Author: Neil Schoenherr

Recent scandals involving high-priced generic drugs should prompt us to consider price controls for pharmaceutical companies, says an expert on the health care industry at the School of Law at Washington University.

The Brown School’s Health Communication Research Laboratory (HCRL) at Washington University in St. Louis has received a five-year, $2.6 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Cancer Institute to study ways to help low-income smokers quit smoking through specialized quitlines and helping with basic needs.

The Center for Diabetes Translation Research, led by Debra Haire-Joshu, the Joyce Wood Professor at the Brown School, has been awarded $3.7 million to continue five years of funding by the National Institute for Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, a National Institutes of Health institute.

Nancy Morrow-Howell, the Bettie Bofinger Brown Distinguished Professor of Social Policy and director of the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging, will receive the Crown Leadership Award Nov. 6 from the Gladys and Henry Crown Center for Senior Living in University City.

The St. Louis Integrated Health Network, in partnership with the City of St. Louis and two Washington University in St. Louis initiatives of the Brown School — the Evaluation Center and the Center for Social Development’s Smart Decarceration Initiative — has received a $1.8 million RE-LINK grant from the U.S. Department of Human Services Office of Minority Health to assist 18-26-year-olds who recently have been released from St. Louis’ city jail.

Ross Brownson, the Bernard Becker Professor at the Brown School and director of the Prevention Research Center, has received a $2.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to find ways of reducing the burden of diabetes by increasing adoption of proven programs and policies among local health practitioners.

Greater efforts should be made to actively monitor physical activity as a risk factor in clinical practice, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Screening for suicide risk among publicly insured urban children who are experiencing psychological distress is vitally important, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier introduced on July 14 a long-delayed federal bill that would outlaw nonconsensual pornography in the United States. While he supports the law, Neil Richards, privacy law expert at Washington University in St. Louis, think it’s important that the bill be drafted in such a way as to not be a tool for censorship that can threaten our commitment to free expression.

A few dozen St. Louis area high school students gathered for a summit this summer to discuss how system dynamics can affect gun violence in the community. The second annual Changing Systems Student Summit was sponsored by the Brown School’s Ferguson Seed Fund and Social System Design Lab and the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis.