Six Brown School students and faculty were recently recognized as Holobaugh Honorees—Washington University students, staff and faculty who live and lead authentically and perform direct advocacy and service to LGBTQIA+ communities.
The Holobaugh Honors celebrates many forms of LGBTQIA+ leadership, including artistic expression, trailblazing activism, academic exploration, and dedication to education, demonstrated commitment to intersectionality, relationship- and bridge-building and emerging leadership.
The 2019 Holobaugh Honorees from the Brown School include:
Tonya Edmond, Professor and Associate Dean for Social Work, will receive the James Baldwin Committed Educator Award, which recognizes an individual who has shown great commitment to raising awareness of various LGBTQIA+ issues and educating community members for the benefit of all. Edmond was previously the Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at the Brown School, during which time she expanded the use of gender inclusive restrooms and education and advocacy for gender inclusive pronouns. Her research is around sexual assault survivors and intimate partner violence across queer relationships. She also serves as a mentor to many younger queer faculty and staff, creating space for others to live out their identities.
Ilia Silverman Esrig, MSW candidate, will receive the Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson Activism Award, which recognizes trailblazing work by an individual who takes action in the face of injustice and stands up for their ideals. Ilia has been the force behind the development, implementation, and improvement of the nameplates used in Brown School classrooms to help prevent misgendering students. Ilia has dedicated their time to solving a problem on campus that will affect students long after they graduate. They have shown incredible amounts of initiative in the implementation and improvement processes, and continues to meet with deans and decision makers at the Brown School to advocate for centering LGBTQIA+ identities at the Brown School.
Braveheart Gillani, MSW candidate, will receive the Bayard Rustin Builder Award, which recognizes an individual who helps forge connections and build authentic spaces within LGBTQIA* communities through a people-centered approach. Braveheart is a leader in informal settings as well as within student government, and works to forge connections between student groups and research groups. He works alongside others in the Brown School to reduce misgendering in the classroom. He is described as a “true humanist” and his compassion is recognized by those around him.
Ezra Hessel, MSW candidate, will receive the Gloria Anzaldúa Advocacy at Intersections Award. This award recognizes an individual who advocates at intersections of LGBTQIA+ identities and illuminates and supports diversity in LGBTQI+* communities. Ezra is being recognized for his work with transgender youth, mostly recently through his practicum work as a patient advocate at the WashU Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. In the past, Ezra has also done work with LGBTQIA+ youth experiencing homelessness. His ability to form meaningful connections with young people and his devotion to his work are recognized by his colleagues and peers.
Peter Hovmand, Professor of Practice, will receive the Audre Lorde Academic Exploration Award, which recognizes an individual committed to using academic work to empower LGBTQIA+ communities and individuals. It seeks to honor individuals who use academics as a space for personal exploration and community development. Hovmand founded the Social Systems Design Lab at the Brown School, which has been doing work around gender equity and queer empowerment in conversations about sexual violence.
Kris Wilson, MSW candidate, will also receive the Gloria Anzaldúa Advocacy at Intersections Award. Kris is being recognized for her work establishing safe spaces and support networks for LGBTQIA+ peers. She is a foundational community support member on the WashU campus, and has been intentional about expanding her work into the broader St. Louis community. During her time as president of OPEN, an LGBTQIA+ student group, Kris worked to ensure the group was inclusive and accessible for people with all different identities. She works hard to support people in their whole selves, particularly around mental health. Kris is described as a “humble and inspiring” person, and a source of light on campus.
Washington University and its shuttle provider, Huntleigh Transportation Services, donated a shuttle to longtime community partner Better Family Life. The organization will use the shuttle to create and expand services for residents and young people attending Better Family Life after-school programs and summer camps.
Dean Mary McKay and Dedric Carter, vice chancellor for operations and technology transfer, delivered the van to Better Family Life on October 30. They were joined by Cynthia Williams, assistant dean for community partnerships at the Brown School, and Sean Joe, professor of social development, as well as representatives from Parking & Transportation Services and Huntleigh.
Williams said the organization’s comprehensive and responsive approach serves as a model to Brown School students.
“It’s a benefit for our students to take classes in the community, specifically at a successful, black-led community organization,” Williams said. “Students get context and are exposed to programming that works and an organization that works in true partnership with the people it serves. That’s why Better Family Life talks about its ‘handprint’ as opposed to a ‘footprint.’ Providing a hand is what Better Family Life is all about.”
Founded by Malik Ahmed in 1983, Better Family Life is strengthening St. Louis through programs in community development, employment, education, housing and culture. The Brown School has long served as a partner, providing practicum students and data-driven evaluation of Better Family Life programs. Brown School students also have the option of taking some courses at Better Family Life.
