Research - Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis

Guaranteed income improved artists’ finances, innovation

Roger — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:53:47 +0000

A guaranteed income program for artists led to improvement in financial stability and reduced debt, but also improved their motivation and artistic output, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “Our main finding is that giving people cash not only helps them live a more secure life, it also provides a pathway toward personal, professional and artistic growth,” said Stephen Roll, an assistant professor and an expert on asset building and economic security. Roll is co-author of the paper “Empowering Artistic Labor: How Guaranteed Income Enhances Intrinsic Motivation and Fosters Human Flourishing,” published online in the journal World Development Perspectives. Roll and his co-authors examined data from the Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) Guaranteed Income...

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17�Թ� Experts: Trump accounts must have auto enrollment

Roger — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 15:48:25 +0000

Widespread promotion has started for so-called Trump Accounts, including an ad during the Super Bowl. The accounts allow parents to opt in to claim investment seed money of up to $1,000 for their children. But that opt-in part is problematic, say two experts on child development accounts at Washington University in St. Louis. “Automatic enrollment is the difference between Trump Accounts functioning as a truly universal wealth-building policy and a policy that unintentionally leaves out many children,” said Michael Sherraden, the George Warren Brown Distinguished University Professor. “In the field of early wealth-building, automatic enrollment is the gold standard for achieving full participation.” The strongest U.S. evidence comes from the SEED for Oklahoma Kids (SEED OK) experiment conducted by Sherraden and the...

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Brown School students call for social work approach to improve St. Louis disaster response

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 10:01:00 +0000

St. Louis is not adequately prepared for increasingly frequent and severe climate-related disasters, according to a new student-led report from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. The report calls for more inclusive, coordinated and community-driven emergency planning. The report, “Community Development and Disaster Preparedness in the City of St. Louis: A Vision for Response with a Social Work Lens,” was written by graduate students in social work, public health and social policy as part of the Brown School’s spring 2025 Community Development course. It was published by 17�Թ�’s Center for the Environment. Guided by Molly Metzger, a teaching professor at the Brown School, and teaching assistant Rachel Hurtado, the project incorporated input from local agencies, community leaders...

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St. Louis guaranteed basic income pilot improved financial stability, study finds

Roger — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 20:09:27 +0000

Researchers from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis have released new findings from their evaluation of St. Louis’ Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) Pilot Program, showing that regular, unrestricted cash payments significantly improved participants’ economic security, credit health and overall quality of life. “A steady, predictable income stream gave families room to breathe — and to plan,” said Stephen Roll, an assistant professor at the Brown School and director of research at the Center for Social Development. “Families used the payments to stay current on bills, avoid crises, and invest in their children. Many were able to build emergency savings for the first time. When we trust families to make decisions for themselves, the outcomes are overwhelmingly positive.” The...

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Brown School faculty member, PhD student receive research excellence awards

admin — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 15:38:00 +0000

Nhial Tutlam, an assistant professor, and Flavia Namuwonge, a doctoral student in social work, both at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, received 2025 Provost Research Excellence Awards the 2025 Global Research Excellence Showcase on Nov. 10. The event recognizes outstanding interdisciplinary research. Tutlam was honored in the faculty category, while Namuwonge received a graduate student award. Tutlam, an associate director of research at the Brown School‘s International Center for Child Health and Development (ICHAD), also received a global spotlight designation. His research focuses on the mental health effects of war trauma and related risks of suicide, substance use, and HIV among youth affected by conflict. He aims to develop and test culturally relevant community-based interventions in both...

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McKay, Naseh awarded seed grants for international research projects

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 13:03:00 +0000

Two Brown School faculty members have received 2025 Global Incubator Seed Grants to launch new international research projects focused on improving public health and refugee well-being. The awards, up to $25,000 each from 17�Թ� Global and the Office of the Provost, are intended to help faculty build new international collaborations and advance early-stage global research partnerships. Mary McKay, executive vice provost and professor, was awarded funding for a collaborative project on climate change and intimate partner violence among young women living with HIV in Uganda. In partnership with Makerere University, McKay’s team plans to collect quantitative data from 200 young women living with HIV and conduct interviews with 20 participants to capture their lived experiences. Findings will inform the development of integrated,...

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College remains a strong investment — even with student debt, study finds

Roger — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 15:38:15 +0000

Even after factoring in student loan payments, completing a college degree continues to pay off, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis’ Center for Social Development (CSD) at the Brown School. The study, published Nov. 3 by the Brookings Institution, finds that degree holders earn on average $8,000 more per year than similar individuals who attended college but did not complete a degree — even after accounting for student loan payments. Without factoring in debt, the earnings premium rises to $10,400 per year. “Despite concerns about rising tuition costs and growing debt, the data show that higher education remains a worthwhile financial investment,” said Jason Jabbari, an assistant professor at the Brown School, faculty director of the Clark-Fox Policy...

