Written by Will Ross, MD, MPH, associate dean for diversity, professor of medicine in the School of Medicine and Institute for Public Health 2018 Annual Conference moderator In 2002, The Institute of Medicine issued a report entitled, “Who Will Keep the Public Healthy?” The report concluded that “… public health professionals must have a framework for […]
Category: Health Equity
Mental health equity
At the time of publishing, Jorge Riopedre was president of Casa de Salud. No sooner is there yet another school shooting, or for that matter a mass shooting of any kind, than the mantra of access to mental health services starts pouring forth from the mouth of politicians and activists. Paul Ryan, Speaker of the […]
The intersection of precision medicine and public health
Written by Sarah Wishloff, undergraduate student at Amherst College and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program This past week, Dr. William Powderly, the Larry J. Shapiro Director of the Institute for Public Health, led a seminar on the intersection of precision medicine and public health. Precision medicine is a medical model […]
Understanding the significance of my research in the real world
Written by Tiffany Xie, undergraduate student at Indiana University Bloomington and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program At the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program, I am lucky to work under the mentorship of Dr. Kathleen Bucholz, Professor of Psychiatry at the Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Bucholz is […]
Complexity of care: Voices from the field
Written by Laura Whitehill, medical student at the University College Dublin and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program This week’s seminar brought together a panel of experts on various aspects of healthcare. The panelists were: Amy McQueen, PhD, professor at Washington University School of Medicine, whose research specializes in strategies for improving […]
Race and community: Research addressing racial health disparities
Written by Tiffany Xie, undergraduate student, Indiana University-Bloomington and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program I had the pleasure of meeting Professor Vetta Sanders Thompson, the E. Desmond Lee Professor of Racial and Ethnic Diversity at the Brown School and co-director of the Center for Community Health Partnership & Research at […]
Global is also local
Written by Kate Douglas, second year medical student at the School of Medicine and president of the Forum for International Health and Tropical Medicine Global health: it’s a popular buzzword these days. There’s something that feels so fulfilling about focusing on one of the United Nations’ core human rights – health – in a way […]
Summer Research Program alumni blog – Suraj Arshanapally
By Suraj Arshanapally, Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program alumnus Last summer, I was enrolled in the 2016 Institute of Public Health Summer Research Program cohort. I had the opportunity to learn from two incredible mentors, Dr. Kathleen Bucholz and Dr. Kimberly Werner, within the Department of Psychiatry. As a research intern, I investigated […]
Summer Research Program alumni blog – Karthik Rohatgi
Written by Karthik Rohatgi, Summer Research Program alumnus In summer 2015, through the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Dr. Indi Trehan on the final stages of the ARTMAM study. The goal of the study was to determine the effects of simultaneous treatment with […]
Summer Research Program alumni blog – Nicole Cousins
Written by Nicole Cousins, Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program alumna I had the pleasure of participating in the 2016 Institute for Public Health Summer Research program and reflecting back as a third year medical student beginning the clinical training of my education, I value now more than ever my participation in the program. […]
Summer Research Program alumni blog – Megan Hunt
Written by Megan Hunt, Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program alumna Throughout my life, I had been interested in pursuing a career in healthcare. However, it wasn’t until my experience in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program that I was able to identify exactly where I saw myself in the field. As […]
Community site visit: Operation Food Search
Written by Vineet Raman, undergraduate in biology, Latin American & Caribbean studies and Spanish at University of Georgia and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program After learning about a multitude of contemporary public health topics from experts all over the Institute for Public Health, it was time for all of us to […]
Health disparities in alcohol use
Written by Rajadhar Reddy, undergraduate in neuroscience at University of Texas at Dallas and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program I turn 21 next week, so writing a blog post on alcohol feels a bit ironic. But as alcohol consumption is the fourth leading preventable cause of death in the United […]
St. Louis bus tour
Written by Delphine Zhu, undergraduate in neuroscience and anthropology at Smith College and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program After getting to know one another on the first day of the program, we had the opportunity to learn more about St. Louis on a bus tour. The bus tour was led […]
Is being poor a crime? Public health students working with lawyers to eradicate the criminalization of poverty
