Written by Kim Furlow, communication manager, Institute for Public Health
Approximately 450 students, faculty, staff and community members recently convened over a two-day period, with experts in public health, technology and work force development for the 2024 Public Health at WashU Conference, “The Next Era in Public Health: Equity-informed approaches to innovative technologies & workforce development”. In service of WashU public health, the conference is a collaboration between the university’s strategic plan, Here and Next and the Institute for Public Health.
Day One Highlights
Introduced by Executive Vice Provost, Mary McKay, day one featured information from Faculty Director, Bettina Drake, about WashU’s Confluence Collaborative for Community Engagement. The collaborative is an organizing platform to foster community-engaged research across WashU, focused on intentional, sustainable partnerships. Each year, the Wiliam H. Danforth St. Louis Confluence Award—which includes a $50,000 cash prize–is awarded and winning teams present their research and celebrate with colleagues and community. A call for applications for the 2025 award is open through November 22.
The Janet and Bernard Becker Professor and Director of the Institute for Informatics, Philip Payne introduced keynote speaker, Chief Regulatory and Privacy Officer for
Citizen Health, Deven McGraw, JD, MPH, who spoke on advancing health care data through a privacy lens in her talk, Public health in the age of digital data: Can we overcome persistent challenges to leverage new opportunities?
McGraw outlined how to bring the perspectives of health data utility and privacy together for the benefit of creating better health outcomes. She suggested that public trust is paramount and can be achieved through community-centric research approaches. She used an example of working with owners of barbershops, where community members congregate, to disseminate health information.
Public health needs to be a part of the current data revolution. We have a lot of work to do.
Deven McGraw, keynote speaker
Day one discussion
McGraw was joined by a panel of discussants, including McGraw, Chenyang Lu, the Fullgraf Professor of Computer Science and Engineering and director of AI for Health Institute at WashU and Hilary Reno, MD, co-director of WashU’s Public Health Data & Training Center and professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the WashU School of Medicine. Lu discussed multidisciplinary research that unites AI researchers and health experts to tackle critical health care and public health challenges. Reno talked about the use of health care system data to improve evaluation of sexual health care, and the panel outlined their thoughts on the obligations health providers have to patients from which health data is derived.
Day Two Highlights
The Larry J. Shapiro Director of the Institute for Public Health, William G. Powderly, MD, introduced day two of the conference and highlighted several WashU public health related projects making impact in 2024. Among these is WashU’s Public Health Sciences cancer control group working in partnership with Siteman Cancer Center and the Next Steps in Mental and Behavioral Health symposium which convened community partners and professionals in mental health treatment to find solutions for those with severe mental illness who need housing in St. Louis.
Ross Brownson, PhD, the Steven H. and Susan U. Lipstein Distinguished Professor of Public Health at the Brown School and School of Medicine introduced keynote speaker, Jonathan Samet, PhD, a professor and former dean at Colorado School of Public Health. Samet’s funny and engaging presentation covered the prevalence of social media and misinformation to good advice on how WashU’s planned School of Public Health can create the best in future public health practitioners. Among his suggestions were to encourage lifelong learning skills; and to define what practice is and encourage and reward it.
A panel of experts, moderated by Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, director of the Center for Advancing Health Services, Policy and Economic Research, took their seats to discuss building and retaining the most effective public health workforce. Speakers from St. Louis City Dept. of Health, (Victoria Anwuri), WashU School of Medicine, (Aimee James), and the Brown School (Rachel Tabak), and the St. Louis Community Health Worker Coalition (CJ Walker) all agreed that putting community needs first and hiring and sustaining the best personnel (who have knowledge in public health), are two of the most important factors.
Watch the panel discussion and audience Q&A.
Victoria Fraser, MD, the Adolphus Busch Professor of Medicine and Chair of the Department of Medicine introduced speaker Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, MPH, the Margaret C. Ryan Dean Designate of the WashU School of Public Health, who presented, Why health? New directions for population health science and the foundations of a new school of public health. In his talk, Galea, offers a preliminary look at his vision for building on WashU’s existing public health strengths and expanding its commitment to the field by shaping WashU’s first new school in 100 years.
new School of Public Health
I look forward to building a school of public health that is seen as an asset and a virtue.
Sandro Galea, on the planned School of Public Health
The conference ended with a poster session, lunch and networking.
See photos of the poster session and other conference moments in our photo gallery.
View the conference program to see the agenda and speaker and guest biographies.