February 8, 2026

More than four decades of war has left Afghanistan impoverished and traumatized. A school-based program designed to help Afghan schoolchildren develop resilience and life skills has been shown to be effective at improving mental health and learning outcomes.

Implementation depends on pathways that move evidence toward impact. A group of WashU scientists argues that closing the research-practice gap requires a shift in how universities define and reward impact. 

Twenty food and agriculture experts from seven countries visited WashU on February 5 to learn about the School of Public Health’s Food and Agriculture Research Mission, one of the school’s six research networks. 

In her role leading WashU Public Health’s admissions and recruitment program, Caroline Clasby shares with prospective students the advantages of joining a new school in a setting with a history of public health excellence.

Nicholas Szoko, an assistant professor at WashU Medicine and a secondary faculty member at WashU Public Health, has been appointed the inaugural Larry Shapiro Scholar in Population Health.

The Talking Public Health seminar series features presentations by leading thinkers in public health at WashU and elsewhere.

Last week, the school hosted three Talking Public Health presentations. Jean O'Connor, director of the health practice group at Econometrica, gave a talk titled, "Science, law, and leadership: creating systems that promote health," on February 3.

Derek Brown, a WashU Public Health professor and health economist, gave a talk February 4 titled, “Using Discrete Choice Experiments to Improve Public Health.”

And Proscovia Nabunya, an associate professor and director of the International Center for Child Health and Development (ICHAD) at the Brown School, gave a talk February 5. it was titled, "Innovative global health approaches to addressing HIV stigma and mental health challenges among youth and families in low-resource settings."

This week, Rachel Garg, a WashU Public Health assistant professor, will give a talk at noon Wednesday, February 11, titled, “Assessing Social Needs During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Join in person in 4240 Duncan's Havana Room and online via Zoom.

At noon, Thursday, February 12, Natalicio (Nat) Serrano, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Gillings School of Global Public Health, will present, “Do Healthy Neighborhoods Occur by Chance or Design?” The talk will be in the Havana Room at 4240 Duncan and via Zoom.

Media coverage of WashU Public Health's people, research, and other news.

A study led by WashU Medicine's James Krings, a member of the WashU Public Health secondary faculty, indicates that insurance coverage of the single-inhaler approach could improve asthma outcomes at the population level. (Source: MedPage Today)

WashU Public Health's Tim McBride says that over 50,000 people in Missouri dropped off the ACA rolls in 2025, increasing the uninsured population by more than 10%. (Source: Missouri Independent)

WashU McKelvey Engineering's Alvitta Ottley, a member of the WashU Public Health secondary faculty, is a leading voice in data visualization. Her work examines how people interpret information, navigate uncertainty and make decisions. (Source: St. Louis American)

A major winter storm in late January dropped up to a foot of snow, temperatures plunged into single digits, and steady winds made it feel even colder. As the snow was falling January 24 and 25, we asked St. Louis adults what special actions they took to get ready for the storm.

iHeard is a listening project of the Health Communication Research Laboratory at WashU Public Health. iHeard surveys about 200 people who live or work in St. Louis weekly to find out what they know, believe and care about in regard to health.

WashU Public Health's Anusha Vable, an associate professor, is the senior author on, "Is memory in older adulthood influenced by changes in air pollution over the previous decade?" published in Environmental Epidemiology.

Sarah Moreland-Russell, an associate professor at WashU Public Health, is the principal investigator and first author on, "Understanding multi-level policy implementation in the national school lunch and breakfast programs: a mixed-methods and agent-based modeling protocol," published in Implementation Science Communications. WashU Public Health co-authors include Peg Allen, a research assistant at the Prevention Research Center; Todd Combs, a research assistant professor; Jessica Gannon, a senior research manager at the Prevention Research Center; and Ross Hammond, the Distinguished Professor in Public Health Systems Science.

Elizabeth Yanik, an assistant professor at WashU Medicine and a member of the WashU Public Health secondary faculty, is the first and corresponding author on, "Associations of sleep and shift work with osteoarthritis risk," published in Arthritis Care and Research. Brad Evanoff, the Richard A. and Elizabeth Henby Sutter Professor of Occupational, Industrial and Environmental Medicine at WashU Medicine and a member of the WashU Public Health secondary faculty, is a co-author.

In this episode, "How Much Evidence is Enough?" Dr. Salma Abdalla speaks with Deakin University (Australia) Professor Kathryn Backholer about research, persuasion, and what it takes to move from knowledge to action.

They discuss the trade-offs between rigor and timeliness, how "policy windows" shape what research matters when, and how even small pilot studies can influence national legislation and bring about major policy shifts. Using Australia’s pioneering policy to delay social media access for children under 16 as a case study, they discuss unintended consequences, stakeholder engagement, and the multidisciplinary teams needed to generate policy-ready evidence.

"Complicating the Narrative” is hosted by Professor Abdalla and supported by WashU Public Health and the Frick Initiative.

In The Healthiest Goldfish, Dean Galea shares his thoughts on grace: "Grace is not weakness but resolve; The power of embracing grace in this moment."

In JAMA Health Forum, Dean Galea is a co-author of "Advancing the Science and Scholarship of Health Equity,"along with Sugy Choi of New York University Grossman School of Medicine, and Ninez A. Ponce, of UCLA's Jonathan and Karin Fielding School of Public Health.

Tuesday, February 10, 2026, 9 a.m. CT
At WashU and online

This gathering will explore how implementation science — the field that studies how to put evidence into practice — can help us communicate more effectively so that accurate, trustworthy health information is able to hold its ground in a crowded information landscape.

The WashU Public Health Moment is published by the School of Public Health Office of Communications. You can reach us at [email protected].

Visit publichealth.washu.edu for the latest news and information, and follow us on social media.

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