligence? These are the questions that will weigh in on what ‘development’ will entail in everyday lives of Afghans in the coming years.”

CGI U announces 2013 speakers; new CGI University Network to fund student commitments

2013-03-05 00:00:00

Among the featured speakers:

Chelsea Clinton, board member, William J. Clinton Foundation; Stephen Colbert, host and executive producer of ‘The Colbert Report’ on Comedy Central; Hawa Abdi Dhiblawe, founder, the Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation; Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO, Square Inc.; co-founder and executive chairman, Twitter Inc.; Salman Khan, founder and executive director, Khan Academy; Michael Sherraden, founding director, Center for Social Development and the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis; Jada Pinkett Smith, actress and advocate, Don’t Sell Bodies; and Muhammad Yunus, chairman, the Yunus Centre, will speak on pressing global challenges at CGI U 2013, to be held April 5-7 at Washington University in St. Louis.

For a full list of speakers visit http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/25060.aspx. For more information visit: http://cgiu.wustl.edu.

Former President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton announced the program and featured participants for the sixth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) to be held at Washington University in St. Louis April 5-7.

CGI U will bring together more than 1,000 college students worldwide with innovators, thought leaders and civically engaged celebrities to make Commitments to Action to address the most pressing challenges facing their campuses and communities in areas such as education, environment and climate change, human rights, poverty alleviation and public health.

More than $400,000 in funding will be available for students to carry out their commitments made at CGI U, primarily through the newly established CGI University Network of 33 colleges and universities that have committed to support, mentor and provide seed funding to student innovators and entrepreneurs from their respective schools.

“The schools that have joined the CGI University Network are supporting student commitment-makers to create positive change across the globe,” said Bill Clinton. “This year, CGI U will bring together more than 1,000 college students representing all 50 states and six continents to explore concrete ways to build a better tomorrow. I look forward to working with the young leaders who come to Washington University in St. Louis this April with their enthusiasm and their ideas.”

“It’s inspiring to witness the power of CGI U students, whose energy, ideas, optimism and determination continually expand the possibilities for public service,” said Chelsea Clinton, who serves on the board of the Clinton Foundation. “By joining an extraordinary community of young people, thought leaders and experienced entrepreneurs, students attending CGI U 2013 will have the opportunity to make real contributions and forge connections that last a lifetime.”

Washington University in St. Louis was chosen to host this year’s CGI U because it is recognized as an international leader in preparing young people to address the world’s most pressing challenges.

This year’s program will address issues throughout CGI U’s five focus areas: Education, Environment and Climate Change, Peace and Human Rights, Poverty Alleviation, and Public Health through sessions including:

• Getting Off the Ground: Stories of Starting Up, in which a panel of budding and veteran entrepreneurs will share their personal stories, setbacks and key lessons in launching a business or organization;
• A Better Future for Girls and Women: Empowering the Next Generation, which will bring together practitioners and pioneers to explore the tangible ways in which young people can continue to build a better future for girls and women around the world; and
• Solutions Without Borders: Working With Unlikely Allies, which will convene notable entrepreneurs and policymakers who are proving the necessity of cooperation over conflict.

For the complete schedule, visit cgiu.org/meetings/2013/agenda.asp.

For more information on CGI U or the CGI University Network, visit cgiu.wustl.edu or cgiu.org. For inquiries, email cgiu@clintonglobalinitiative.org or call (212) 710-4492.

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Additional information:

CGI University Network
CGI University Network schools have agreed to provide more than $300,000 in total funding to CGI U student commitment-makers. Schools that have joined the CGI University Network to date include Alverno College; Arizona State University; Avicenne Private Business School; Babson College; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev; Brown University; the College of William and Mary; Cornell University; Duke University; Johnson C. Smith University; Middlebury College; Northeastern University; Rollins College; Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey; St. Cloud State University; Simmons College; Southern Methodist University; Parsons The New School for Design; the Ohio State University; the University of Chicago, Harris School of Public Policy; Tufts University; Tuskegee University; University of Arkansas, Clinton School of Public Service; University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, San Diego; University of Delaware; University of Houston; University of Miami; University of the Pacific; Washington University in St. Louis; Westfield State University; and Widener University.

Resolution Social Venture Challenge
In addition, the Resolution Project is offering $100,000 in seed funding for CGI U 2013 students through the Resolution Social Venture Challenge, a competition designed to support student-launched social ventures that are sustainable and have a measurable impact. Students selected to compete in the Social Venture Challenge will exhibit their commitments at CGI U and have the opportunity to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. Winners will be announced at the end of the CGI U meeting.

Up to Us Competition
CGI U, Net Impact and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation launched the Up to Us Competition to increase financial awareness among young people. From Jan. 21–March 1, 11 teams of CGI U participants campaigned to educate and engage their campuses on America’s debt crisis and how it will impact their future. A $10,000 cash prize will go to the team with the winning campaign, to be announced at CGI U. The Up to Us Competition judges include Chelsea Clinton; former White House Chief of Staff and former Co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Erskine Bowles; former U.S. Sen. and former Co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Alan Simpson; and anchor of ABC’s “This Week” and “Good Morning America” George Stephanopoulos.

Commitments to Action
Building on the Clinton Global Initiative’s successful model of convening Fortune 500 CEOs, heads of state, the most effective NGOs and civil society to address the world’s most pressing challenges, President Clinton launched CGI U to engage the next generation of leaders from around the world. As with participants at all CGI meetings, CGI U students must make a Commitment to Action: a new, specific and measurable student initiative that addresses a pressing challenge on campus or beyond.

Media information
Press registration is now open to members of the media. To apply, complete the form at cgilink.org/YE3ZA5.

The deadline to apply for press credentials is 5 p.m. ET Tuesday, April 2. ET. Journalists may apply for credentials on site, but pre-registered media will be given priority. For questions about press registration, email: press@clintonglobalinitiative.org.

Follow us on Twitter at @CGIU and @ClintonGlobal or on Facebook at Facebook.com/CGIUniversity for meeting news and highlights. The event hashtag will be #CGIU.

Pow Wow, annual celebration of American Indian culture in its 23rd year, returns March 16

2013-02-27 00:00:00

Whitney Curtis

Dancers make their way into the circle for the grand entry during last year's Pow Wow at the Field House on the campus of Washington University.

The 23rd annual Pow Wow, a festival of American Indian cultures at Washington University in St. Louis, will be held Saturday, March 16, in the Field House on the Danforth Campus. This event, hosted by the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies at the Brown School, is free and open to the public.

This year’s theme is “Honoring Our Cultures While Strengthening Our Communities.” The theme is a reminder that when it comes to community development among American Indians, it is important to honor and celebrate traditions while strengthening community.

"The theme commemorates American Indian traditions and a unique way of life that empower communities as a whole,” says Lindsay Belone (Navajo), a second-year Pow Wow co-chair.