“Our lives and the region are enriched by the collaborative work of our partnerships,” Carter said. “The operations team at Washington University in St. Louis is pleased to join with Huntleigh to make this shuttle available to Better Family Life to extend their handprint across the region. Together, we are advancing mobility in every sense of the word.”
Associate Professor Jean-Francois Trani is working on a four-year intervention alongside a research team in Afghanistan and Pakistan to improve learning achievements for students in grades 3-5.
Building on previous research—and using community-based system dynamics methods developed by Peter Hovmand, professor of practice at the Brown School— the team is engaging students, parents and teachers to elaborate on a diagram of the school system and identify effective ideas for intervention.
According to a 2017 UNESCO report, six out of 10 primary-school children in low-income countries are not reaching minimum levels of literacy and math. Across central and southern Asia, 81 percent of children and adolescents are not expected to reach minimum proficiency.
In interactions with parents, students, teachers and community representatives from more than 100 rural intervention schools, the researchers are finding out:
- Whether all students are achieving basic levels of proficiency in math, science and writing/reading; and whether they have psychosocial skills such as solving problems, communicating ideas, and learning to be together
- Why children are not learning
- What can be done to increase student learning achievements and reduce disparities in learning
“We want to explore and deepen the role that parents, teachers, children and community leaders can play in improving the quality of education,” Trani said.
The researchers work to achieve this goal through innovative social accountability mechanisms, giving local stakeholders more of a leadership role in deciding what changes to make to the school system. They will also work to implement and assess recommended interventions, which may include examples like building classrooms, training teachers in child-centered methods, and simple, but essential, measures like providing access to water to students so they are not thirsty during class.
During this phase, the team is working with school communities and three partners: Norwegian Afghanistan Committee, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan and the National Rural Support Programme in Pakistan, which support government schools or run community-based schools in rural areas of both countries.
“After implementing and evaluating the interventions, we want to disseminate and scale up these evidence-based solutions in the two countries and beyond,” Trani explained. “With the help of ministries of education, universities, and NGOs specializing in education, we will release our findings to academic, policymaker and practitioner networks.”
Mothers in low-income neighborhoods report more physical and social barriers that discourage them from allowing their children to play outside, according to new research from Maura Kepper, research assistant professor at the Brown School.
The decline in outdoor play, particularly unsupervised or independent play among today’s children and adolescents can affect children’s physical, emotional and social development. Poor neighborhoods also tend to have less access to quality greenspace, parks or playgrounds and well-maintained sidewalks.
Researchers interviewed the parents of adolescents in both low- and high-disadvantaged neighborhoods in Southeast Louisiana to identify factors that positively and negatively influence parenting decision for outdoor play. Supervision, time of day and location of play were major factors in parental decisions.
Physical factors such as walkability were important, as were environmental factors such as crime. Social cohesion in neighborhoods also influenced parental decisions, researchers found. For example, mothers who saw other children playing outside in the neighborhood felt more comfortable letting their kids outside to play.
“Neighborhood factors interrelate and differ in low- and high-disadvantage neighborhoods to influence parenting practices for outdoor play,” wrote Kepper. “Community-level interventions that target both physical and social environmental factors and are tailored to the neighborhood and population may be needed to reduce parental constraints on outdoor play, increase physical activity and improve the health and well-being of developing youth.”
The study was published October 12 in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
While suicide attempts decreased overall among U.S. adolescents between 1991 and 2017, they increased by 73% among black adolescents, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.
“The rise in suicide rates among black youth can most likely be traced back to an internalization of issues around structural racism in America, along with a lack of coping mechanisms and lack of investment in mental health services in black communities,” said Sean Joe, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development and nationally recognized authority on suicidal behavior among African Americans.
Joe is co-author of the study, “Trends of Suicidal Behaviors Among High School Students in the United States: 1991–2017,” published in the journal Pediatrics.
“Black youth experience disparities in mental health treatment,” Joe said. “They may not want to face the fact that they have a problem. They may not want to be judged. Another explanation could be that black adolescents view mental health treatment with skepticism because of mistrust of providers.”
The researchers used the nationally representative school-based Youth Risk Behavior Survey to examine suicide trends by different racial and ethnic groups. Participants included 198,540 high school students.
The results suggest that, over time, black youth have experienced an increase in suicide attempts. In comparison, self-reported suicide attempts for white adolescents fell by 7.5% over the same period.
“This is troubling because attempts are the most prominent risk factor associated with suicide death,” Joe said.
For black boys, the study found, a significant increase in injury by attempt occurred, which suggests that black boys may be engaging in increasingly lethal means when attempting suicide.
“Our findings reveal that almost one in five adolescents are thinking about suicide and more than one in 10 has a suicide plan,” Joe said.
Despite increased attention given to the creation of campaigns to reduce youth suicide in the United States over the last decade, the findings suggest that more resources should be put toward such programs.
“The dearth in suicide research has limited our understanding of how to intervene or prevent suicidal behavior among ethnic minority populations,” Joe said. “Greater equity in science is needed to advance career pathways for ethnic minority investigators posing critical question like what we raised in this article.”
Join the Brown School at the American Public Health Association annual conference.
Please consult the listings below to explore the breadth of ways to connect with the Brown School at APHA. All presentations take place within the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 1101 Arch St. Philadelphia, PA 19107, unless otherwise noted.
Presentation locations are available through the APHA 2019 Annual Meeting mobile app.
Sunday, November 3
| 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. | Tess Thompson Merriah Croston Matthew Kreuter | “I’m always looking up something new”: Health-related use of mobile phones among Medicaid beneficiaries |
| 3:30 – 4:30 p.m. | William Byansi Proscovia Nabunya Joelynn Muwanga Ozge Sensoy Bahar Mary McKay Fred Ssewamala | Self-reported medication adherence, physical health and pediatric quality of life among children and adolescents living with HIV: Baseline findings from Southwestern Uganda |
| 5:00 – 6:00 p.m. | Theodore Cicero | Trading sex for drugs as a pathway for rising sexually transmitted infections amidst the opioid epidemic |
Monday, November 4
| 8:50 – 9:10 a.m. | Manik Ahuja | Suicide in South Asian Americans: An Emerging Public Health Problem in the United States |
| 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. | Fred Ssewamala Ruth Katumba Ozge Sensoy Bahar Kim Johnson | Cancer in Youth Living with HIV (YLWHIV): A Narrative Review of the Epidemiology of Pediatric Cancers among YLWHIV, Access to Oncological Services and the Role of Economic Strengthening in Child Health |
| 10:30 – 11:30 a.m. | Kiriam Escobar | A case report of acute flaccid paralysis associated with arboviruses infection in the Republic of Panama |
| 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. | Rachel Tabak Debra Haire-Joshu | Social Determinants of Health and Childhood Obesity Risk Factors in a Child’s First 1,000 Days |
| 1:40 – 2:00 p.m. | Amy Eyler | Getting a “head start” on exercise: Results of a physical activity survey of Head Start and Early Head Start programs |
| 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. | Theodore Cicero | Outside the opioid silo: Co-occurring use of opioids with other substances and the implications for policy and treatment in the opioid crisis |
| 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. | Roger Wong Takashi Amano | Racial/ethnic differences in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia risk in the United States: A systematic review and meta-analysis |
| 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. | Rachel Garg Matthew Kreuter | Scoping review of evidence for quit line effectiveness in low socioeconomic status populations |
| 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. | Ross C. Brownson Enola Proctor | State Legislator Support for Behavioral Health Parity Laws: The Influence of Factors at Multiple Levels |
| 3:20 – 3:40 p.m. | Stephanie Mazzucca Ross C. Brownson Renee Parks Peg Allen | Advancing evidence-based public health through Academic Health Department partnerships in the United States |
Tuesday, November 5
| 8:30 – 8:50 a.m. | Alan Beck Amanda Gilbert Dixie Duncan Amy Eyler Ross C. Brownson | Physical activity motives in rural communities: A qualitative study |
| 8:50 – 9:10 a.m. | Kim Johnson Arash Delavar | Differences in rural/urban cancer survival disparities between adults and children |
| 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. | Rachel Tabak Debra Haire-Joshu | Maternal-Infant Relationship is a Key Driver of Childhood Obesity Risk in the First 1,000 Days. What Drives Maternal-Infant Relationship? |
| 9:10 – 9:30 a.m. | Sean Joe | Integrating Social Needs Care and the Delivery of Health Care -Moving Medicine Upstream: A final report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine |
| 11:30 – 11:50 a.m. | Manik Ahuja | Examining How Adolescent Bullying Experiences Affect Traumatic Stress, Sexual Health and HIV Risk among Young Men Who Have Sex with Men (YMSM) in New York City |
| 11:30 – 11:50 a.m. | Sicong Sun Darrell Hudson | Socioeconomic and Health Inequalities Across Young Adulthood: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth |
| 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. | Fred Ssewamala | Is it time to RE-AIM: A systematic-review of economic empowerment HIV prevention programs for adolescent girls and young-women in sub-Saharan Africa using the RE-AIM framework |
Wednesday, November 6
| 12:30 – 12:50 p.m. | Sean Joe | Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences on Sport Participation in the Youth population |
| 12:50 – 1:10 p.m. | Ellis Ballard | Using community-based system dynamics to obtain new insights into drivers of urban health and identify policy implications: The SALURBAL study |
| 1:30 – 1:50 p.m. | Vetta Sanders Thompson | Validation and psychometric analysis of a quantitative measure to assess stakeholder engagement in research |