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With the goal of preventing youth suicide by helping schools set up a student support system, the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis hosted the Hope Policy Academy June 6.

“Schools represent a significant opportunity to identify, link and provide mental health services for youth who are not connected to mental health resources and create an opportunity to significantly shift the trajectory of suicide in our country, if given the adequate resources,” said Ryan Lindsay, assistant dean for social work and an associate professor of practice, who was one of the featured speakers at the conference in Hillman Hall. 

“Approximately 80% of youth who die by suicide were not connected to year prior to their death, and only 7.5% received mental health services in the month prior to their death,” he said. “Therefore, schools are likely interfacing with these youth. By improving our suicide response systems, we have an opportunity to identify youth sooner and link to early interventions. This requires improving school capacity to develop, implement and evaluate suicide prevention policies and practices. The Hope Policy Academy is attempting to fill this gap.”

Most Missouri school districts aren’t prepared to prevent, intervene or properly support students contemplating suicide and/or the school community after the death of a student, said Lindsay, who teaches and advises students in the mental health concentration in the Master of Social Work program.

“At best, there may be intervention policies, but what about support post-attempt?” Lindsay asked. “How does one communicate to a student body after the death of a peer? The ways in which this happens matters greatly, and even more so because the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has mandated that each district should have a prevention, intervention and ‘postvention’ policy and practice in place.”

(Postvention refers to a school’s response to healing after the loss of a student by suicide.)

Lindsay has a forthcoming study, conducted between March and November 2018, that has found that among 72 Missouri school districts surveyed, 63.49% had a suicide intervention policy; 54.95% had a suicide prevention policy; and 43% had a suicide postvention policy — in spite of Missouri House Bill 1593 requiring suicide prevention policies to be in place by July 1, 2018.

Additionally, the study found that most of the Missouri districts with suicide  prevention/intervention/postvention policies serve predominantly white students.

“Our study showed significant variability in schools’ current capacity to implement suicide prevention and intervention policies, specifically among schools that serve lower income and predominantly non-white students,” he said. “These results have implications related to racial equity in school capacity to address suicide in schools and suggest that community stakeholders prioritize this equity gap.”

The Hope Policy Academy was organized by Lindsay and the Brown School as a response to that identified gap. It was aimed at school-based stakeholders who are charged with developing, implementing and evaluating school-based suicide prevention policies in Missouri.

In collaboration with Erika Gonzalez, manager of urban education initiatives at the Brown School, and Saras Chung, executive director of SkipNV, a St. Louis provider of education space and opportunities, the event’s vision of bringing together over 100 school stakeholders from across the state was realized.

“The conference provided an opportunity for Missouri school stakeholders to receive technical assistance to help facilitate the development and implementation of model suicide prevention policies,” Lindsay said. “The Hope Policy Academy provided information on best practices to improve existing suicide prevention policies and practices.”

Holden Thorp, provost at Washington University in St. Louis, will leave his position effective July 15, according to Chancellor Andrew D. Martin. Thorp, who has served in his current role since 2013, plans to take a one-year sabbatical and then return to the university in a newly created leadership role in the drug discovery and innovation space, with details to be shared at a future date.

“We owe a significant debt of gratitude to Holden Thorp for lending his considerable talents to Washington University during his six years as provost,” Martin said. “Thanks in large part to his outstanding leadership, we are poised to take the university into its next era of excellence in research, scholarship, teaching and learning. We have benefited greatly from his expertise, particularly in the transformation of our student body and faculty into a more diverse, innovative and academically gifted community. On a personal level, I am grateful to Holden for his support and friendship during the transition as I assume the role of chancellor. He is a trusted adviser and colleague, and I look forward to continuing our work together when he returns to the university to pursue his future endeavors.”

“These six years as Washington University provost will always be a highlight of my career,” Thorp said. “Our students, faculty and staff are among the very best in higher education.  Working with Mark Wrighton and our remarkable team has been a joy every day. Leading the extraordinary Washington University faculty into the Quad at Commencement has been a highlight every year, and I look forward to joining my faculty colleagues when I return to the university. Chancellor Martin has bold ideas for the future of the university, and I look forward to being part of our continued ascent.”

Appointed provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at Washington University on July 1, 2013, Thorp also is the Rita Levi-Montalcini Distinguished University Professor and holds faculty appointments in both chemistry and medicine.

During his tenure, Thorp has led the university’s academic enterprise through a period of tremendous growth in several key areas. Among his chief priorities has been increasing socioeconomic diversity within the Washington University student body, a cause he championed vigorously with significant results. As one indicator, the percentage of Pell grant-eligible students in the entering first-year class increased from 6% in 2013-14 to 14% in the 2018-19 academic year.