Visitors and participants will be able to enjoy dancing, singing, drumming, arts, crafts and food. Grand entries will take place at Noon and 6 p.m. Traditional arts and crafts booths and community information booths will be open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

"A Pow Wow provides a social gathering for American Indians from all different tribal backgrounds and offers a way to share our culture with the public through song, dance, and traditional arts and crafts," says Anna Segovia (Cherokee), first-year Pow Wow co-chair.

“It is where strangers become friends," she says, "and where people from different tribes can share an important part of themselves and their culture.”

The Buder Center, the Women’s Society of Washington University, the Brown School Student Coordinating Council, and the Muscogee-Creek Nation sponsor the Pow Wow.

A video depicting the history, traditions and what to expect at a Pow Wow is below. For more information, call (314) 935-4510 or visit buder.wustl.edu.

http://youtu.be/jQ-9QCDp9HoWhat is a Pow Wow? Washington University's Buder Center has been holding them annually for 23 years.

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely explains why some of us can't handle the truth — about ourselves

Barbara Rea — 2013-02-28 00:00:00

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely, PhD, is intrigued by the fact that humans believe they act rationally when his research indicates otherwise. In fact, not only do we humans act irrationally, we also rationalize our actions (or inactions).

Ariely

In his first two books, both New York Times bestsellers, Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, Ariely shows how, despite best intentions, we often fail to act in our own best interests.

With his third book, The (Honest) Truth about Dishonesty: How We Lie to Everyone – Especially Ourselves, Ariely has turned his attention to studying dishonesty in American culture. He has some surprising findings to share at an Assembly Series presentation at 2 p.m. Wednesday, March 6, in Graham Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

With characteristic wit and revelation steeped in research, he lets us in on a secret we’ve been keeping to ourselves: Most of us think of ourselves as honest, but are we? His talk will explore how unethical behavior works in the personal, professional and political worlds, and how it affects us all, even as we think of ourselves as having high moral standards.

Since 2008, Ariely has held the James B. Duke Professorship in Psychology and Behavioral Economics at Duke University and holds appointments in the university’s Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, the School of Medicine and the Department of Economics. Additionally, he serves as senior fellow in Duke’s Kenan Institute for Ethics and is a member of the United Nations University International Human Dimension Programme on Global Environmental Change.

Ariely holds two doctoral degrees, in cognitive psychology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where he also earned a master’s degree, and in business administration from Duke University.

Born in America, but raised in Israel, he earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Tel Aviv University before moving back to the United States.

In addition to publishing books, he has authored hundreds of articles in professional journals on a wide range of subjects. His presentations for TED Talks are among the most popular on the website. The list of his talks can be found here.

For more information regarding this and other Assembly Series events, visit www.assemblyseries.wustl.edu or call (314) 935-4620.

State health departments hit ‘like’ button on use of social media to spread information

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2013-02-20 00:00:00

With social media pervasive in virtually all aspects of society, public health organizations, including state health departments, are finding web-based social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook useful tools to spread public health information.

A new study, led by Jenine K. Harris, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, examined the use of social media by state health departments in the United States.

The study, published Feb. 7 in the journal Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research, found, as of February 2012, 28 state health departments used Facebook and 41 used Twitter as tools to disseminate health information.

Harris

“Health departments seem to be realizing how widespread social media use is,” says Harris, who also is a faculty scholar in WUSTL's Institute for Public Health. “With 67 percent of online Americans using at least one social media site, health information posted could potentially reach a large audience — including people from traditionally hard-to-reach lower income populations.”

State health departments adopting social media, Harris says, tend to be in more populated states with more urban residents and higher levels of Internet access. Adopting health departments also tended to have higher per-capita health department expenditures, more educated leadership, and a larger, younger staff.

The study was co-authored by Doneisha L. Snider, a student in the Brown School's Master of Public Health (MPH) program and graduate research assistant at the Center for Public Health Systems Science; and Nancy Mueller, project coordinator and an alumnus of the MPH program.

“Although social media is a promising tool for health departments, we don’t yet know enough about who is connected to the health departments on social media and how effective it is in educating and informing those who are connected,” Harris says.

But she and her team are working on it. Harris recently received funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to examine adoption and use of social media by local health departments nationwide, with the long-term goal of developing best practices for social media use by health departments.

Increasing fathers’ engagement in parenting programs

Brittaney Bethea — 2013-02-12 00:00:00

Traditionally, programs that aim to change parenting behaviors and prevent child maltreatment have focused on mothers — viewed as nurturers and caregivers — at the expense of fathers.

Kohl

Historical strategies to lift single mothers out of poverty by having fathers pay child support also have led to uncertainty about underlying motivations to engage fathers in family-focused services.

“There is a certain mistrust surrounding services that target fathers, due to the underlying belief that recruitment is really all about the father paying child support,” says Patricia L. Kohl, PhD, associate professor of social work at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

To increase fathers’ participation in parenting programs, as well as improve father-child interactions, Kohl has collaborated with the Fathers’ Support Center of St. Louis to develop “Engaging Fathers in Positive Parenting,” a program funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This program is designed to be used in conjunction with the evidence-based parenting intervention, Triple P — Positive Parenting Program. Triple P was developed more than 30 years ago by Matthew R. Sanders, PhD, a professor of clinical psychology at The University of Queensland, Australia.

“We didn’t have to adapt or change the original intervention,” Kohl says. “We added pieces to enhance it. Those enhancements included a motivational orientation strategy and the development of a social support network among the fathers who participated in the parenting program.”

The motivational orientation and social support networking incorporate a strength-based approach, successfully altering the negative perceptions of parenting programs that the fathers had, increasing the overall engagement of fathers in the program.

“The strength-based approach allowed us to build on the strengths of fathers that focus on positive achievements instead of negative past outcomes, with an end goal to help their children reach their full developmental potential,” Kohl says.

“What we learned about recruitment, retention and engagement can be translated to other family interventions,” Kohl says. “It reveals that we can get fathers involved in other children services. In fact, many want to be involved.”

A father’s engagement in a variety of children services contributes to the level of consistency in a father-child relationship, and ultimately can result in better outcomes for children, whether the father is living in the same home or elsewhere.

These efforts to engage fathers in services build upon Kohl’s previous research to understand how parental characteristics influence parenting behaviors and child outcomes.

Mars? Venus? We're all in the same solar system

2013-02-12 00:00:00

Are men and women really that different?

New research suggests no — at least not in the psychological scheme of things.

Carothers

“We often think that men and women are obviously different,” says lead author Bobbi Carothers, PhD, senior data analyst at the Center for Public Health System Science at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “And now there’s this new study that says we’re not. So what are these crackpot scientists up to now?”

The study was published this month in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and highlighted in a story out of the University of Rochester. It found that men and women don’t fit neatly into gender stereotypes.

Carothers and co-author Harry Reis, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester, analyzed 122 different characteristics involving 13,301 subjects. They found that while men and women were categorically different on physical traits and some types of leisure activities, there were many traits that weren’t so different. Traits such as empathy, emotional intimacy, masculine and feminine personality, and interest in science did not show categorical separations between men and women.

