COVID-19: Age & Race Lead to Compounding Risk

Issues affecting older adults during the time of COVID-19 are the topic of this blogpost by guest author, Morgan Van Vleck, masters research fellow in aging.

Institute supports new lab

The Institute for Public Health is supporting WashU’s new Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2) as an institutional partner by helping fund its Black Girlhood Studies Lab. According to the lab’s webpage: “The Black Girlhood Studies Lab examines the lives of Black girls historically and ethnographically in community-centered ways. Black girlhood […]

Trust: A rising public health concern?

Written by Farhana Nabi, MD candidate at the University College Dublin; University College Dublin Scholar in the 2020 Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program – Public and Global Health Abbreviated Track Trust. It is the essence of formative relationships between people, institutions and societies. In a conversation with Kurt Dirks, PhD, vice chancellor for […]

Racism in the U.S.: Responsibility of the public health sector

Written by Laasya Vallabhaneni, BS candidate in neuroscience and cognitive science at University of Arizona; SPRIGHT Scholar in the 2020 Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program – Public and Global Health Abbreviated Track  Only by acknowledging the presence of racism ingrained in our system can we bring change for minority populations being disproportionately affected. […]

St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission Releases Statement on Policing and Violence Prevention

Written by Kim Furlow, Institute for Public Health The St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission (VPC) has released a list of recommendations for policing and violence prevention. The recommendations are the culmination of a year of community listening sessions, interviews with law enforcement stakeholders, and an online police legitimacy survey. This process has been part […]

COVID-19 double jeopardy: The intersection of race and age

Written by Emma Swinford, Natalie Galucia and Nancy Morrow-Howell Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging at the Institute for Public Health, Washington University in St. Louis The American Society on Aging recently released a statement, which begins, “Age offers no immunity to racism and violence.” In fact, age often magnifies the impact of structural inequalities like racism. […]

Perspective: Broadening the scope as the country re-imagines policing

Written by Ron Long, head of Wells Fargo Aging Client Services In the wake of the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, there has been a call to reimagine policing. As an African American male who has been stopped over 20 times in my life thus far, I fully support having those conversations. Some […]

Statement on the death of George Floyd and too many others

The Center for Human Rights, Gender and Migration grieves the tragic death of George Floyd last week, and of Tony McDade, Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Yvette Smith, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant, and too many others in recent memory. We stand in solidarity with […]

Perspectives: Black Lives Matter

Written by Adjoa Cofie, research technician, Washington University School of Medicineand alumnus of the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program, Public and Global Health Track In the wake of the death of Floyd George, and subsequent nationwide civil unrest over police brutality and systemic racism, many are speaking out about how we can all work […]

COVID-19: Setting Up Vulnerable Communities for Success

Julia López, PhD, MPH, LCSW, an Institute for Public Health Faculty Scholar, joined the Department of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases in February, 2020 as Instructor of Medicine. Since then, she has become a champion of the Latin community, working to help provide mental health assistance and Spanish language guidelines on the do’s […]

African American employment and COVID-19: Disparities and compounding risks

COVID-19 is an equal opportunity virus, but exposure to this virus does not take place in an equal opportunity context. Although only some states and counties provide COVID-19 cases and outcomes by race, the data available indicate that disparities are stark. We know that individuals who live with serious underlying health conditions are at higher […]

COVID-19’s amplification of racial health inequities: A reflection about losing my people

Written by Kamaria Lee, MD candidate at Washington University in St. Louis; collaborator with the Global Health Center on the USAID-ASHA project to Improve Cancer Care in Guatemala Recently, Americans have faced the reality that COVID-19 is not immune to the power of racial inequity. In honest efforts to promote a “we are all in […]

Importance of social context in health research

Written by Antonia Asher, MPH Candidate in International Health & Development at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine and participant in the 2019 Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program – Public & Global Health Track This summer, I am working with Dr. Darrell Hudson, Associate Professor, Brown School, and his […]

St. Louis bus tour reveals history of racial disparities

Written by Brittany Calkins, BA candidate at Emory University and participant in the 2019 Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program – Public & Global Health Track I am from St. Louis, so when I saw we had a bus tour, I assumed we would be visiting the “classic” St. Louis areas, such as the […]

Action toward food equity

Written by Alyna Sibert, MS, operations manager for the North City Food Hub and Institute for Public Health 2018 Annual Conference speaker The CDC defines health equity as “everyone has the opportunity to be as healthy as possible.”  Healthy People 2020 defines health equity as the “attainment of the highest level of health for all […]

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 […]

Removing barriers to make research more meaningful and inclusive

Written by Robert Doyle, data coordinator for the REACH Initiative at the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research/Center for Community Health Partnership & Research at the Institute for Public Health Diversity of participation in National Institute of Health (NIH) research became a mandate with the NIH Revitalization Act of 1993, yet nearly 25 years later, […]

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 […]

Clinica de Migrantes documentary screening and panel discussion

Written by Kyle Smith, undergraduate in economics and computational biology at University of Rochester and participant in the Institute for Public Health Summer Research Program On July 10, Casa de Salud, a local organization offering affordable or no-cost healthcare, welcomed community members for a viewing of Clinica de Migrantes: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of […]

Ferguson pilot grant and Institute match recipient

Washington University’s Ferguson Academic Seed Fund and the Institute for Public Health awarded funding to Darrell Hudson, PhD, MPH, Institute scholar and assistant professor at the Brown School, for his project titled, ‘An Examination of Race and Costs of Upward Social Mobility in St. Louis.’ Despite the improved socioeconomic status of black Americans, why are members of […]

Institute supports Ferguson Academic Seed Fund projects

The Institute for Public Health is pleased to offer additional support to projects, that have the potential to impact public health, funded by the Ferguson Academic Seed Fund (FASF). We provide matching funds to support the projects described below. The FASF was established by the Washington University Chancellor and Provost’s offices to provide support for addressing […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]