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How racial stress shapes Black parents’ confidence in discussing race, study finds

admin — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 16:16:22 +0000

Black parents who experience racism in their daily lives may feel more confident discussing race and discrimination with their children, according to new research from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. 17�Թ� 75% of Black adults in the U.S. report facing some form of racial discrimination, according to the Pew Research Center. The study suggests that these experiences influence how parents approach conversations about race and racism with their children. Titled “Navigating Racial Stress: How Black Mothers’ and Fathers’ Trauma Shapes Confidence in Talking 17�Թ� Racism,” the study was published in the Journal of Black Psychology. It was led by Sheretta T. Butler-Barnes, a Dean’s Distinguished Professorial Scholar and professor at the Brown School. Researchers surveyed 681 Black parents,...

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Researcher wins $5M NIH grant to improve mental health care for HIV patients

Roger — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 16:59:54 +0000

Proscovia Nabunya, an associate professor at the Brown School, has received a $5 million federal grant from the National Institute of Mental Health, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to streamline mental health treatment and HIV medication support for adolescents living with HIV in rural Uganda. The five-year project (2025-2030) is a collaboration with researchers from The City University of New York and other partners. The study aims to integrate evidence-based mental health care into existing HIV treatment systems to improve outcomes for young people navigating both challenges. The team will assess the feasibility and effectiveness of the intervention, as well as the barriers affecting access to care and treatment adherence. Ultimately, researchers hope their findings also can...

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To address gun violence, focus more on people than on guns

Roger — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 21:16:26 +0000

When it comes to curbing gun violence in America, the field of public health should consider focusing less on the guns themselves and more on a rising sense of distrust that makes people reach for guns in the first place, says a researcher from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “Public health has long ignored the political and social aspects of gun ownership and failed to recognize that firearms are, for many people, a means of replacing fear and uncertainty with a sense of strength and self-sufficiency,” said Caitlin McMurtry, an assistant professor. “Before we can make progress toward a safer society, we need a better understanding of, and more research on, Americans’ motivations for self-armament.” McMurtry, whose...

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Galupo releases new framework, tool to assess gender dysphoria

admin — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Paz Galupo, the Audre Lorde Distinguished Professor for Sexual Health & Education at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, has developed a new framework and measurement tool to better understand gender dysphoria. To develop the Multidimensional Model of Gender Dysphoria and its accompanying assessment tool, Galupo, director of the Brown School’s Sexuality, Health, and Gender (SHAG) Center, collaborated with Louis Lindley, a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Zakary A. Clements, assistant professor of counseling psychology at Loyola University in Chicago and former postdoctoral researcher at the SHAG Center. The research, supported by a grant awarded to Galupo from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), was published in the American Psychologist, the flagship journal...

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Jabbari receives grant to study social mobility

Roger — Mon, 20 Oct 2025 18:38:35 +0000

Jason Jabbari, an assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a two-year $352,943 grant from Arnold Ventures to evaluate the impact of the Cristo Rey Network’s professional work-based learning model on social mobility and racial equity. The Cristo Rey Network, which serves low-income students, combines college-preparatory curriculum with a corporate work-study program in which students work one day per week at a local corporation. Jabbari, along with Shaun Dougherty of Boston College, Lauren Russell of the University of Pennsylvania, and Fahvyon Jimenez of Jimenez Strategy & Analytics, will work with a variety of administrative datasets to compare college and employment outcomes of Cristo Rey graduates to similar non-attending applicants. “By leveraging historical application...

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Ahn explores AI, social work and inequality

admin — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 15:40:40 +0000

Spot Eunhye Ahn on campus in deep thought, and you might catch her wrestling with a question she considers both urgent and underexplored: What does “human-centered” really mean from a social work perspective when it comes to artificial intelligence? “It’s interesting, literally every day there’s some new aspect of the AI field,” said Ahn, an assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and an affiliated researcher with 17�Թ�’s new AI for Health Institute, which explores responsible uses of AI in health and social systems. But Ahn challenges the notion that AI is impartial. “AI is not neutral. It reflects the biases and structures of the society that created it,” she said. “I get really angry...

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Faculty, PhD student receive grant to study adolescent girls in Ghana

Myra — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 19:33:30 +0000

Two members of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis have received a 2025 Seed Grant from the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research (OVCR) to study sexual risk behaviors among adolescent girls in Ghana, drawing insights from both mothers and daughters. The grant recipients are Proscovia Nabunya, associate professor at the Brown School and director of the International Center for Child Health and Development (ICHAD); Portia Nartey, a third-year doctoral student in social work and research associate at ICHAD; and Juliet Iwelunmor, professor of medicine and associate director for global health and dissemination at 17�Թ� Medicine. Nartey will work under the mentorship of Nabunya and Iwelunmor. The research will focus on Ghana’s eastern region, which faces high poverty rates and...

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Brown School faculty among the world’s top influential scientists

admin — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 14:28:13 +0000

Faculty from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis have once again earned international recognition, appearing prominently in the latest ranking of the world’s most-cited researchers across scientific disciplines. More than a dozen faculty are featured on the 2025 Stanford University–Elsevier World’s Top 2% Scientists List. This prestigious honor recognizes researchers whose work has made a significant impact in their fields and advanced global knowledge. The rankings are based, in part, on how frequently a scientist’s publications are cited by other researchers. “This recognition reflects the extraordinary strength and global influence of our faculty,” said Dorian Traube, the Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the Brown School and a professor. “It’s an outstanding achievement for the Brown School, and...

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