While these traits do show average differences between the genders, these differences were not large or consistent enough to say that men and women are different kinds of people.

“Now that we know the findings of our study, the question then, becomes why we think men and women are so different when our results say otherwise,” Carothers says.

Carothers has some theories:

Traits that do show categorical differences are easy to see. "Biological sex differences such as body size, shape and upper-body strength are clearly visible," she says. "Stereotyped behaviors such as who cleans the house and who’s most interested in the football game are also easy to see."

Sex seems to be important for us to know. “It drives us nuts when we can’t figure out a person’s sex (remember “Pat” from the Saturday Night Live skits?),” Carothers says. “We ask pregnant women if they know what they’re having. The first question we ask about a newborn is whether it’s a boy or a girl — even before we ask about the health of the baby and mother.”

Opposites are easy for us. “It’s easy for us to think in dichotomies,” Carothers says. “We like to lump everyone into male or female, because that’s easier than assessing everyone on an individual basis.”

Traits that do not show categorical differences are difficult to see. “Things like sexual attitudes, empathy, masculine and feminine traits, interest in science, intimacy, how we think about relationships — all go on in our heads. We often assume they follow the same patterns as the more visible differences. They don’t always.”

So what’s the best way to find out what planet we’re on?

“Just ask,” Carothers says.

2-1-1 systems used to conduct research on public health disparities

Brittaney Bethea — 2013-02-11 00:00:00

A special supplemental issue of the American Journal of Preventative Medicine titled, “Research Collaboration with 2-1-1 to Eliminate Health Disparities” was recently published, marking the first time a journal has focused entirely on scientific research conducted within 2-1-1 systems. And Washington University in St. Louis researchers played a key role in the publication.

Kreuter

“This special issue is the first to really document and quantify some of the benefits provided from 2-1-1 assistance,” says Matthew W. Kreuter, PhD, professor and director of the Brown School’s Health Communication Research Laboratory (HCRL) and one of four guest editors.

2-1-1, a nationally designated three-digit telephone exchange like 9-1-1, is an information and referral system that serves millions of Americans living in poverty. Callers speak to an information and referral specialist who identifies their needs and provides referrals to local resources.

Kreuter’s center and Washington University have been at the hub of research into 2-1-1 and currently lead a national working group that studies the service.

“We’ve been working with 2-1-1 for about 7 years now, locally, with 2-1-1 Missouri, having the United Way serve as a major community partner, as well as 2-1-1s across the U.S,” Kreuter says.

In a study titled, “Use of Cancer Control Referrals by 2-1-1 Callers: A Randomized Trial,” Kreuter and other researchers tried to integrate health referrals into 2-1-1 so that when people call about other concerns, they can proactively address health needs as well.

Kreuter found that using telephone health coaches — called “navigators” — to help refer callers to health services such as mammograms, Pap tests and smoking cessation increased the chances that the callers would contact those services.

His study was “the first to demonstrate that proactive referrals made to 2-1-1 callers . . . motivated calls for follow-up cancer control services,” wrote Laura A. Linnan, ScD, of the University of North Carolina, a guest editor of the supplement.

Now, researchers at the HCRL are working to find out if those callers followed through and used the services to which they were referred. Because 2-1-1 reaches large numbers of poor people, many of whom have health problems, even a modest positive response could make a big difference if implemented nationally, Kreuter says.

“What all this work reveals is how we can do a better job of serving the health needs of low-income and vulnerable people by partnering with agencies that already do a good job of serving their other needs,” he says.

McBride named chair of MO HealthNet Oversight Committee

2013-02-07 00:00:00

McBride

Timothy McBride, PhD, professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on healthcare policy and health economics, has been named chairman of the MO HealthNet Oversight Committee for the state of Missouri.

The MO HealthNet agency in Missouri (formerly Division of Medical Services) is one of six agencies reporting to the Department of Social Services, and is primarily responsible for administering the Medicaid program.

A member and vice chair of the committee since 2010, McBride will chair the committee, created by the Missouri Legislature in 2007 with evaluating the MO HealthNet program and its implementation.

MO HealthNet assures quality health care through development of service delivery systems, standards setting and enforcement, and education of providers and participants. It is fiscally accountable for maximum and appropriate utilization of resources.

“It is a privilege and honor to serve in this role for the state, and to work with Dr. Ian McCaslin, the director of MO HealthNet and other esteemed members of the committee,” McBride says. “I expect that this year much of our attention will be focused on the issue of implementing the Affordable Care Act and whether the state should implement an expansion of the Medicaid program.

“This committee can bring evidence to the public and the Legislature on this issue, to help everyone make an informed decision for Missouri’s most vulnerable citizens and our taxpayers. I’m looking forward to leading the discussion.”

Brown School names three new assistant deans

2013-02-04 00:00:00

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis has appointed three new assistant deans according to Edward F. Lawlor, PhD, dean and the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor.

Cynthia Williams has been promoted to assistant dean for field education and community partnerships; Nancy B. Mueller has been named assistant dean for planning and evaluation; and Freddie Wills Jr. has been named assistant dean for strategic implementation. The appointments were effective Jan. 2.

“The combination of these three roles, and the talents these three individuals bring, will allow the Brown School to realize its ambitions to be a data-driven, strategic and community-connected school,” Lawlor says. “This vision was developed in the school’s strategic plan, Impact 2020. Our national council has provided support for these positions to advance this work. It takes great people to implement our plan. I am very excited about these appointments for the future of the Brown School.”

Williams

Williams

Williams has been promoted from Brown School’s Office of Field Education. In her new role, she will be responsible for all facets of the field education program, including developing agency and community partnerships that capitalize on the school’s significant field presence in the community. She also will assume responsibility for monitoring and maintaining sound competency-based local, national and international educational partnerships and field units suitable for student participation in practica and will work to strengthen partnerships and the design of applied learning experiences for students.

Williams has played a key role at the Brown School for nearly 32 years, including the field education office, where she served as a coordinator, assistant director and then director since 2007. She is a licensed clinical social worker, and certified both by the American Board of Examiners in Clinical Social Work and the Academy of Certified Social Workers. She is a St. Louis Business Diversity Fellow, has extensive teaching and consulting experience, and has given numerous presentations and workshops for the Council on Social Work Education. In 2008, she received the Brown School’s Outstanding Staff member award.

Williams earned a master’s degree in social work from the Brown School and a bachelor’s degree from Concordia University in St. Louis.

Mueller

Mueller

Mueller returns to the Brown School after serving as associate director of the Institute for Public Health (IPH) at Washington University. She will plan and evaluate key strategic programs and initiatives of the Brown School, as well as facilitate the school’s external evaluation partnerships with the St. Louis community. Mueller will work with Brown School faculty and staff to build its new evaluation and technical assistance center. Internally, she also will oversee the data, planning and evaluation responsibilities.

