Pandemic: One year later (Links to an external site)

WashU Experts: One pandemic year later, what’s next? Originally published in WUSTL’s The Source,  contributing to this story were: Caroline Arbanas, Judy Martin Finch, Chuck Finder, Sara Savat, Neil Schoenherr and Diane Duke Williams.  A city the density of Atlanta or Milwaukee, over a half-million strong, tragically has been wiped from the face of America’s […]

2020 in review: Center for Dissemination & Implementation works with state to inform COVID-19 response

Since March 2020, the Center for Dissemination and Implementation at the Institute for Public Health has partnered with both the St. Louis region and the state of Missouri to provide data analysis and modeling related to COVID-19. These partnerships influenced the region to issue shelter-in-place orders sooner than they might have, allowed state officials to […]

Data Center Pivots in the Wake of Pandemic: 2020 Highlights

One of the strengths of the Institute for Public Health is its flexibility. Faculty and staff at the Public Health Data and Training Center pivoted quickly to support Covid-19 data efforts when the pandemic hit. Covid-19 & Regional Data Infrastructure Data Center Director, Randi Foraker leads an effort to create a regional Covid-19 dataset that […]

Saint Louis County announces results of institute-led COVID prevalence survey

Written in collaboration with the St. Louis County Department of Public Health At least one out of every 100 St. Louis County adult residents had an active COVID-19 infection earlier this fall, while about five out of every 100 adults had contracted the disease at some earlier point, according to test results of a representative […]

Institute for Public Health 2020 annual conference summary

Given that COVID-19 is in the forefront of the minds of, well…everyone, here and across the world, it was no surprise that the disease was the focus of the 13th Institute for Public Health Annual Conference, Oct. 29th. But, how prepared were we for the pandemic locally and nationally? What were the hidden costs and how […]

Institute director leads new COVID-19 clinical study

The Larry J. Shapiro Director, Institute for Public Health, William G. Powderly, MD, associate dean for Clinical and Translational Sciences; co-director of the Washington University Division of Infectious Diseases and director of the Institute for Clinical and Translational Sciences, is principal investigator on a new study of anti-inflammatory drugs in COVID-19 patients. According to a […]

Social Determinants of Health Working Group studies minority populations and their needs during COVID-19 and beyond

Since the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates have been higher for minorities nationwide. This is likely multifactorial, according to Institute Faculty Scholar and Co-director of the Center for Health Economics and Policy, Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, MPH. “The evidence is overwhelming that minority populations including African Americans, Native Americans, and Latinx […]

In great need of in-person supports, developmentally disabled are overlooked in pandemic-related decisions, experts say (Links to an external site)

As the nation’s children, teens and college students attempt to start a new school year amidst debate regarding how best to resume education during the COVID-19 pandemic, a segment of the population in desperate need of in-person supports often is overlooked in the decision-making process, according to a group of experts on the topic. “In […]

Reimagining public health in aftermath of COVID-19 (Links to an external site)

COVID-19 caught public health systems in the U.S. unprepared to detect, track and contain the virus. The pandemic has exposed a multitude of deficiencies that require a wholesale reinvention of the field of public health, said four leading experts in a recently published essay… Read more of the story originally published by The Source.

COVID-19 antibody tests evaluated as diagnostic test in low-resource settings (Links to an external site)

Such antibody tests use finger-prick blood samples, deliver quick results With Brazil leading the world in newly diagnosed COVID-19 cases, Latin America has become the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile, outbreaks continue to escalate in parts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Public health authorities worldwide desperately need to expand testing so they […]

Institute awards funding for COVID-19 projects that study its impact on individuals and communities

The Institute for Public Health announces funding for seven research projects aimed at social and policy countermeasures in health that will mitigate the spread and negative impact of COVID-19 among individuals and communities. “While it’s important to advance research on basic science, testing and treatment for COVID-19, it’s equally important to understand the social, mental, […]

Patients with COVID-19 donate specimens to advance research efforts (Links to an external site)

In the weeks before the St. Louis region saw its first patients with COVID-19, physician-scientists at Washington University School of Medicine began planning and preparing how best to collect blood and other biological samples from such patients so specimens could be quickly disseminated to researchers seeking strategies to treat, prevent and contain the novel coronavirus.

White Coats for Black Lives (Links to an external site)

On Friday, June 5, hundreds of health care professionals from Washington University School of Medicine, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis Children’s Hospital, and Saint Louis University Hospital and Medical School filled the sidewalks of Kingshighway Boulevard, to demonstrate in support of Black Lives Matter. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists and technicians, motivated by events in Minneapolis in which […]

Center for Dissemination and Implementation Awards Rapid Add-On (RAD) Funding

The Center for Dissemination and Implementation has awarded $15,000 in Rapid Add-on Funding to the following study, which centers on the impact of a lapse in education to Pakistani and Afghani children during the COVID-19 pandemic. The RAD funding mechanism enables investigators to rapidly “add-on” measurements or pilot data collection to an existing observational or experimental research […]

COVID-19: Modeling and Moving Forward

Written by Kim Furlow, Institute for Public Health; Elvin Geng, MD, MPH, director, Center for Dissemination and Implementation; and Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, MPH, co-director, Center for Health Economics and Policy Members of the Institute for Public Health team are using mathematical and epidemiological modeling to help inform local and state government and health authorities’ […]

New report shows disproportionate COVID-19 impact

As stated in its introduction, a new research brief citing research from the Center for Health Economics & Policy “aims to quantify COVID-19-related health disparities in the St. Louis region using ZIP code-level data on confirmed cases and demographic composition.” Mirroring racialized COVID-19 trends in other metropolitan areas, the report focuses on observed, yet unexplained, […]

An Important Message about COVID-19

The Institute for Public Health seeks to follow University and national guidelines to help protect the health and well-being of our community against COVID-19 (Coronavirus). We hope you will find this page to be a valuable resource in staying informed about this evolving situation. The Institute for Public Health Response to COVID-19 The Institute for […]