Faculty in the News

Research by Jessica Trisko Darden and Izabela Steflja has demonstrated that the support roles women take up in combat zones challenge our traditional categorization of them as civilians. The increasingly blurred line between combat and support roles in national militaries also poses a challenge for understanding the impact of female combatants on conflict dynamics.

“Making Civilian Casualties Count: Approaches to Documenting the Human Cost of War”. Steflja, Izabela; Darden, Jessica Trisko. Human Rights Review, December 2013, Volume 14, Issue 4.

“At least a third of our kids are really experiencing symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, which on a simple level means it is hard to attend school and do well,” said Dr. Denese Shervington, a psychiatrist and IWES president. At the other extreme, these symptoms could lead to acting out, including committing crimes, she said.

Dr. Mary Margaret Gleason, a professor of pediatrics and child psychiatry at Tulane who treated Kyle from ages 3 to 5 as he was weaned off the heavy medications, said there was no valid medical reason to give antipsychotic drugs to the boy, or virtually any other 2-year-old. “It’s disturbing,” she said.

The study, led by community-health-sciences professor Catherine Taylor, was the first to control for a host of issues affecting the mother, such as depression, alcohol and drug use, spousal abuse and even whether she considered abortion while pregnant with the child. "The odds of a child being more aggressive at age 5 increased by 50% if he had been spanked more than twice in the month before the study began," says Taylor.