Mueller has extensive experience in public health research, administration and evaluation. Prior to joining IPH in 2010, she served as the associate director for the Brown School’s Center for Tobacco Policy Research. While at the center, Mueller led several large evaluation projects and helped build an evaluation training and technical assistance program. She has served on numerous national and local advisory committees, including the state of Missouri tobacco control and chronic diseases programs and became the founding chair of Tobacco Free Missouri statewide coalition in 2007.

Mueller has a bachelor’s of science from Michigan State University. She earned a master’s of public health degree at the University of Texas School of Public Health, and began her career in the Department of Behavioral Sciences at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Wills

Wills
Wills will lead the implementation of Brown’s strategic plan initiatives in Impact 2020. He will work closely with Lawlor on projects such as the Diversity Task Force; manage daily challenges in the dean’s office; and serve as the point person for many of the Brown School’s external initiatives.

Wills worked at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy from 1999-2012, beginning in the admissions office, moving to multicultural student services and, since 2008, serving as director of diversity. As director, Wills was responsible for providing strategic direction for its diversity initiatives while fostering a culture of inclusion.

His achievements at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy include the establishment of: the Middle School Summer Pharmacy Academy; the Walgreens/St. Louis College of Pharmacy Career Explorers Program; the BESt Summer Pharmacy Institute in collaboration with BJC and Express Scripts; the Pathways program; and the Mentor Program. In 2003, Wills received the College Enhancement Award in recognition for outstanding, collaborative work with the community and St. Louis College of Pharmacy.

Wills earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Southwest Baptist University; a master’s degree in media communications from Webster University and is working toward a doctorate in higher education administration from Saint Louis University.

Missouri’s first Family Impact Seminar held in Jefferson City Jan. 16

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2013-02-04 00:00:00

Missouri’s first Family Impact Seminar (FIS), a national program aimed at educating lawmakers on family policy issues, was held Jan. 16 in Jefferson City for legislators and aides, and the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis took a lead role in bringing the forum to the state.

The Brown School’s Melissa Jonson-Reid, PhD, professor and director of the Center for Violence and Injury Prevention, and Patricia Kohl, PhD, associate professor of social work, traveled to the state capital a few days into the start of the 2013 legislative session to conduct the forum. They were joined by collaborator Sue Stepleton PhD, director of the Brown School Policy Forum.

“It was a neutral, nonpartisan information session for legislators and their top aides only,” Stepleton says. “No media, no lobbyists, no outside personnel were allowed in the room.”

Based on a national model developed at the University of Wisconsin, FIS is a series of seminars, discussion sessions and briefing reports that provide state policymakers — legislators, aides, governor’s office staff, legislative service agency staff, and agency representatives — with nonpartisan, solution-oriented research on family issues.

“It was great to see policymakers from urban and rural areas of the state as well as from both parties not just listen, but interact with national experts around issues they wanted to understand better,” Jonson-Reid says.

A key aspect of the FIS model is that these seminars are responsive to policymaker interests. Missouri’s first seminar was conducted on child welfare, but future seminars will be based on legislator choice and could cover any number of topics from children’s health insurance, to early childhood care and education, to juvenile crime or other topics bearing on the well-being of families.

Each year, legislators will be surveyed about their choice of topics for the following seminar. The FIS leadership, in collaboration with a general steering committee comprised of state agency directors, representatives from foundations and organizations focused on family issues and faculty at other universities, will then work to develop and evaluate the seminar.

“We were told it was typical to expect seven or eight for a first seminar, and we had 15 legislators from both chambers and both parties,” Stepleton says. “Remember, it was very early in the legislative session — and that was by design. The participants were very engaged and asked questions from the get-go.”

After Washington University was admitted to the Policy Institute for Family Impact Seminars (PIFIS), Kohl and Stepleton attended training sessions at PIFIS at the University of Wisconsin to implement the program in Missouri. PIFIS provides training and ongoing technical assistance to admitted organizations. Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia are currently conducting or planning to conduct Family Impact Seminars.

“The goal of these seminars is to promote the dissemination of information about best practices and evidence-based practice related to families to state-level policymakers,” Jonson-Reid says. “Rather than trying to influence a particular agenda, the idea is to build a culture of expectation on the part of our representatives that there is a way to interact with research in a user-friendly, non-partisan way.”

The Brown School’s goal is to conduct one to two seminars per year, with the next one being planned for January 2014. To learn more about the national model of the Family Impact Seminars, visit familyimpactseminars.org/.

Proctor to lead Institute for Public Health's Dissemination and Implementation initiative

Son, 18 Feb 2013 19:23:06 CST

Enola K. Proctor, PhD, the Frank J. Bruno Professor of Social Work Research and associate dean for faculty at the Brown School, has been named director of the Dissemination and Implementation (D&I) initiative at the Institute for Public Health.

To read more, click here.

‘Refund to Savings’ program largest-ever national savings experiment

2013-01-31 00:00:00

The 2013 tax season has officially launched, and there is a 75 percent chance taxpayers will be eligible for a refund. What would it take to get them to save most, or all, of that money?

Researchers at the Center for Social Development (CSD) at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis will be looking for answers to that question during this tax season with the rollout of the Refund to Savings Initiative.

Refund to Savings is the largest savings experiment ever conducted in the United States, and it is expected to reach almost 1.2 million households within the next few months. The project is a novel collaboration of university researchers and a corporate partner in the tax-preparation industry.

Grinstein-Weiss

Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, associate director of the CSD, is leading the research team, along with Dan Ariely, PhD, the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University. Intuit Inc., the maker of TurboTax software, Quicken Books and Mint, is partnering in the initiative.

This groundbreaking project is ushering in a new way of doing research. The Refund to Savings experiment not only will involve a huge sample size, it will be woven into the popular, user-friendly TurboTax software, making the rigorous research unique because it will test actual behaviors in real time.

“This is taking research to a new level,” Grinstein-Weiss says. “We are combining academic research with corporate know-how to come up with potentially a real solution that encourages savings.”

Refund to Savings researchers already have learned that when it comes to savings, factors beyond the taxpayers’ balance sheets need to be considered, and they have turned to behavioral economics in an effort to change behaviors. For example, even though most taxpayers say they intend to save a portion of their refund, few carry through on their intentions.

To overcome this natural tendency to delay saving or not save at all, Refund to Savings researchers will use the “golden moment” – the instance when taxpayers learn of their refund amount but don’t yet have the money in their hands. At this point, the Refund to Savings experiment will show the tax filer one of seven randomly selected motivational messages designed to prompt taxpayers to put a portion of their refund into a savings account.

These motivational prompts include saving for emergencies, their families or their future. Each motivational message also suggests a different savings-to-spending ratio. The suggested savings amounts are critical, because research indicates that people save more when a higher amount is suggested. The saved portion can be automatically deposited to an existing savings account, similar to the way refunds are already directed to taxpayers’ checking accounts.

