First Ryan Institute Faculty Scholars to study housing assistance, care transitions

Lindsay Stark, MPH, DrPH, a professor of public health, and Sara Malone, MSW, PhD, an assistant professor, have been named the inaugural Faculty Scholars of the Ryan Institute for Interdisciplinary Health Solutions at the Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. The Faculty Scholars program aims to accelerate progress toward solutions for critical public health challenges.  

Stark will lead a project addressing the use of housing assistance as a health intervention for displaced women and children, in collaboration with colleagues including Anaise Williams, MPH, PhD, the inaugural Mary M. McKay Postdoctoral Fellow. Malone will lead a team including Ananda Rankin, PhD, the inaugural Margaret Clarson Postdoctoral Fellow, working to address the challenges faced by youth with chronic health conditions as they move from pediatric to adult care.

“We are pleased to announce the first Faculty Scholar awards from the Ryan Institute and look forward to following the progress of their promising public health solutions,” said Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, the Margaret C. Ryan Dean and the Eugene S. and Constance Kahn Distinguished Professor at the Bursky School of Public Health, and vice provost for interdisciplinary initiatives at WashU. “We received outstanding applications from interdisciplinary teams with faculty across the university and medical center and we look forward to engaging new projects each year with a goal of supporting and scaling public health solutions.”   

The Faculty Scholars program supports Bursky Public Health faculty members leading interdisciplinary teams in innovative, solutions-focused research with the potential for significant impact. The two-year scholarship comes with $130,000 in research funding, the assistance of a postdoctoral fellow, and the resources to host a summit on the selected public health topic in the second year. 

Titled “Housing as Health: Scaling Rental Assistance for Displaced Women and Children,” Stark’s project explores rental assistance as a health intervention among female-headed, displaced households in Tumaco, Colombia, a country with one of the world’s largest internally displaced populations. At a time when displacement has reached historic levels worldwide, the study will investigate whether stable housing reduces stress and increases physical and economic security for caregivers, and whether improvements in caregiver mental health then translate into better well-being, development, and safety outcomes for children. The project has the potential to serve as a global model for using housing assistance as a means of improving health among displaced populations in other parts of the world.

Stark’s team includes Deanna Barch, PhD, a professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Science;  Arturo Harker Roa, PhD, an associate professor at the School of Government at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia;  Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, PhD, a professor of psychiatry at WashU Medicine and a member of the secondary faculty at Bursky Public Health; Patrick Fowler, PhD, a professor at Bursky Public Health; Mary McKay, PhD, a professor at the Brown School and a member of the Bursky Public Health secondary faculty;  Ilana Seff, MPH, DrPH, a research associate professor at Bursky Public Health; and Juan Pablo Franco Jimenez, the country director of Blumont in Colombia, a humanitarian organization.

Malone’s project is titled “Closing the Gap: Adapting a Transition Program Across Diseases to Design for Scale.” The project will focus on the transition from pediatric to adult care for children with chronic diseases, such as childhood-onset heart disease and chronic kidney disease. Although most children with these chronic conditions survive into adulthood, structured transition programs remain rare, resulting in disruptions in continuity of care that can endanger health. The team seeks to better understand and improve pediatric-to-adult transition programs across diagnoses by partnering with medical teams to improve transition experiences for individuals with childhood-onset heart disease. 

Malone is partnering with Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, MPH, a professor of medicine at WashU Medicine and a member of the Bursky Public Health secondary faculty; Patrick Aguilar, MD, MBA, a professor of practice of organizational behavior and managing director of health at Olin Business and a member of the secondary faculty at Bursky Public Health; Maura Kepper, MPH, PhD, an associate professor at Wake Forest University and a Bursky Public Health courtesy faculty member; Claudia Gambrah-Lyles, MD, an instructor in neurology at WashU Medicine; and the team at the Health Design and Impact Lab.

The Ryan Institute, the first structured institute within the School of Public Health, was established through a philanthropic commitment from WashU trustee Tony Ryan and his wife, Ann. By combining research, funding, mentorship, and high-level engagement, the Ryan Institute helps accelerate promising ideas from concept to scalable public health impact.  

Mark Sampson is a freelance science writer. Before becoming a freelancer, he worked a science writer at the American Chemical Society and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).