He also has been a driving force in changes to the undergraduate admissions process, which has led to incoming classes becoming not only stronger academically during each of his years as provost, but also more racially diverse. In addition, the university has seen a significant increase in the percentage of yield – students who choose Washington University over other schools to which they have been accepted. Thorp also has been instrumental in bringing about the university’s rise in prominence as an institution that drives innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly in the St. Louis region.

“During his years here, Holden has created quite a legacy, not only for himself, but for the university under his leadership of the academic enterprise,” said Mark S. Wrighton, who concluded his term as Washington University’s chancellor on May 31 after serving in the role for 24 years, and during whose tenure Thorp joined the university. “He is a brilliant scientist and entrepreneur, a talented teacher and a skilled administrator, and we are indebted to him for his significant contributions not only to our faculty and students, but also to the character of our institution. I thank him for all he has done for Washington University, and for me personally, and I wish him all the success in the world as he embarks on this next chapter of his remarkable career.”

Thorp joined the university after spending three decades at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where he served as the 10th chancellor from 2008 through 2013. A North Carolina native, he started at UNC as an undergraduate student and earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry with highest honors in 1986. He earned a doctorate in chemistry in 1989 at the California Institute of Technology and completed postdoctoral work at Yale University. He holds an honorary doctor of laws degree from North Carolina Wesleyan College and is a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

“It has been Washington University’s good fortune to have Holden Thorp as our provost,” said Barbara A. Schaal, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor of Biology. “He has led us to think differently about our mission as scholars and educators. With the benefit of his vision, experience and guidance, we have made great strides in our ability to recruit, retain and support the best and brightest students and faculty from diverse backgrounds. It has truly been a pleasure to serve the academy in partnership with Holden – especially given our shared love of the sciences – and Washington University is a better place for having him here as provost.”

“Washington University is well known for providing an exceptional student experience and, under Holden’s leadership, we have strengthened it even further,” said Lori S. White, vice chancellor for student affairs. “We have maintained laser focus over the last six years on diversity and inclusion, increasing access and support for students from underresourced and first-generation backgrounds, campus resources and, of course, academic excellence. One of Holden’s great strengths is his accessibility to students to hear and respond to their concerns. We are a stronger and more diverse community today because of him, and I want to express my deep gratitude to him, both as a leader and a friend.”

In his research career, Thorp developed technology for electronic DNA chips and co-founded Viamet Pharmaceuticals. Viamet developed oteseconazole, which is now in Phase 3 clinical trials for fungal disease. An active and engaged leader in the St. Louis community, he currently serves as a member of the boards of the College Advising Corps, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

Two Brown School researchers contributed their scholarship and expertise to the recently published Lancet Series on Gender Equality, Norms, and Health — a collection of six papers that provides new analysis and insights into the impact of gender inequalities and norms on health, and the opportunities that exist within health systems, programs, policies, and research to decrease inequalities and transform restrictive norms. 

The series calls the global health community to action, stressing the critical need to recognize and take effective actions to address gender inequalities and restrictive gender norms, and their intersections with other social disparities, in order to improve health for all. 

Jessica Levy, associate professor of practice, co-authored the study, “Improving Health with Programmatic, Legal, and Policy Approaches to Reduce Gender Inequality and Change Restrictive Gender Norms,” which investigates three key ways of reducing gender disparities: gender transformative health programming (which are programs that actively seek to transform norms and improve health); large-scale laws and policies; and actions related to governance. The authors found that high-quality gender-transformative programs that impacted multiple health outcomes and were sustainable and scalable:

Furthermore, through examination of data and outcomes from nearly 100 countries, the authors found that policy approaches such as tuition-free primary education and paid parental leave both transform norms and improve community health. When these programs successfully promote gender equality, they are seen to extend average life expectancy by approximately two years for women and one year for men.

“Increasing gender equality in political representation by, for example, having more women and gender minorities at the table and giving them voice, makes all of this possible,” Levy said.

Lindsay Stark, associate professor, co-authored another article in the Series: “Gender Norms and Health: Insights from Global Survey Data.” The case study she co-led compared Nigerian communities where working outside of the home was, and was not, a norm for women. They found that women who defied communal norms by working outside of the home faced higher rates of intimate partner violence than did women workers in less restrictive communities, which highlights that those who transgress social gendered norms may face serious health repercussions. 

“This finding has important implications for processes of empowerment,” Stark said. “Acknowledging the complexity of the relationships between individual behavior and social norms, and understanding how discordance between the two might give rise to unintended negative outcomes for women and girls, is critical for developing truly gender-equitable policies and programs.” 

Overall, the six case studies in the Series demonstrate that gender norms are complex, and can have multiple differing and context-specific health consequences for people over the course of their lives. Gender nonconformity or transgression is particularly harmful to health when it triggers negative sanctions. These truths mean that effective gender-transformative policies must be designed with cultural sensitivity.