Written by Chee Teik Lee, medical student at University College Dublin and participant in the 2019 Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program – Public & Global Health Track Breast cancer is the most common invasive cancer in women. Age, obesity, and mammographic density are strong risk factors for breast cancer. Modifiable lifestyle factors such […]
Vice-President Biden has recently called for renewed efforts to address the burden and growing impact of cancer in the US and worldwide. Over 12 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed worldwide in 2012. Refining strategies to implement and sustain cancer prevention interventions that are established as effective to reduce cancer incidence offers the best […]
The Global Health Center at the Institute for Public Health is hosting its fourth annual Global Health and Infectious Disease Conference with a focus on “Shrinking the Cure and Prevention Divide that Separates Populations from Life-Saving Drugs and Vaccines.” The Institute approached a select group of conference presenters to get their thoughts on the cure/prevention […]
Written by Melissa Ramel, MS, MPH, RD, LD, associate professor in the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics at Saint Louis University It’s the beginning of a New Year which brings New Year’s resolutions, cold weather, and hope for healthy change. For the HEAL (Healthy Eating, Active Living) Partnership, the community coalition tasked with reducing obesity […]
Every day, the general public is inundated with news about potential threats such as tornadoes, food contamination, and infectious disease outbreaks. The media keep the public up-to-date on these threats, both big and small. And while the media can be a valuable tool in disseminating information in threatening situations, they often miss the mark of […]
Written by Steve Woods, RN, BSN, MBA, manager of trauma services at St. Louis Children’s Hospital The #enough message shared by the Brady Campaign sums up the way many people are feeling in St. Louis about the increase in crime, and, more importantly, the increase in gun violence that has erupted within our beloved community. Each […]
A recent report from the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, “The Truth About Suicide and Guns,” describes the strong link between gun ownership and suicide: a gun in the home makes suicide three times more likely. The report finds that while gun ownership alone presents the greatest risk, when combined with the impulsive nature of […]
Written by Liam Otten, news, arts and humanities director in the Office of Public Affairs at Washington University in St. Louis Art is disruptive. It can fracture entrenched positions. It can restart conversations. This fall, the Sam Fox School is presenting Guns In The Hands of Artists. Organized by the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery in New […]
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Most of you have probably been touched by the issue of domestic violence through someone close to you, in clinical practice, or through research. This problem goes by different names depending on which organization or professional affiliation you belong to: domestic violence, family violence, intimate partner violence, partner violence, dating […]
I am standing here at the door of my studio in the Clinton-Peabody housing projects (“the Peabodies”), looking across St. Ange Street to the playground. J’Nylah Douglas’ grandma used to live right there, across the way, her front door facing the playground, just a couple car lengths from my studio. In 2011 J’Nylah was visiting […]
Written by Julie Hail Flory, interim vice chancellor of public affairs in the Office of Public Affairs at Washington University in St. Louis In the blink of an eye, everything changed for Lonnie and Sandy Phillips. On July 20, 2012, their daughter, Jessica Redfield Ghawi, was one of 12 people killed when a gunman opened […]
Written by Robert M. Kennedy, MD, pediatric emergency medicine physician; Martin S. Keller, MD, director of trauma services; Angela Lumba-Brown, MD, pediatric emergency medicine physician; and Fahd A. Ahmad, MD, MSCI, pediatric emergency medicine physician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital As pediatric emergency and trauma physicians at St. Louis Children’s Hospital we are alarmed by the growing epidemic of firearm-related injuries that […]
By the standards of St. Louis in 2015, the last weekend of September was an island of calm. Readers of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the Monday after learned that a 20-year-old woman, shot in the hip while driving down Interstate 70 early Sunday morning, would quickly recover. A fatal shooting at Carondelet Park on […]
Written by Jennifer M. Joyce, circuit attorney for the City of St. Louis The landscape in St. Louis and across the country is very different today than it was even just a year ago. Gun violence is the number one issue this community faces today. Too many people are dying. In 2014, 138 people were […]
Written by Carl Filler, MSW, director of strategic policy initiatives in the Mayor’s Office of the City of St. Louis Cities across the United States have been grappling with endemic violence—often manifested in gun-related violence. While homicide rates—the most extreme form of violent crime—increased drastically from the 1960s through the early 1980s and sustained through […]
Written by Poli Rijos, coordinator for the Gun Violence: A Public Health Crisis initiative at Washington University in St. Louis. As of September 15, 2015, the City of St. Louis has been affected by over 145 murders. During recent conversations with law enforcement officials, I learned that most gun violence can be localized to specific […]
Written by Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH, deputy director of the Institute for Public Health; and professor in the Department of Surgery at the School of Medicine When it comes to cancer, there are few topics as supercharged as diet. A quick search of “diet and cancer” in Google News alone returns over 3 million stories. […]
Written by Connie Diekman, MEd, RD, CSSD, LD, FADA, director of nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis The internet is full of diet proclamations, new diet books and promised answers to eternal youth and or health but when you look at all of these claims you often see that each might be a bit […]
One of the most positive features of the current era of HIV, particularly in the Western world, is the fact that patients are aging successfully. In the 1980s, when the disease was first recognized, the average survival after someone was given a diagnosis of AIDS was approximately two years; indeed, on average, the interval between […]
During Open Streets events, cars are restricted from driving on certain streets so that people may walk, run, bike, skate, dance and play for a few hours each week, most commonly on Sundays. Common in Latin America, these events give communities a safe and affordable environment in which to come together for exercise and play. […]
Established in 2008, Supporting Positive Opportunities with Teens – better known as the SPOT – is a one-stop drop-in center for teens and young adults that provides HIV/STD testing, health care, counseling, social support, case management, substance abuse and more services — all at no cost. Katie Plax, MD is one of the founders of […]