In the months after refunds have been received, researchers will follow up with as many as 12,000 of the taxpayers who take part in the Refund to Savings experiment. The researchers will interview taxpayers to learn what motivated their decisions in choosing a savings-to-spending ratio, and whether their decision to save had an impact on household finances.

Grinstein-Weiss says American families have reached a near-historic low rate of savings, which places families at great risk for financial disaster when faced with sudden job loss or an unexpected expense.

“The low saving rate in American households has placed people at all income levels at risk of financial insecurity and of slipping down the economic ladder,” Grinstein-Weiss says. “A recent study by experts at Harvard and Princeton universities found that almost half of American households could not find $2,000 within 30 days to pay an emergency expense.”

Intuit also is concerned about this low rate of savings, and is invested in helping its customers improve their financial lives. Intuit offered the TurboTax platform for the Refund to Savings Initiative because it is one of the most popular tax-preparation software packages in the United States, with approximately 22 million users every year. The Refund to Savings experimental program is seamlessly woven into TurboTax’s Online Tax Freedom Edition product, which is free for low- and moderate-income taxpayers.

The Refund to Savings partners anticipate that what they learn about motivation, opportunity and options for increasing tax-time savings will positively impact the wealth of American households and influence tax policy decisions.

If the 2013 Refund to Savings experiment proves to be a success, the Refund to Savings partners will work with the Bureau of Public Debt at the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service to identify other ways to make tax-time an opportunity for American households to save and build financial security.

“Developing easy ways to help tax filers automatically save a portion of their refund is one of the most promising opportunities to increase financial security for millions of Americans,” Grinstein-Weiss says.

Campus Author: Productive Aging in the World: Toward Evidence-based Practice and Policy

Fri, 01 Sar 2013 20:54:06 CST

In the decades ahead, China will have a very large older population, with many older adults who are relatively healthy and interested in being actively engaged in their communities. Contributions of older adults will be necessary for social and economic development of families, communities and society.

Peking University Press recently published a book in Chinese called Productive Aging in the World: Toward Evidence-Based Practice and Policy. The book is the result of a conference on productive aging in August 2011 at Peking University, co-organized by the Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St. Louis, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Peking University in Beijing.

The 2011 conference was the second of its kind in China; the first also was organized by CSD at Shandong University in 2009.

The world is in the midst of a demographic revolution. Globally, those aged 60 and above will comprise 13.6 percent of the population by 2020, and 22.1 percent of the population by 2050. In the United States, these numbers will be even higher. As the aging population grows in China, the United States, and around the world, it will be necessary to develop programs that support active engagement in later life.

In its work on productive aging, the CSD seeks to advance global innovation and research to involve older adults in employment, volunteering, caregiving, education and other productive activities. CSD’s longstanding partnerships in China have made the Chinese conferences possible.

Michael Sherraden, PhD, director of the CSD and the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School, has initiated conferences and developed resources for the work on productive aging over the past 15 years.

Nancy Morrow-Howell, PhD, director of the Harvey A. Friedman Center on Aging and faculty associate of CSD, has provided academic leadership and is co-editor of the book on aging.

For the 2011 conference, Morrow-Howell was joined by Ada Mui, PhD, professor of social work at Columbia University, and Du Peng, PhD, director and professor of the Gerontology Institute of Renmin University of China. Li Zou, CSD international director, organized the China conferences, arranged the book publications and engaged policy makers.

The English language version will be published by Taylor and Francis in the United Kingdom.

WUSTL’s CSD conducts asset-building conference in China

Katie Stalter — 2013-01-24 00:00:00

Courtesy photo

(From left) WUSTL’s Li Zou and Michael Sherraden, PhD, at the November conference in Beijing with partner university officials Wang Sibin of Peking University; Ku Hok-Bun of Hong Kong Polytechnic University; and Deng Suo of Peking University.

As China prepares to transfer its leadership in March, the potential exists for a more progressive government. With asset-based policies increasing throughout Asia in response to rising inequality and aging populations, there has never been a better time for discussion.

This past November, the Center for Social Development (CSD) at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis partnered with Peking University and Hong Kong Polytechnic University to host the conference “Lifelong Asset Building: Strategies and Innovations in Asia” at Peking University in Beijing.

“The conference enabled stakeholders in the Asia Pacific region to share knowledge and lessons and build a network of policy makers and professionals advancing asset building in Asia and beyond,” says Li Zou, CSD international director.

Topics at the conference, which drew about 100 participants from China and around the world, included national policies, home ownership, savings for children and youth, social entrepreneurship, asset-building innovations and policy diffusion.

“Washington University in St. Louis is proud to partner with Peking University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, National University of Singapore and others in organizing this conference,” says James Wertsch, PhD, vice chancellor for international affairs and the Marshall S. Snow Professor in Arts & Sciences. “With aging populations in many countries, building assets over the life course will be fundamental for both economic development and security in old age.”

The Nov. 16-18 conference garnered extensive media coverage in China, including articles in high-profile news outlets such as China Youth Daily, Sina News, China Daily, ifeng.com and NetEase (163.com). Peking University News wrote an extended story, and China Social Sciences published a long story about the conference on its front page. The media coverage has helped spread news of this topic to wider audiences, expanding the conversation about asset-building innovations.

Michael Sherraden, PhD, director of the CSD and the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School, says that several countries in Asia have created innovative policies and programs that build assets for family and community development.

“All of this experience can inform innovations in the United States and elsewhere,” Sherraden says. “It is possible that inclusive and progressive asset-based policies may play a larger role in many countries in the years ahead.”

To read more about the conference, visit csd.wustl.edu/AboutUs/News/Pages/Asset-Building-in-Asia.aspx.

Work, Families and Public Policy series begins Feb. 4

2013-01-23 00:00:00

Faculty and graduate students from St. Louis-area universities with an interest in labor, households, health care, law and social welfare are invited to take part in a series of Monday brown-bag luncheon seminars to be held biweekly on the Danforth Campus at Washington University in St. Louis beginning Monday, Feb. 4, through Monday, April 15.

In its 17th year, the Work, Families and Public Policy series features one-hour presentations on research interests of faculty from local and national universities. The series is designed to promote interdisciplinary research.

Presentations will be from noon-1 p.m. in Seigle Hall, Room 348.

The series begins Monday, Feb. 4, with a lecture by Anne Winkler, PhD, professor of economics and public policy administration at University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her topic: “The Relationship Between the Housing and Labor Market Crises and Doubling-Up: An MSA-Level Analysis, 2005-2010.”

The remaining presentations are:

Feb. 18. Limor Golan, PhD, associate professor of economics in Arts & Sciences at WUSTL, on “Estimating the Returns to Parental Time Investment in Children Using a Life-Cycle Dynastic Model.”

March 4. Duncan Thomas, PhD, the Robert F. Durden Professor of Economics and professor of global health at Duke University, on “The Family After a Natural Disaster.”

March 18. Kristin Collins, JD, the Peter Paul Development Professor and professor of law at Boston University School of Law, on “Entitling Marriage.”

April 1. Paula England, PhD, professor of sociology at New York University, on “The Long-term Trend in Premarital First Births: Is it the Economy or Sex?”

April 15. Adina Sterling, PhD, assistant professor of strategy at WUSTL’s Olin Business School, on “Shared Education Affiliations and Workplace Relationships.”

Robert A. Pollak, PhD, the Hernreich Distinguished Professor of Economics in Arts & Sciences and in the Olin Business School, has been the lead organizer of the series for the past 16 years.

Co-organizer is Michael Sherraden, PhD, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School at WUSTL.

The series is sponsored by: the Wells Fargo Advisory Center for Finance and Accounting Research in the Olin Business School; the Brown School and the Center for Social Development; the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work and Social Capital in the School of Law; the Department of Economics in Arts & Sciences; the College of Arts & Sciences; and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The classroom is provided courtesy of the Department of Economics.

For more information, contact Pollak at (314) 935-4918 or pollak@wustl.edu; Sherraden at (314) 935-6691 or at sherrad@wustl.edu; or visit olin.wustl.edu/Events/Pages/default.aspx and search for the seminar by date.

Brown School’s Purnell selected as ‘Young Leader’ by St. Louis American

2013-01-17 00:00:00

Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, has been selected as one of 20 Young Leaders for 2013 by the St. Louis American Foundation.

Purnell

“We define ‘Young Leaders’ as committed, compassionate, generous professionals, who are making a positive impact in our community,” says publisher Donald M. Suggs, DDS, in announcing the award. “We feel this diverse group of young African Americans from throughout the region represents the newsmakers of the future and will serve as catalysts for the generations immediately following.”

“Jason brings equal passion to his teaching, research and service to the St. Louis community,” says Edward F. Lawlor, PhD, dean of the Brown School and the William E. Gordon Professor. “His energy is limitless, and is completely devoted to eliminating health disparities in our region. Jason’s talent and commitment makes me optimistic that we will make progress in addressing social justice and public health in St. Louis.”

Purnell, a St. Louis native, has been on the faculty at the Brown School since 2009. “I am incredibly honored and humbled to be recognized by the St. Louis American and by the African-American community,” he says. “It gives me encouragement to continue in the serious work we have ahead of us as a region to ensure that everyone has access to the resources they need to lead healthy and productive lives.”

Purnell’s research focuses on how household financial status and cultural factors influence health behaviors in underserved populations. Among his most recent work is a study on how 2-1-1 phone information and referral systems could be a key partner in efforts to reduce cancer disparities affecting low-income and racial and ethnic minorities in the United States.

Purnell is committed to the university's impact on the community. In December, Purnell participated as a panelist when The Atlantic visited St. Louis to conduct a town-hall style “Conversation on Community Health,” which aimed to gather insight from people on the frontlines of community health: doctors, educators, legislators, community leaders and advocates.

Purnell, a faculty scholar for WUSTL’s Institute of Public Health, has been a leader in charting the course for the institute’s Center for Community Health and Partnerships. He also serves on the Brown School’s new community engagement advisory committee and served on the Dean’s Diversity Task Force.

Purnell earned an undergraduate degree in government and philosophy from Harvard University; a doctoral degree in psychology from Ohio State University; and, most recently, a master of public health degree from the University of Rochester.

He also is former director of community engagement with the United Way of Greater St. Louis, where he developed a community action program called Project Clergy C.A.R.E.S. as part of a strategic partnership between the United Way and the St. Louis Metropolitan Clergy Coalition.

Community organizations on which Purnell serves include the Board of Trustees for Loyola Academy of St. Louis and CHIPS (Community Health-in-Partnership Services) Health and Wellness Center and the Community Impact Committee of the United Way of Greater St. Louis.

Purnell receives his award Feb. 21 at a reception at the Chase Park Plaza. To read the story in the St. Louis American, click here. To learn more about Purnell, visit brownschool.wustl.edu/Faculty/FullTime/Pages/JasonQPurnell.aspx.

The power of the piggy bank: Five ways parents can teach their kids financial literacy

2013-01-14 00:00:00

Financial literacy is more important than ever. In the last five years, words such as loan default, foreclosure and recession have become as common as savings, bank statements and assets.

Washington University in St. Louis researcher Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, associate professor of social work at the Brown School and associate director of the Center for Social Development, is lead author on a paper that studies loan activity in low- and moderate-income (LMI) homeowners.

The study, published Jan. 7 in Social Work Research, finds that higher levels of parental financial teaching in childhood are associated with better mortgage loan performance — including lower levels of delinquencies and foreclosures for LMI borrowers in adulthood.

It confirms that financial literacy begins at home.

Grinstein-Weiss

“Nearly all parents agree that making sure children are financially literate is an important task — yet one that they may feel ill-equipped to carry out,” Grinstein-Weiss says. “But parents don’t need special knowledge or skills to prepare their kids for financial success. Routine family life is rich with opportunities to teach them the ins and outs of money matters.”

Grinstein-Weiss offers five ways parents can teach their kids financial literacy:

Discuss and explain basic finances around the dinner table, especially the difference between needs and wants. “Parents can and should have this discussion even if you are not saving enough or are deeply in debt — just cover the basics and don’t scare your kids,” she says. “New topics can be introduced as kids mature or the family situation changes. For example, house hunting is a natural time to discuss mortgages, interest rates and buying-versus-renting.”
Teach kids how to save and set short-term goals (a new toy) and long-term goals (college). “Kids follow by example, so model this behavior with a grown-up piggy bank on the kitchen counter labeled with a goal, such as ‘family vacation,’ and save your pocket change each day.”
Open a savings account for your child as early as possible. “Take a parent-child field trip to a bank or credit union and open an account for your child. Even if you’re used to online banking, visit the bank each month with your child to make a deposit as actions reinforce behaviors,” she says. “Review monthly online statements together.”
Teach kids budgeting and money-management skills. “Look at the calendar or newspaper for upcoming events that your child is likely to want to attend and needs to start saving for,” she says. “Help them research prices and figure out the time it will take to reach their goal by saving different amounts each week. Pizza night? While munching on a slice, help your child figure out the cost of each serving, adding in all costs, such as delivery, tip, or cost of gas.”
Get kids involved in daily activities and decisions about spending. “Take them grocery shopping and have them compare prices of different brands,” she says. “In a long line at checkout? Let older children estimate purchase cost, count out the cash, and complete the sale with the clerk. And show them how you pay monthly utilities, balance the check book, and conduct Internet banking.”

Faculty Achievement Award nominations sought

2013-01-16 00:00:00

Nominations are being accepted for Washington University’s annual Faculty Achievement Awards, known as the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award and the Carl and Gerty Cori Faculty Achievement Award.

The Compton Award is given to a distinguished member of the faculty from one of the six Danforth Campus schools and the Cori Award to a faculty member from the School of Medicine.

