Author: Jessica Roberts Martin

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis will award a Distinguished Faculty Award and three Distinguished Alumni Awards during its annual alumni awards celebration at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 2, at Steinberg Hall Auditorium. A reception will follow at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Register to attend the event and catch a glimpse of current “heroes in training” through a series of videos from the Brown School at brownschool.wustl.edu/DAA2012.

The National Rural Health Association (NRHA) honored Timothy D. McBride, PhD, associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, with its Outstanding Researcher Award April 19 during the NRHA’s 35th annual Rural Health Conference.

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University in St. Louis will host a morning discussion with former Democratic Rep. Richard A. ‘Dick’ Gephardt and former Republican Sen. Christopher S. ‘Kit’ Bond at 10:30 a.m. Friday, April 27, in Simon Hall Room 109. The two former legislators will engage students and faculty on the 2012 presidential and congressional Elections.

The Supreme Court’s upcoming decision on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care act has prompted some interesting and provocative issues about – and between – the president and the judicial branch, says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and former clerk for retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. “These alarmed reactions reflect historical ignorance,” he says.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will have a major impact on the presidential campaign, says Timothy D. McBride, PhD, health economist and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “The health reform legislation was the signature piece of social legislation passed by President (Barack) Obama’s administration in his first term,” he says. How the court’s decision will influence the election could be quite complex, says McBride. The court is hearing arguments in the case March 26-28

The 22nd annual Pow Wow at Washington University in St. Louis, a festival of American Indian cultures, will be held Saturday, March 31, in the WU Field House. This event, hosted by the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies at the Brown School of Social Work, is free and open to the public. Visitors and participants will be able to enjoy dancing, singing, drumming, arts, crafts and food. Grand entries will take place at noon and 6 p.m. Traditional arts and crafts booths and community information booths open at 10 a.m.

Experts on youth advocacy and school desegregation will come together March 22 and 23 for a series of events as part of the Youth Justice Program at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. Events are free and open to the public and will be held in the Bryan Cave Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall, Room 310.

Participating in an online March Madness bracket or fantasy sport league is harmless fun for most people, but for someone with a gambling addiction, it can be a dangerous temptation. “Now, with states entertaining the possibility of increasing revenue through legalizing internet gambling, it is even more important to pay attention to groups that may be vulnerable to problem gambling, particularly youth,” says Renee Cunningham-Williams, PhD, gambling addictions expert and associate professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Smoking, the leading preventable cause of mortality in the United States, continues to disproportionately impact lower income members of racial and ethnic minority groups. In a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health, Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, looked at how perceived discrimination influences smoking rates among these groups. “We found that regardless of race or ethnicity, the odds of current smoking were higher among individuals who perceived that they were treated differently because of their race, though racial and ethnic minority groups were more likely to report discrimination,” he says. 

Social Security’s cost of living adjustments (COLA) are designed to protect against the erosion of retiree purchasing power when prices go up, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). “Now Social Security self-styled ‘reformers’ seek to lower COLA every year based on their claim that COLA overstates inflation,” says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. The proposed substitute for the current CPI formula, ‘Chained COLA,’ is based on the assumption that benefit recipients substitute lower-priced goods as prices go up. “This the assumption is unrealistic for those millions who only have access to convenience stores that typically offer fewer choice and higher prices,” says Bernstein, the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “And, further, it is not reasonable to assume that most consumers can outwit the wiles of merchandising experts.”