Weekly news from the School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis
Dear colleagues,
A milestone, a thank you, and cake
This is a big week in the history of the WashU School of Public Health — our self-study report that summarizes what we are doing as a school is submitted to the Council for Education in Public Health, our accreditor. The 300-plus-page report is, in many ways, a blueprint for where we are, and who we will grow to be. The next steps are now for us to receive comments from the accreditor, leading up then to an accreditation site visit in November. So, a milestone. And the milestone was achieved thanks to the work of so many over the past few years. As regular PHiP readers know, the School of Public Health emerged from the Here and Next strategic vision for the university that, under the leadership of Provost Beverly Wendland and Executive Vice Provost Mary McKay, has been charting the future of the university. That work, which has involved hundreds of people, brings us to where we are today. To everyone who has done that — thank you. Centrally, in the past year, a team led by Angela Hobson, and including Kate Barbier, Charlene Carburnay, Patrick Fowler, Jonesey Johnson, Ragini Maddipati, Jenn Ramirez, Liz Vestal, Sydney Zarate Sada and many others, has done an enormous amount of work pulling together the self-study report; we are all in their debt — thank you. To mark the moment, join us if you have a moment for a get-together (there will be cake) at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 18, in Hillman Hall, Suite 20 on the Garden Level.
Joining the School of Public Health
Philip J. Budge, MD, PhD, an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at WashU Medicine and the director of clinical research at WashU Medicine’s Death to Onchocerciasis and Lymphatic Filariasis project, joins the School of Public Health as a secondary faculty member. Budge works to help end parasitic worm infections as public health threats by developing improved diagnostics and treatments for worm diseases including elephantiasis, river blindness and African eye worm.
Events this week
Today (Monday) at noon, there will be an information session over Zoom to share details about the Community Fellows in Residence fellowship program from The Engaged City, a collaborative project from the Center for the Study of Race, Ethnicity & Equity (CRE2), the Center for the Humanities, and the Office for Socially Engaged Practice at WashU. This new, paid fellowship marks the first major initiative of the Engaged City project, setting the stage for a multiyear effort to collaboratively map and celebrate the cultural life of St. Louis.
A town hall on National Institutes of Health (NIH) foreign subawards will be held at 3 p.m. Wednesday, June 18, in Hillman Hall, Room 200, and over Zoom. The event is hosted by the School of Public Health’s Global Health Futures Innovation Research Network (IRN) and will include WashU research administrators as well as WashU scientists whose work has been directly affected by the recent changes. Registerhere to attend in person or remotely. For questions, contact Salma Abdalla, DrPH, assistant professor in the School of Public Health and co-director of the Global Health Futures IRN.
Public Health News
Morgan Shields, PhD, an assistant professor at the School of Public Health, studies psychiatric hospital safety, among related topics. Her research has contributed to an effort by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to improve oversight of psychiatric hospitals. Grassley sent a letter June 9 to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services citing several of Shields’ peer-reviewed studies and urging the agency to overhaul how it tracks and shares data from psychiatric hospitals. Read more here.
Papers of Interest
Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, PhD, a professor of psychiatry at WashU Medicine and a secondary faculty member at the School of Public Health, is senior author of “Mental health behaviors and suicide risk among white and Black adults with Opioid Use Disorder,” published online in Social Science & Medicine. Among her co-authors is Lindsey Filiatreau, PhD, an assistant professor at the School of Public Health.
Victor G. Davila-Roman, MD, a professor of medicine at WashU Medicine, a secondary faculty member at the School of Public Health and a co-director of the Global Health Futures IRN at the School of Public Health, co-authored “Exposure-response relationship of household air pollution on body mass index among women in rural areas of Guatemala, India, Peru and Rwanda: household air pollution intervention network trial,” published in BMC Public Health.
Also this week
In The Healthiest Goldfish, some thoughts on, “What we really lose if we do not fund discovery.”
Also, a commentary in JAMA Health Forum, “ On Making U.S. Health Care Great and Affordable.”
Warmly,
Sandro
Margaret C. Ryan Dean of the School of Public Health
Eugene S. and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor in Public Health
Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Initiatives
Washington University in St. Louis
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