All full-time, active Washington University faculty members are eligible to receive the Faculty Achievement Award. Any full-time, active member of the faculty may submit a nomination to the Advisory Committee. The nomination packet should include:

• A nomination letter detailing the rationale for the nomination;
• The nominee’s curriculum vitae;
• Three supporting letters from individuals acquainted with the nominee’s contributions as a scholar/researcher and teacher.

The ideal candidates for the Faculty Achievement Award will show excellence in both the research and the service/teaching domains. While outstanding achievement in research and scholarship are weighed most heavily, the awardee must also show a strong record of service to the university and respected accomplishments in teaching, whether that be in the classroom, in mentoring or in other pedagogical capacities.

The deadline to submit nominations is Friday, Feb. 15. Submit nominations and supporting letters to Gerhild S. Williams, PhD, vice provost and associate vice chancellor, at Campus Box 1080 or by email at gerhildwilliams@wustl.edu.

The awardees will be announced this spring. The recipients will receive their awards and give presentations of their scholarly work during a ceremony in December. At the time of these presentations, the awardees will each receive a $5,000 honorarium.

Robert P. Mecham, PhD, a pioneering cell biologist, and Nancy L. Morrow-Howell, PhD, a leading national scholar in gerontology, received Washington University’s 2012 Faculty Achievement Awards during a Dec. 1 event.

Mecham, the Alumni Endowed Professor of Cell Biology and Physiology, received the Carl and Gerty Cori Faculty Achievement Award, and Morrow-Howell, the Ralph and Muriel Pumphrey Professor of Social Work at the Brown School, received the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award.

An Advisory Committee will review nominations and make recommendations to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton, who, with the Faculty Senate Council, established the awards in 1999.

To see a list of the Advisory Committee members, click here.

To see a list of previous award recipients, click here.

Expanding Medicaid would most impact rural Missourians

2013-01-10 00:00:00

Rural Missourians would benefit the most in 2014 if state lawmakers approve more than $1 billion in new federal funding for Medicaid.

McBride

A new study, released this week through the Missouri Budget Project and jointly authored by Timothy McBride, PhD, professor in the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis; Sidney Watson, JD, of Saint Louis University; and Amy Blouin of the Missouri Budget Project, finds benefits throughout the entire state but most significantly in reducing the number of uninsured in rural areas.

“The entire state would benefit from the expansion, both by the reduction in the rate of the uninsured, and by the infusion of a large amount of federal dollars into the economy,” McBride says. “However, because rural persons are more likely to be uninsured and eligible for the expansion, then they and their providers would benefit more from the expansion with a larger positive fiscal impact in those counties.”

If approved, Medicaid eligibility would extend from the current 19 percent of the federal poverty level to 138 percent.

That would, in turn, reduce the state’s uninsured by more than one-fourth, provide coverage for roughly 267,000 previously uninsured Missourians, and bring an estimated $1.56 billion in new federal health care matching funds into the state’s economy in 2014.

“While there are more people in urban areas who would qualify for the Medicaid expansion, as a proportion of the population, rural populations are more likely to be uninsured for several reasons,” McBride says.

“Rural individuals are more likely to be working for small employers, to make low wages if working, and to be in poverty. All of these reasons mean that many adults and their families could benefit from the Medicaid expansion.”

To read the full report, visit http://www.mobudget.org/articles/show/294-Medicaid_Expansion_Has_Most_Critical_Impact_in_Rural_Missouri

WUSTL study chosen as one of Top Ten Autism Research Advances of 2012

2012-12-19 00:00:00

A groundbreaking study on young adults with autism, led by Washington University in St. Louis researcher Paul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School, has been chosen as one of the “Top Ten Autism Research Advances of 2012” by the advocacy organization Autism Speaks.

Shattuck

The study, titled “Postsecondary Education and Employment Among Youth With an Autism Spectrum Disorder” was published in June in the journal Pediatrics and tracked adults with autism over their first six years post-high school.

The winning research studies were chosen by Autism Speaks Scientific Advisory Committee, a team of 16 scientists and researchers. According to the online research database PubMed.gov, more than 2,700 autism studies were conducted in 2012. Instead of isolated breakthroughs, many of this year’s top advances represent broad progress in areas of autism science and involve multiple research teams at sites across the nation and the world, the group states in announcing the list.

A video of Shattuck discussing the study is below. To read more, visit news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/23863.aspx.

This is the third autism study of Shattuck’s to be recognized nationally. In 2009, his study on the age of diagnosis among children with autism was recognized as one of the most important autism studies of the year by both Autism Speaks and the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC).

The IACC also recognized Shattuck's 2011 study on the use of services by adults with autism as one of that year’s 20 most impactful scientific studies in the field of autism.

To view the complete list of this year's Autism Speak’s top 10 research advances, visit autismspeaks.org.

http://youtu.be/Qyl2ZQRb4dsPaul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School, discusses the study chosen by Autism Speaks as one of the ‘Top Ten Research Advances of 2012.’

How to have a healthy holiday: The key is balance

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2012-12-18 00:00:00

Haire-Joshu

There’s nothing wrong with a cookie or a glass of eggnog at the holidays, says Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, director of the Center for Obesity Prevention and Policy Research and the Center for Diabetes Translation Research at Washington University in St. Louis and associate dean for research at the Brown School.

The key, Haire-Joshu says, is balance.

“The holidays are a great time of the year – time spent with family and friends – and there’s no reason why we shouldn’t enjoy them,” Haire-Joshu says. “But the key is to balance those treats with healthy habits and choices.

“Drink more water. Reduce portions. Limit TV viewing and keep moving. All these things can add balance and ensure that 2012 is the year of the healthy holiday,” she says.

Haire-Joshu and her colleague, Cindy Schwarz, research coordinator at the Center for Obesity Prevention and Policy Research, offer specific tips that can make a healthy holiday happen:

Improve your environment Use smaller dishes; travel with a water bottle and order water when eating out; cut up produce as soon as its purchased; put healthy food in easy reach in cabinets and refrigerators; move unhealthy items out of sight.
Choose healthier options Replace sweetened beverages with water; pre-package fruits and vegetables for snacks; reduce portion sizes.
Move, move, move Reduce screen time — television and computer; walk regularly throughout the day; find places in your workplace to be active.
Plan your party Move away from the food table and remove the temptation to eat; bring a healthy item to potluck functions; grab a small plate and reduce portion size; go easy on the alcohol.

“There’s that old saying, ‘It’s not what you do in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas that’s as important as what you do in the months between Christmas and Thanksgiving,’ ” Haire-Joshu says.

“Balance is the key every month of the year.”

Webcams, crowd-sourcing compelling tools in measuring effectiveness of bike lanes, other open spaces

Leslie Gibson McCarthy — 2012-12-17 00:00:00

Joe Angeles

New research gives communities a novel way to measure the effectiveness of built environments like trails, greenways and parks.

A new study out of Washington University in St. Louis is one of the first to use technology to effectively measure the use of built environments — parks, greenways, trails and other man-made public areas — as a means to improve public health.

