Brown School

Luis Zayas’ commitment to U.S. Latinas and their struggle with suicide started in the 1970s when he encountered the pain and suffering that the teenage girls and their parents were experiencing during his work in emergency rooms and mental health-care clinics. “Latinas have the highest rate of suicide attempt among teens in comparison to white girls or African-American girls,” says Zayas, PhD, the Shanti K. Khinduka Distinguished Professor of Social Work at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. Zayas brings compelling personal stories and nearly 40 years of research to his new book, Latinas Attempting Suicide: When Cultures, Families and Daughters Collide, published by Oxford University Press.

Ozioma (localhealthdata.org) is a new online tool from the Health Communication Research Laboratory (HCRL) at Washington University in St. Louis designed to increase the amount of locally relevant health information in communities through media. Ozioma, which launches June 8, allows users to search for health data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (for example, National Cancer Institute and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and more than 60 other reliable sources — all in one place.

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis recently launched a formal alliance with Fudan University, one of the leading universities in China. As part of this growing relationship, Fudan and the Brown School will hold a summer institute in Shanghai to develop policy and management skills for the first generation of social work leaders, NGO leaders and government officials.  

Policy advocates and groups looking at proposing legislation now have a budget-friendly tool that facilitates effective research of information from the 50 public domain state legislative databases. Created by researchers at the Prevention Research Center in St. Louis (PRC StL), the State Legislative Search Guide is designed for anyone interested in cross-state comparison of legislation. PRC StL is a collaboration between the School of Medicine and the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and the Saint Louis University School of Public Health.

Bolstering its emphasis on interdisciplinary efforts, Washington University will offer five new courses rooted in a partnership between two or more schools. In tandem with the growing trend of cross-collaboration in research and the professional arena, the Office of the Provost created its Cross-School Interdisciplinary Teaching Grants Program in 2010. The first of those grants was announced last month.

Ravi Chockalingam, MD, will take what he has learned as a member of WUSTL’s inaugural Master of Public Health Program in the Brown School and apply it to public health programs locally, in his native India, and beyond. At the Brown School, Chockalingam worked his community health care worker model into his class work.

As the Brittany Woods-WUSTL partnership develops, programs that address students’ values, motivation, and attitudes are joining those that focus on academic subjects. Schools that combine academics with programs that support social development and healthy families are called community schools.

Evidence supporting the link between savings and college success is growing. Three studies out of the Center for Social Development (CSD) at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis offer a connection between assets and college enrollment and completion. “This research underscores the importance of policies and programs that help Americans of all income levels to save for college,” says Margaret Clancy, policy director and College Savings Initiative director at CSD. In a study forthcoming in the Journal of Children and Poverty, CSD researchers found that among youth who expected to graduate from a four-year college, those with a savings account in their name were approximately six times more likely to attend college than those with no account.  

As fuel prices soar, food prices are beginning to creep up to crisis levels most recently seen in 2007. “Coupled with the financial crisis, high food prices can take a significant toll on nutrition, especially in developing countries,” says Lora Iannotti, PhD. “The same consequences can be true for wealthier countries, as households opt for less expensive, poor quality foods. Hidden hunger is a problem across the globe.”

The George Warren Brown School of Social Work awarded one Distinguished Faculty Award and five Distinguished Alumni Awards during its annual alumni awards celebration April 5 at Steinberg Hall Auditorium. Two of the alumni also were selected as outstanding “Graduates of the Last Decade.”