The Moment, August 23, 2026

Public health trends; student practicum; childhood obesity treatment

The world’s population is getting older; the planet is getting warmer; more people are living in cities; trust in institutions is declining; and technology is advancing at extraordinary speed - Bursky Public Health is preparing to tackle the public health trends of the future.

Bursky Public Health MPH students hone their skills on real-world challenges through the applied practice experience.

A family-based treatment helped nearly half of kids in a clinical trial reach a healthier weight, according to a study co-led by WashU Medicine’s Denise Wilfley, a member of the Bursky Public Health secondary faculty.

With a background in health, entrepreneurship, facilities management and construction, Dent helps shape the school’s expanding physical spaces. Among his biggest projects is helping to find the school a permanent home.

Professor Rodrigo Reis and colleagues at have created a free, public dashboard to help practitioners, policymakers and researchers better gauge the climate impact of efforts to promote physical activity.

Doctoral student Ri'enna Boyd has been named an Emerging Scholar in Family Planning by the Society of Family Planning. The award supports her research project, "Between the ban and the ballot: Abortion doulas’ experiences in Missouri’s fluctuating policy environment."

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

Health policy expert Timothy McBride says that the net effect of the Medicaid cuts on rural health will be negative despite the influx of federal funds. (Source: National Public Radio)

With most St. Louis schools back in session in the next two weeks, we checked in with St. Louis adults about vaccine requirements for school children. Specifically, what do St. Louisans know and think about vaccine exemptions?

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

Bursky Public Health’s Yi Wang, Drew Crenshaw and Rodrigo Reis co-authored, “Federal cuts and public health: Social media sentiment among federal employees,” published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research.

WashU Medicine’s Julia Lopez, a member of the Bursky Public Health secondary faculty, is the first and corresponding author on, “Evaluating infant feeding practice guidelines for individuals with HIV: a pilot study using qualitative findings with healthcare workers and normalization process theory,” published in Frontiers in Reproductive Health. Ginger McKay, an assistant professor at Bursky Public Health, is a co-author.

Bursky Public Health’s Mary Politi is the senior author and WashU Medicine’s Ana Baumann, a member of the Bursky Public Health secondary faculty, is the first author on, “Tradeoffs between pace and reach of patient decision aids: a case study adapting a breast reconstruction decision aid from clinical implementation to social media dissemination,” published in Implementation Science Communications. Bursky Public Health’s Krista Cooksey and Viktoria Vonder Haar are co-authors.

MPH student Gifty Ntoni spent her summer working to improve St. Louisans’ access to healthy foods. A participant in Bursky Public Health's Summer Experience program, Ntoni was placed with Operation Food Search and supported the operation’s mobile market program, which brings produce and groceries at reduced prices to neighborhoods with limited access to fresh food.

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Professor Merlin Chowkwanyun joins host Salma Abdalla to discuss how history can help explain why certain methods, research topics, and forms of evidence become dominant in public health.

This episode is part of the "Building Better Ways of Knowing" mini-series of the "Complicating the Narrative” podcast. The podcast is hosted by Abdalla, an associate professor at Bursky Public Health, and supported by WashU Bursky Public Health and the Frick Initiative.

The latest post in The Healthiest Goldfish is titled, "Universities, social purpose, and the generation of health," and is the final part of a three-part series on universities, science, and the promotion of health as our social purpose.

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

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