The study, “Emerging Technologies: Webcams and Crowd-Sourcing to Identify Active Transportation,” will be published Dec. 18 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Lead author is J. Aaron Hipp, PhD, assistant professor of public health at the Brown School.

“Obesity is costing the U.S. healthcare system $147 billion annually,” Hipp says. “We need to increase physical activity in this country and, by helping communities measure how effective cycling infrastructure, greenways, trails, parks and open space can be, we can both raise awareness and help communities build better environments,” Hipp says.

The research was conducted in a novel way, using publicly available outdoor webcams and crowd-sourcing.

“The team used webcam imagery and a crowd-sourcing approach to count people, bikes and cars, in rainy, foggy or crowded conditions where automatic methods fail and research assistants struggle due to weather and numbers,” says co-author Robert Pless, PhD, professor in the WUSTL School of Engineering & Applied Science.

The findings suggest that these two sources have great potential for capturing behavioral change associated with built environments.

Hipp

“This research can inform multiple fields, including public health professionals fighting the obesity epidemic, urban planners designing our public spaces to facilitate movement, and computer vision professionals seeking to improve machine learning for public safety,” Hipp says.

A web tool called the Archive of Many Outdoor Scenes (AMOS) — developed by Pless — gave researchers thousands of images from which to study. AMOS uses publicly available outdoor webcams and a custom web crawler to capture webcam images with a time stamp — one image per camera every half hour.

From there, the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) website was used to crowd-source the image annotation and collect data. MTurk workers were paid one cent to mark each pedestrian, cyclist and vehicle in a picture. Each image was counted fıve unique times, a process completed in less than 8 hours.

“These pictures allowed us to go back in time and study a place that looked different from year to year,” Hipp says.

The study centered on an intersection in Washington, D.C., at Pennsylvania Avenue NW and 9th Street NW in June of 2009 and June of 2010, between which time a bike lane had been installed. The research found cycling activity in the area went up four-fold once the lane was built.

“Using a webcam works to capture activity,” Hipp says, “and adding the bike lane increased the amount of cyclists using it. Because Dr. Pless has an archive of these scenes, we were able to locate areas where the physical environment, design or even policy environment had changed.

“We can now crowd-source the images to understand if these design or policy changes are associated with human behavior changes in the same space.”

Hipp says this is about more than saving money and reducing a waistline. “Cycling or walking to work will reduce your carbon footprint by 20 percent,” he says. “Many potential wins are associated with increasing pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure. What is lacking is the evidence needed to convince communities and governments to spend the necessary money on improvements.

“There are literally tens of thousands of publicly available outdoor webcams throughout the world,” Hipp says. “And they can be an effective tool for researchers.”

Additional co-authors on the study are graduate students Deepti Adlakha and Bill Chang and Amy A. Eyler, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School.

Director of WUSTL’s Center for Violence and Injury Prevention comments on school tragedy in Connecticut

2012-12-17 00:00:00

Melissa Jonson-Reid, PhD, professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, is director of the Center for Violence and Injury Protection, which is funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jonson-Reid

The focus of Jonson-Reid’s research is on the prevention of child abuse and neglect, as well as the secondary prevention of health and socio-emotional consequences of childhood exposure to maltreatment and other forms of family violence. She is also a faculty scholar in WUSTL’s Institute for Public Health. She responds to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut:

First, I think it is important to say that there is no response that can convey adequately the sense of horror and sorrow felt by myself and many others when we heard of the tragedy at Sandy Hook. Our hearts go out to the families and community.

Locally, it is important to remember to check in with each other. Sometimes, such events can trigger emotions related to prior losses in our own lives. So, if you or a friend or family member are feeling overwhelmed by this event, then it is important to feel comfortable and empowered to seek support. School personnel and parents should be attuned to possible fears or emotional reactions as children process the news.

The American Council for School Social Work put together a listing of resources for school personnel and parents: http://acssw.org/Trauma_Resources_2012_Newtown_CT.pdf.

For parents, I would point out that on this list there is a particularly brief and useful set of recommendations from the American Psychological Association: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/aftermath.aspx

As news and speculation continue, there are some things that seem worthy of our attention no matter what the final investigation reveals.

First, while security measures, thinking about access to weapons, and school safety plans are certainly important, ultimately we need to seek other means of preventing the factors that may lead to such violence.

When profiles of school shooters have been attempted in the past, there have been no clear consistent factors that point to an easy means of screening for risk. However, there are factors that exist in some of these cases that would be good to address even without such horrific events.

For example, bullying and social isolation are factors that impact many of our children both in this country and others. While programming to prevent bullying and improve a sense of inclusion is growing, there is much more that we could do. Schools must be not only safe physically but emotionally for our children.

It is also important that we as a society make available the type of help needed for persons with mental health disorders free from stigma or unreasonable barriers to accessing quality care. Studies indicate that most children either do not receive care or receive inadequate care and assessment.

While few children with mental health concerns are at risk of violence, unaddresed depression, anxiety or other disorders diminish their quality of life and ability to function at home and at school.

There is also much we still need to understand about mental health and children. It is only recently that our view of adolescent brain development, for example, changed rather radically. There is a need to continue to advance our understanding of what works with whom so that we can provide the care that our children deserve.

Finally we need to continue to support the ability of families, no matter what the composition or socioeconomic status, to raise healthy children. Family conflict, lack of awareness of effective parenting strategies, social isolation, stress of trying to meet basic needs among many factors can make it difficult for parents to provide the emotional and concrete supports children need for healthy development.

Again, this makes sense, not just to prevent violence, but to produce children who will grow to be healthy, productive members of society across all domains of their lives.

While we grieve the tragedy, we must remember that there are things we can do to ultimately offer a better future for our children and ourselves.

WUSTL School of Social Work News

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‘Refund to Savings’ program largest-ever national savings experiment​

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WUSTL’s CSD conducts asset-building conference in China

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Faculty Achievement Award nominations sought

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WUSTL study chosen as one of Top Ten Autism Research Advances of 2012 ​

How to have a healthy holiday: The key is balance​

Webcams, crowd-sourcing compelling tools in measuring effectiveness of bike lanes, other open spaces​

Director of WUSTL’s Center for Violence and Injury Prevention comments on school tragedy in Connecticut​

Passing the torch

Pow Wow 2013: 'Honoring Our Cultures'

CGI U announces 2013 speakers; new CGI University Network to fund student commitments

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely explains why some of us can't handle the truth — about ourselves

McBride named chair of MO HealthNet Oversight Committee

Proctor to lead Institute for Public Health's Dissemination and Implementation initiative

‘Refund to Savings’ program largest-ever national savings experiment

Campus Author: Productive Aging in the World: Toward Evidence-based Practice and Policy

WUSTL study chosen as one of Top Ten Autism Research Advances of 2012

How to have a healthy holiday: The key is balance

Webcams, crowd-sourcing compelling tools in measuring effectiveness of bike lanes, other open spaces

Director of WUSTL’s Center for Violence and Injury Prevention comments on school tragedy in Connecticut