Brown School

The use of social media to disseminate information is increasing in local health departments, but a new study, led by Jenine K. Harris, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School finds that Twitter accounts are followed more by organizations than individuals and may not be reaching the intended audience.

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.

The 24th annual Pow Wow, a festival of American Indian cultures at Washington University in St. Louis, will be held Saturday, April 5, in the Field House on the Danforth Campus. The event, hosted by the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies at the Brown School, is free and open to the public.

More than two-dozen WUSTL students have been invited to attend Clinton Global Initiative University in Arizona this weekend. One team’s project would help loved ones connect after disasters. And graduate student DeAndrea Nichols was chosen to help open the meeting. WUSTL hosted last year’s event.

Washington University graduate student De Andrea Nichols has been chosen to help open the 2014 CGI U meeting as one of five students featured at the opening plenary session that begins at 8:30 p.m. (CDT) Friday, March 21, at Arizona State University.

Nancy Staudt, JD, PhD, vice dean for faculty and academic affairs at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, has been named dean of the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, effective May 15, 2014, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. She also will become the Caroline and Howard N. Cayne Professor of Law as well as a professor at the Brown School.

Getting Congress to pass the Affordable Care Act, the landmark health insurance legislation, in 2010, was challenging — but not nearly as challenging as implementing it. With the deadline for first-time enrollment looming March 31, research from Matthew W. Kreuter, PhD, and the Brown School’s Health Communications Research Laboratory is helping. 

Growing up in rural Alaska, Chukwuma is caught between American friends and traditional Nigerian parents. So begins “Alaskaland,” one of eight films to be screened March 28-30 as part of Washington University’s annual African Film Festival. Other highlights will include “Tey,” an impressionistic celebration of life and death, and “Aya of Yop City,” adapted from the graphic novels of Marguerite Abouet.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have shown that providing women with free contraception does not increase the likelihood that they will have sex with multiple partners, as critics of the practice have suggested. Shown is the study’s first author, Gina Secura, PhD.

On March 6, the state of Maine became the first in the United States to make college savings for newborns universal and automatic, putting into practice research pioneered by Michael Sherraden, PhD, the George Warren Brown Distinguished University Professor and director ofthe Brown School’s Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis.