Author: Neil Schoenherr

Transit stops close to home and workplace incentives are associated with higher likelihood that commuters will choose public transportation, according to research from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The study is co-authored by Aaron Hipp, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School.

A new study finds that that 1.2 percent of American preschool children on Medicaid are using psychotropic drugs, including antidepressants, mood stabilizers and medications for attention-deficit disorder. Using 2000-2003 Medicaid Analytic Extract data from 36 states, a group of researchers at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found preschoolers are receiving psychotropic medications despite limited evidence supporting safety or efficacy.

The Brown School’s Douglas A. Luke, PhD, professor and director of the Center for Public Health Systems Science at Washington University in St. Louis, was on an Institute of Medicine committee which recently released guidelines to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on using agent-based models to improve the effect of tobacco control policy on public health.

While the location of the annual Pow Wow is changing this year, the tradition and excitement are not. The 25th annual Pow Wow, a festival of American Indian cultures at Washington University in St. Louis, will be held Saturday, April 4, at the Dunham Student Activity Center on the campus of nearby Fontbonne University.

“For the Sake of All,” the multidisciplinary project begun in 2013 that examined and now aims to improve the health and well-being of African Americans in St. Louis, has received a $100,000 gift from Wells Fargo Advisors. The gift will further the project’s reach into the community by facilitating conversations with, and giving voice to, young people in the region.

Little is known about how heterosexual men navigated dramatic changes in the legal regulation of families in the 1980s. A new paper by Deborah Dinner, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, provides the first legal history of the father’s rights movement, analyzing how middle-class white men responded to rising divorce rates by pursuing reform in both family law and welfare policy.

A new project from the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis shows, among other findings, that girls in developing countries, given equal opportunities, will save as much or more in formal financial institutions than boys. The project was aimed at examining the attitudes and practices of young people in developing economies toward saving money. It has led to new findings that confirm and challenge assumptions about youth saving at formal financial institutions.

Nancy Morrow-Howell, PhD, is a national leader in gerontology, widely known for her work on productive and civic engagement of older adults. She is also the Bettie Bofinger Brown Distinguished Professor of Social Policy at the Brown School, faculty director of productive aging research at the  Center for Social Development and director of the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging, part of the Institute for Public Health, all at Washington University in St. Louis.

Appearing March 12 before the U.S. Senate Special Committe on Aging, Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, associate director of the Center for Social Development (CSD) at Washington University in St. Louis, urged U.S. senators to create long-term asset-building policies and to use such “golden moments” as tax time to urge Americans to save.

With the “Right to Work” movement growing in Wisconsin and other states, a majority of states may soon bar employees and unions from negotiating agreements that require non-members to contribute to the costs of representing them. For unions to survive and thrive, at least two significant changes are necessary, argues Marion Crain, JD, vice provost and the Wiley B. Rutledge Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis.