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Researchers at the Brown School recently received awards from the NIH to continue their work in global mental health research.

The International Center for Child Health and Development (ICHAD) received over $1.3 million from NIMHD to lead the five-year program “Training LEADers to Accelerate Global Mental Health Disparities Research” (LEAD) under the co-leadership of Fred Ssewamala, William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor, and Patricia Cavazos-Rehg (pictured right), associate professor in the department of psychiatry at the School of Medicine. The program is designed for pre-doctoral students and post-doctoral trainees from underrepresented groups in the U.S. who are committed to conducting health disparities research around global mental health. LEAD seeks to equip trainees with foundational global research skills and knowledge through experiential learning and personalized mentoring, and will be held as a summer institute. Recruitment for the first cohort will begin in fall 2019.

SMART Africa Center, co-led by Ssewamala and Mary McKay, Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the Brown School and supported by Research Assistant Professor Ozge Sensoy Bahar, received over $300,000 from NIMH to examine the cost-effectiveness of the SMART Africa multiple family group intervention aimed at improving children’s physical, behavioral, and mental health outcomes. The Brown School research team will collaborate with their colleagues at New York University led by Yesim Tozan, assistant professor of global public health, to conduct this research study.  

“There is little existing knowledge around the cost-effectiveness of these evidence-based interventions, which has implications for their implementation and scalability, especially in resource-limited settings. This work will be essential in informing future policy decisions and program investments,” said Ssewamala.

For more information, visit the website.

A leadership transition is underway at the Brown School, as two new associate deans will guide the school’s efforts in social work and diversity in the 2019/2020 academic year.

Tonya Edmond will become Associate Dean for Social Work, replacing Patricia Kohl, who will be taking a sabbatical in order to focus on her research. 

Dean Mary McKay praised Kohl, who led the school’s social work program and a successful reaccreditation effort. “We want to honor Trish as she has done a tremendous job leading the school of social work through a rigorous reaccreditation process,” McKay said. “She and the team have thoroughly supported our MSW students and led a number of curriculum innovations.”

Edmond is a professor who is a faculty fellow in the Office of the Provost, working on women faculty leadership development and other diversity initiatives. Her research is focused on testing the effectiveness of interventions for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, sex trafficking and intimate partner violence. This is her second appointment to the role of Associate Dean for Social Work, which she held before becoming the school’s first Associate Dean of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity.

“I love the social work profession and am deeply committed to ensuring that our students receive the highest quality of education and training possible,” Edmond said of her return to this academic leadership role. “I see it as an opportunity to support the Brown School’s diversity, inclusion and equity efforts by enhancing our curriculum and creating more inclusive classrooms that prepare our students to advance social justice across the array of career paths they pursue.”

“Tonya has worked continuously to achieve significant gains in cultivating a more diverse and inclusive environment at the Brown School,” McKay said. “We are so proud of the work she has done.”

Recent efforts include a recent diversity engagement survey of faculty, staff and students as well as the creation of an Advancing Racial Equity Transformation Team, designed to create both short-term and long-term action agendas for change at the School. 

Vetta Sanders Thompson will assume the role of Associate Dean for Diversity, Inclusion and Equity on September 1, 2019. 

“We are grateful to have the continued strong leadership of Vetta Sanders Thompson. She has a wealth of expertise to offer this role and further amplify our equity efforts,” Dean McKay added.

Vetta Sanders Thompson, E. Desmond Lee Professor of Racial and Ethnic Diversity at the Brown School, has focused her career on the health and well-being of ethnic and racial minority communities, particularly the African-American community. She is a noted researcher in the areas of racial identity, psychosocial implications of race and ethnicity in health behavior, and determinants of health disparities. A licensed clinical psychologist, she also serves as co-director of the Center for Community Health Partnership and Research at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University.

“I am excited for the opportunity to work with Dean McKay in this new capacity as she guides the Brown School into the next decade,” Thompson said. “I look forward to collaborating with Brown School faculty, staff and students in the effort to promote equity and inclusion in all environments where people live, grow, work and play.”

Remaining in their current academic leadership roles are: 

Researchers and practitioners who focus on livable cities most often cited collaboration, communication and community engagement as important skills in a survey that also revealed gaps between research and practice in the field, according to a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Researchers surveyed more than 200 researchers and practitioners in two phases.  In the first phase, participants were asked to name the five most important skills when working to develop livable cities or towns; second-phase participants ranked the importance of the most-cited skills from the first phase.

Participants generally agreed on the most-cited skills but researchers and practitioners differed on the importance of some. The responses aligned with current curriculum in the field, although gaps remain as a few participants named some skill areas that research has shown to be important, such as prioritization and dissemination.

Developing livable cities is a process that works across varied disciplines, including public health, architecture and urban design, all of which benefit from the skills cited by survey participants, the authors note. “Observing trends and patterns between them can help pinpoint skills and goals that can be shared among all contributors,” wrote Rodrigo Reis, senior author and professor at the Brown School.

The study concluded with three recommendations for researchers and practitioners:

The study was published July 8 in Cities & Health.

People who take advantage of nonprofit credit counseling services have statistically significant reductions in consumer debt, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

“We followed the credit records of counseled consumers and a comparison group for a year and a half following counseling, and found that counseling was associated with a large reduction in revolving debt, which includes credit card debt,” said Stephen Roll, research assistant professor at the Brown School and an expert on asset building and debt management.

A year-and-a-half after credit counseling, the counseled group reduced their revolving debt by an average of $3,637, and reduced their total debt by $11,341.

Roll is co-author of “Credit Counseling and Consumer Credit Trajectories,” published this month in the journal Economic Inquiry. 

The paper builds on Roll’s previous work on credit counseling, including the paper “The Impact of Automated Reminders on Credit Outcomes: Results From an Experimental Pilot Program,” published in April in the Journal of Consumer Affairs.

“This recent work has focused on evaluating the impact of different aspects of nonprofit credit counseling programs, which seek to help financially distressed borrowers manage unsustainable debt loads through a combination of financial education, budget guidance and debt restructuring products,” Roll said. “The potential impact of these services on the balance sheets of American households is large, as nonprofit credit counseling programs serve millions of households a year.”

Evaluating a longtime program

The Economic Inquiry paper is an evaluation of the National Foundation for Credit Counseling’s “Sharpen Your Financial Focus” program, which was a standardized counseling program offered at 70 different credit counseling agencies.

“There has, over the course of credit counseling’s 60-year history, been only one rigorous evaluation of this service — and our work represents a substantial extension of that earlier evaluation,” Roll said.

Using data on 6,094 consumers enrolling during the first quarter of the initiative through 13 different agencies, Roll and co-author Stephanie Moulton of The Ohio State University also found that consumers enter counseling at times of substantial financial distress, such as a job loss or large unexpected expense.

“We find that the average counseled consumer experiences a drop in credit score and an increase in payment delinquencies in the first quarter after counseling, relative to the pre-counseling period,” Roll said. “It is possible that credit counseling reduces consumer credit scores in the short term, particularly for those consumers participating in a debt management plan or who file for bankruptcy as a result of counseling.

“However, the credit drop persists in the non‐debt management plan sample and after controlling for structural changes to debt, such as bankruptcy,” he said.

It is thus more likely that the expense- or income‐based shock experienced by counseled consumers leaves them less able to manage their debts and motivates them to seek counseling.

“Given this, many credit counseling recipients appear to only be seeking counseling after their credit profiles have already started to degrade,” Roll said.

However, credit scores return to their pre-counseling levels about one year after counseling and — for those with the lowest credit scores — begin to exceed their pre-counseling levels by the end of the evaluation period.

“Our study is among the first to document this pretreatment shock using credit data and interventions targeting financial behaviors,” Roll said.

Even as credit counseling recipients experience substantial distress around the time of enrollment, credit counseling services provide a promising and cost effective source of assistance.

“Though nonprofit credit counseling services are typically free to the consumer, the services we studied cost roughly $125 to $150 to administer,” Roll said. “At the same time, in our most conservative estimates, we find that credit counseling is associated with an almost $1,800 dollar reduction in consumer debt.

“This debt reduction may have substantial long-term benefits to the financial health of these households.”

​The newly established Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis has received a $385,000 grant from JPMorgan Chase & Co. as part of the company’s $125 million, five-year global commitment to promoting customers’ financial health.

The money will help underserved families with tax preparation and filing. For low- and middle-income taxpayers, who often receive their largest single check of the year at tax time, there are opportunities to leverage that moment to meet financial goals such as savings and debt reduction.

Researchers at the Social Policy Institute, directed by Michal Grinstein-Weiss, the Shanti K. Khinduka Distinguished Professor at the Brown School, are developing and scientifically testing interventions to help low- to moderate-income households build savings and achieve economic stability and mobility at tax time.

The grant also will support the institute’s research on employee financial wellness programs — a promising strategy to promote financial stability by providing financial products and services such as small-dollar loans and financial counseling in the workplace. The Social Policy Institute will share results of these pilot programs and offer guidance to employers and policymakers in designing financial wellness benefits that meet employees’ needs.

Joy Harjo, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, has been selected as the 23rd U.S. poet laureate, a move that will inspire Native American people throughout the country, says Kellie Thompson, director of the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

“Her selection will inspire us in expected ways — maybe to become poets and artists — but also in unexpected ways, like speaking our truth in spaces where it typically has not been heard, as Native American people and as women,” said Thompson, a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians.

Thompson

Harjo is the first Native American to hold the position of “nation’s official poet.”

“Joy Harjo’s words and stories ring true for many,” Thompson said. “She has an ability to integrate culture, social justice, everyday life and values into the works she produces, and does so in such a way that allows all people to see themselves in her writing.

“This speaks to her abilities. Her work brings joy to Native people across all of Indian Country, and I’m thrilled to see her honored in this way. I cannot think of a more deserving individual.”

Harjo has written eight books of poetry, in addition to her memoir and two books for young adults. Her book of poetry, “In Mad Love and War,” won the American Book Award. She has also taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and at the University of Tennessee.

The Buder Center was founded to provide scholarships for American Indians and has grown into one of the most respected centers in the nation for academic advancement and study of American Indian issues related to social work.  It recruits qualified American Indian scholars; provides student support in a demanding course of study; develops curriculum; conducts research; and engages in policy development that directly impacts Indian Country.