Author: Neil Schoenherr

Factors associated with the prevalence of diabetes vary by geographic region in the United States, according to new research from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis led by J. Aaron Hipp, PhD. The findings suggest that approaches to combating the disease should be localized.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton installs the Brown School’s Sean Joe as the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development during a ceremony Jan. 26 in Brown Lounge.

Nominations for the 2015 Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Award for Excellence in Service to Older Adults are now open to anyone within the St. Louis region who has made an outstanding contribution in service to older adults. The award is presented annually by the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging, part of the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis.

In our increasingly digital world, the balance between privacy and free speech is tenuous, at best. But we often overlook the important ways in which privacy is necessary to protect our cherished civil liberties of freedom of speech, thought and belief, says Neil M. Richards, JD, a privacy law expert at Washington University in St. Louis and author of the new book, “Intellectual Privacy: Rethinking Civil Liberties in the Digital Age,” published Feb. 2 by Oxford University Press.

Good news for the new year: According to new research by Washington University in St. Louis and Cornell University, there’s a 1-in-9 chance that a typical American will hit the jackpot and join the wealthiest 1 percent for at least one year in her or his working life. The bad news: That same research says only an elite few get to stay in that economic stratosphere – and nonwhite workers remain among those who face far longer odds.

A new tool kit for dissemination and implementation, developed by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute in Washington, D.C., prominently features the work of several university faculty members, including the groundbreaking 2012 book, “Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health: Translating Science to Practice.”

A commitment to free speech doesn’t justify us in lashing out at innocent people, says Greg Magarian, JD, professor of law and a First Amendment expert at Washington University in St. Louis, in the wake of the terrorist attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in France.

Fourteen people have been arrested in connection with a 2012 outbreak of fungal meningitis linked to steroid injections that caused 64 deaths across the United States. The arrests, which resulted in two people being charged with 25 acts of second-degree murder, remind us that drug manufacturers must be responsible for their actions, says a noted medical ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

Shenyang Guo, PhD, was installed Nov. 25 as the Frank J. Bruno Distinguished Professor of Social Work Research. Guo is the McDonnell International Scholars Academy’s ambassador to Fudan University in Shanghai and also serves as assistant vice chancellor for international affairs-Greater China.

You might want to stand up for this. Occupational sitting is associated with an increased likelihood of obesity, especially among black women, independent of occupational and leisure time physical activity, finds a new study from the School of Medicine and the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.