Written by Linda Raclin, JD, LLM, senior lecturer professor at the Brown School In a growing number of cities and counties across America, being poor is itself a crime. As many of us in the St. Louis region witnessed during the civil unrest in Ferguson, individuals and minorities in low-income communities are often targeted for […]
The role of law in addressing (or entrenching) transgender health-care discrimination
Written by Elizabeth Sepper, JD, associate professor in the School of Law Six years ago, a little known provision of the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—Section 1557—marked the first time that federal law prohibited sex discrimination in federally funded health programs. This summer, a new U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule made clear […]
The fear of discrimination in LGBT healthcare
Written by Brett Tortelli, graduate student at the School of Medicine For many people talking about their sex life with their doctor can be uncomfortable. When someone reveals something so intimate about his or her personal life there is a fear of judgment. We as physicians are trained to ask our patients about their sexual practices […]
Get to know the Center for Community Health Partnership & Research co-directors
Written by April Houston, MSW/MPH, graduate student at Washington University in St. Louis; and Hilary Broughton, MSW, co-manager of the Center for Community Health Partnership & Research The Center for Community Health Partnership & Research—a joint endeavor of the Institute for Public Health and the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences at Washington University in […]
After two years, ‘For the Sake of All’ continues to push for action and outcomes
Written by Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, associate professor in the Brown School When the For the Sake of All report was released two years ago chronicling the significant racial disparities in health and other life outcomes in the St. Louis region, there was much concern about the report collecting dust. We have worked hard to […]
Enhanced Cultural and Linguistic Services standards: Not just language anymore
In 1997, the Office of Minority Health (OMH) undertook the development of national standards to provide organizations and providers with guidance on the implementation of culturally and linguistically appropriate services. Three years later, the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services in Health and Health Care (CLAS) were entered into the Federal Register [1]. […]
Implementation science and health disparities: The quality gap is still here
Racial and ethnic minorities in the United States continue to face serious mental health care disparities, receiving lower quality care and completing treatment less often than their non-Hispanic white counterparts. (1,2) Mental health care disparities are complex, in large part because factors that contribute to disparities occur at a variety of levels and include individuals, families, […]
Health equity series
The Missouri Foundation for Health has compiled five reports on health disparities within the state as part of their Health Equity Series, assembling a variety of data sources in an effort to document inequities impacting minority groups. African American Health Disparities in Missouri provides evidence that African Americans are trailing the state’s white population on […]
Economics, policy, and racial disparities
Health disparities has been an important topic for public health researchers for years, with much or most of the focus on disparities across racial groups in the US, where we see wide disparities on almost every outcome measure. In the St. Louis area and region, health disparities remains a critical topic where if anything the […]
“Where did you graduate from high school?” Insurance as education reform
Written by William F. Tate, the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis “My ear hurts.” “It’s hard to breathe.” “I feel afraid and it won’t go away.” Imagine learning to read or doing a science project with otitis media or asthma. Picture taking a major exam […]
White fear creates white spaces and exacerbates health disparities
Written by Melody Goodman, PhD, assistant professor at the Washington University School of Medicine “White fear has manifested itself in outright violence post-slavery through the imposition of Jim Crow segregation. White fear has manifested itself legislatively via redlining laws and cruel lending practices barring blacks from owning property in ‘white neighborhoods.’ White fear has manifested itself […]
Linguistic diversity and disparate health outcomes
Researchers explore the impact of linguistic diversity on health outcomes.
For the Sake of All project update
For the Sake of All recently released an “Evidence in Action” update, detailing the progress that has been made since the release of its signature report eighteen months ago. The initiative began in 2013 as an effort to investigate the health and well-being of African Americans in the St. Louis region, with an eye toward […]
Creating economic opportunity in St. Louis
Written by Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, associate professor in the Brown School Last year, the For the Sake of All project team released a series of policy briefs and a report that analyzed the data around health disparities in the St. Louis region and outlined a set of recommendations to help close the gap. This […]