Brown School

As America’s longest war comes to an end, WUSTL panelists join author/journalist Fariba Nawa to bring their perspectives on the future of Afghanistan.

National child welfare experts Jack Tweedie (left) and L. Carol Scott visited the Brown School Oct. 18 to headline a Policy Forum discussion on the legislative landscape at the state level regarding child well-being. The Policy Forum is the Brown School’s signature effort to actively explore issues in social and health policy, and this particular panel is part of an ongoing series throughout the year that will focus on children.

WUSTL students, faculty and physicians and members of the community packed Brown Hall on Friday evening, Oct. 4, to hear Jonathan Gruber, one of the foremost authorities on the Affordable Care Act.

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.

At a ceremony held at Washington University on May 28, Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, an internationally renowned researcher in obesity and diabetes prevention, received the dual honor of being installed as the first Joyce Wood Professor, which also happens to be the university’s first endowed professorship in public health.

Afghan-American journalist and Opium Nation author Fariba Nawa will participate in two Washington University in St. Louis programs exploring the current and future state of Afghanistan: She will give an Assembly Series talk, “Afghanistan, Heroin and Women,” at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 16, in Umrath Lounge; and she will lead a panel discussion, “Aftershocks of the Afghanistan War: What’s Next for Those Who Left and for Those Left Behind,” at 2 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, in Mallinckrodt Center’s Multipurpose Room. Both are free and open to the public. Nawa was born in Afghanistan but later moved to California. She returned after the U.S.-led fight began against the Taliban and al-Qaida in that country, and in 2011 wrote a book about the addictions, violence and other tragedies borne of Afghanistan’s opiate industry.

The city of Providence, R.I., is taking the fight against Big Tobacco to a new level with innovative tobacco control policies in the retail environment. A new study, led in part by Washington University in St. Louis’ Center for Public Health Systems Science (CPHSS) at the Brown School, details Providence’s efforts and provides a road map for other municipalities to follow.

The obesity epidemic and how science may be able to impact it is the focus of the upcoming annual conference of the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. Graham Colditz, MD, DrPH, deputy director of the Institute for Public Health and a disease prevention expert at Siteman Cancer Center, will deliver the keynote address.

Close to 3 billion people in the developing world rely on biomass combustion — burning fires in rudimentary stoves — for cooking and heating needs. As a result, 4 million people die each year, and the large amount of black soot created has a staggering negative impact on the poor. This fall, Gautam N. Yadama, PhD, professor and director of international programs at the Brown School and photographer Mark Katzman are taking that issue to a broader audience with the publication of Fires, Fuel and the Fate of 3 Billion: The State of the Energy Impoverished (Oxford University Press 2013), a 152-page collection of photos and essays that tell an eye-opening, insightful story about energy access in the rural villages of India, where the hunt for safe, affordable energy is often a matter of life or death.

Renee Cunningham-Williams, associate dean of doctoral education at the Brown School, leads by example.