Brown School

Lainie Friedman Ross, MD, PhD, of the University of Chicago, addresses the panel at the Policy Forum program “First, Do No Harm: Genetic Privacy in the Age of Genome Sequencing” in Brown Hall Feb. 25. Among other topics, panel participants addressed the ethical implications of genetic privacy and incidental findings that may occur because of genome testing. 

Half of parents in the United States would consent to have their children receive the flu vaccine in school, according to a survey from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. It is among the first to provide national data on parent preferences on school-administered flu shots. “This study shows the potential to use schools for large-scale influenza vaccination programs in the U.S.,” said Derek S. Brown, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School and lead author of the study.

A recent gift of $1,025,000 will establish the Suren G. Dutia and Jas K. Grewal Global Impact Award in the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University. The endowed fund will receive $1 million, with the remaining $25,000 to support awards made during the current academic year. Applications are being accepted until March 24 for awards to support business ventures aimed at catalyzing social change.

In conjunction with the 50th anniversary of the surgeon general’s landmark report on smoking, the Brown School’s Center for Public Health Systems Science, in partnership with the Tobacco Control Legal Consortium, has published two new tobacco control guides — Policy Strategies and Pricing Policy — that aim to give state and local communities the guidance and resources needed to move tobacco-control policies forward.

For Kimberly Jade Norwood, Washington University professor of law and African & African American studies, the topic of her newly released book, Color Matters: Skin Tone Bias and the Myth of a Postracial America (Routledge, 2013), strikes close to home.

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Sheryl WuDunn will present an Assembly Series address on “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 11, in Graham Chapel on Washington University in St. Louis’ Danforth Campus. A booksigning will follow in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge. Both events are free and open to the public.

Open Streets initiatives — the opening of streets normally reserved for vehicle traffic to temporarily allow cycling, walking, dancing and socializing — are growing in the United States. Now, thanks to researchers at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, a toolkit is in place to help communities and organizers measure their positive impact.

Arguably among the most profound scientific advancements of our time, genome sequencing is having significant impacts on the understanding of human health and disease. Yet growing concerns exist around the matter of the return of a patient’s genetic results and the treatment of a patient’s genomic data at all levels of care.

Last year, almost 900,000 low- and moderate-income tax filers participated in a unique tax preparation savings intervention program, depositing approximately $5.9 million more into savings accounts than they would have without the intervention. As the 2014 tax season opens, the Refund to Savings initiative continues with adjustments designed to help more Americans build savings. “The intervention is promising,” says Michal Grinstein-Weiss PhD, associate director of the Center for Social Development, which helped develop the program.

The Washington University in St. Louis Assembly Series turned 60 in 2013, and to mark such an august occasion, it’s fitting to remember why the lecture series was conceived in the first place. The Assembly Series launched during the institution’s centennial celebration in 1953 as a way to involve the broader St. Louis community in the robust intellectual life on campus.