Jason Purnell’s research focuses on how socioeconomic and sociocultural factors influence health behaviors and health outcomes and on mobilizing community action to address the social determinants of health. He currently leads Health Equity Works, the new name and expanded mission of the Brown School initiative previously referred to as For the Sake of All. Health Equity Works is committed to St. Louis and to translating data and research into collaborative community action to advance health equity. Their work in St. Louis continues and will expand in school health, economic opportunity, early childhood, quality neighborhoods and housing.
Purnell is trained in both applied psychology and public health. He is a faculty affiliate with the Prevention Research Center and the Center for Public Health Systems Science at the Brown School, a faculty scholar in the Institute for Public Health, and faculty director for Thriving Communities in the Center for Social Development.
Purnell is very active in the St. Louis community, including service on the boards of St. Louis University High School and the American Youth Foundation. He is also a licensed psychologist in the state of Missouri and a former director of community engagement with the United Way of Greater St. Louis.
We need to reinvest in a coordinated homelessness prevention system, write Jason Purnell and Patrick Fowler. It provides a smart and equitable investment. We dismantled homelessness prevention when the stimulus money ran out and HUD priorities shifted toward serving the most vulnerable. Now, we need to think creatively about pooling regional resources for a rapid and robust homelessness prevention system.
In St. Louis, as in the country at large, the deadly disparities of the pandemic are as unsurprising as they are unsettling, writes Jason Purnell. It is not simply that African Americans in St. Louis, as in the rest of the United States, have been left behind, and thus set in the way of the virus.
We dismantled homelessness prevention when the stimulus money ran out and HUD priorities shifted toward serving the most vulnerable. Now, we need to think creatively about pooling regional resources for a rapid and robust homelessness prevention system. We did it in the past, and we can do it again.
Black Americans are dying of COVID-19 at much higher rates than whites, and nowhere more so than in St. Louis. This is the result of racist policies which collapsed the social safety net while setting blacks in the path of danger.
A new 115-page community-driven report on segregation and housing in St. Louis has been released by numerous local partners in the fields of public health, law, fair housing, and community development, including the Brown School’s For the Sake of All initiative.
I teach a course called “Social Justice & Human Diversity” for mostly first-year social work master’s students. It’s been my contention that in order to understand these broad topics, my students must confront history in ways that complicate common narratives about this nation and the broader world, including contradictions between espoused values and actual outcomes for marginalized individuals and groups.
I first sat down to write a piece like this three years ago, when my city, St. Louis, was wracked with the initial convulsions of what would later be known simply as “Ferguson.” I didn’t submit it for publication then. I wasn’t sure it would make a useful contribution. I didn’t know if it would jeopardize other important work I was involved in. I wasn’t confident that people would understand my meaning.
A chief aim of “For the Sake of All” was always to describe disparities in health as more than just a matter of health care. In the hundreds of presentations I have given on our report since its release, I emphasize that health is about much more than doctors’ offices, hospitals, health insurance, and prescription drugs. Those resources are vital to treating illness, but health is also strongly determined by the quality of education, the availability of affordable housing, and the possibility of making a living wage.
For the Sake of All, a Washington University in St. Louis-based initiative working to improve health equity for African-Americans in the St. Louis region, has received a $1.1 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to work within St. Louis Public Schools and the Normandy Schools Collaborative.
It’s been three years since the launch of For the Sake of All, the groundbreaking multidisciplinary project on the health and well-being of African Americans in St. Louis. The initiative, led by Jason Purnell, assistant professor at the Brown School, continues to gather momentum as it moves into its third phase: implementation of recommended strategies.
More than 100 local community leaders will convene Feb. 19 at the Brown School to help lay the groundwork for implementing strategies put forth by For the Sake of All, the multi-disciplinary project on the health and well-being of African Americans in St. Louis.
Jason Purnell, assistant professor in the Brown School, has been named recipient of the 2016 FOCUS St. Louis Leadership Award for his work on the For the Sake of All project.
Washington University in St. Louis and the United Way of Greater St. Louis have formed a joint partnership that aims to provide support and resources to local initiatives that are uniting in their efforts to combat gun violence in the region.
The 29th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Celebration at Washington University in St. Louis will recognize members of the St. Louis and university community who continue to advance King’s message through service and leadership. Jason Purnell, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School, will deliver the keynote address at the event that begins at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 18, in Graham Chapel.
More and better health care will be necessary, but not sufficient, to advance better overall population health and to address lingering health disparities, says Jason Purnell, an expert on public health at Washington University in St. Louis. Purnell has written a chapter in the newly released book “What It’s Worth: Strengthening the Financial Future of Families, Communities, and the Nation.”
“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.
For the Sake of All, the mulitdisciplinary project aimed at improving the health and well-being of African Americans in St. Louis, has partnered with the St. Louis County Library system to help further promote its recommendations.
“For the Sake of All” is an interdisciplinary project funded by the Missouri Foundation for Health to improve the health and well-being of African-Americans in the St. Louis region. The project officially kicks off its community action series at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 23, at St. Louis Public Radio’s Community Room with the first
of six community forums.
A half-century after the Civil Rights Act, unequal access to resources continues to afflict the St. Louis area, resulting in billions of dollars lost in health-care costs and wages. But a multidisciplinary, landmark study called “For the Sake of All: A Report on the Health and Well-Being of African Americans in St. Louis,” led by the Brown School’s Jason Purnell and released May 30, proposes solutions informed by evidence and community input and includes a call to action to community members and stakeholders.
Chanelle Hardy, JD, a senior executive with the National Urban League, will be keynote speaker at the For the Sake of All Community Conference that begins at 8 a.m. Friday, May 30, at the Missouri History Museum. At the conference — the culmination of a yearlong, groundbreaking study of African-American health and well-being in the St. Louis region — researchers will issue a final
report along with policy recommendations for the region. The conference is free and open to the public, but seating is limited, and registration is required.
Jason Q. Purnell, PhD (left), lead researcher of a landmark multidisciplinary study on African-American health and well-being in St. Louis called “For the Sake of All,” actively engaged with community members March 18 at the Forest Park Visitors Center. The yearlong study held an open house to solicit feedback on the research.
Last fall, researchers in St. Louis released five policy briefs in a groundbreaking study on the health and well-being of African Americans in the region. Now it’s time for the community to weigh in on “For the Sake of All: A Report on the Health and Well-Being of African Americans in St. Louis.” A Community Feedback Forum will take place from 2-5 p.m. Monday, March 3, in the Learning Lab at the Forest Park Visitor Center, 5595 Grand Drive on the north side of Forest Park near the
Missouri History Museum.
Groundbreaking study on African-American health in St. Louis, ‘For the Sake of All’ releases third brief recommending several areas mental health in the St. Louis region can be improved. Darrell Hudson, PhD, assistant professor of the Brown School and lead author of the study, emphasizes that a combined effort between government and private sector is necessary.
Each year in the St. Louis region, thousands of African American students drop out of high school. According to a newly released policy brief — “How does health influence school dropout?” — health and education are closely related, and there are patterns related to health that increase the risk of high school dropout. The brief is the second of five in a yearlong, multidisciplinary study called “For the Sake of All: A Report on the Health and Well-Being of African Americans in St. Louis.” Its author is William F. Tate, PhD, the Edward Mallinckrodt
Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and chair of the
Department of Education in Arts & Sciences.
The first of five policy briefs — the hallmark of an ongoing, multi-disciplinary study titled “For the Sake of All: A Report on the Health and Well-Being of African Americans in St. Louis — has been released to coincide with the Aug. 28 50th anniversary of the March on Washington. Titled “How Can We Save Lives — and Save Money — in St. Louis? Invest in Economic and Educational Opportunity,” the brief focuses on the need for a multidisciplinary approach to improve health by focusing on education and economic opportunities.
A new comprehensive, multi-disciplinary study, led by the Brown School’s Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, on the health and well-being of African Americans in St. Louis could have far-reaching impacts on an entire population. The research findings and a series of related policy briefs will culminate in a community conference in 2014, coinciding with the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, has been selected as one of 20 Young Leaders under 40 for 2013 by the St. Louis American Foundation.
The Atlantic is inviting St. Louis residents
to join local public health and medical leaders for a free “Conversation
on Community Health” town hall forum from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Dec. 12
at the Hyatt Regency, 315 Chestnut St. in downtown St. Louis.
The most vulnerable and marginalized groups in this country stand to lose the most in this campaign, says Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, and all the rhetoric directed at the middle class fails to take into account the very real struggles of the poor and the working class in this country. It’s one of the issues that is being overlooked as the presidential campaign heads into the home stretch with the election just four weeks away. “I do believe this election is a stark choice between a vision in which government has a constructive role to play in enhancing people’s life choices and one in which individuals are largely on their own,” he says.
