Tulane News & Press

1. Dr. Kat Theall on Paid Family Leave for Louisiana Families (Op-Ed)

   There are many good health, caregiving, and economic security reasons to endorse the current proposal for paid family leave insurance in Louisiana–Senate Bill 186–as it could greatly benefit women, men, children, families and employers. One important reason is to promote maternal health. About 80% of American women have at least one child, and after giving birth, it is clear that mothers need time for physical recovery, bonding with newborns and emotional health. Since most mothers are employed, it is important for maternity leave to exist — and be paid.
2. New Dean at Tulane School of Public Health fights for health equity

   Dr. Thomas LaVeist has an illustrious professional track record researching the nature and causes of racial health disparities and inequities. As the new Dean of the Tulane Public Health School, he sees an opportunity to make a difference in a region that most needs a difference. Dean LaVeist notes that “we’re in a city that has all of the urban health problems of every other big city in this country. We’re in a state that has all of the rural health problems of every other part of rural America. And we’re in the Southeast United States, which is the epicenter for inequities, both historically as well as today.”
3. Dr. Stacy Drury on preventing intergenerational trauma from the cell up

   In her cross-disciplinary Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Laboratory (BANGL), Dr. Stacy Drury and her colleagues study the relationship between childhood experiences and genetic and epigenetic factors, striving to understand how this shapes a child’s long-term development and health.
4. Violence Prevention Institute highlighted by Tulane's "All-In" initiative

   The spring, Tulane launched its new Violence Prevention Institute to bring together experts from across campus. Researchers with the Violence Prevention Institute are collaborating across disciplines to understand the causes of violence and how we can best prevent various forms of violence from child maltreatment to intimate partner violence and sexual assault.
5. Katherine Mattes wins parole for man sentenced to life in Angola as a teen

   Barry Williams walked out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola on Thursday free, 41 years after he was convicted at the age of 17 of second-degree murder in a botched robbery that left an elderly woman dead. His attorney of six years, Tulane Criminal Justice Clinic Director Katherine Mattes and student attorneys, had been for years arguing that changes in constitutional law should entitle Williams to be considered for parole.
6. Tulane traumatologist on compassion fatigue from U.S. mass shootings

   Charles Figley, a psychologist and director of the Tulane University Traumatology Institute, says thinking too much about traumatic events, whether it's a refugee crisis on the other side of the world or a school shooting in our own country, can make people too anxious or depressed to function in their daily lives. Figley says, "It's a natural response called compassion fatigue. We of course think about ourselves being in such a place, in which someone would suddenly burst in and shoot things up, but if we think about that too much, then it deteriorates our sense of confidence and our sense of trust and our sense of safety."
7. Tulane researcher studies why women die from pregnancy more often in LA than other states

   The U.S. is the most dangerous nation in the developed world in which to give birth, and Louisiana is among the states with the highest maternal death rates. Dr. Maeve Wallace, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist and researcher at Tulane's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, has received two grants totaling $2.4 million to study pregnancy-associated mortality to study potential reasons why.
8. Dr. Maeve Wallace on consistently high statewide maternal mortality rates.

   The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world, and Louisiana consistently ranks among the top states for rates of death among pregnant and postpartum women. Dr. Maeve Wallace studies pregnancy-associated mortality and the state-level policies that could be contributing to the higher rates seen in Louisiana and the U.S. more broadly. Wallace and her team will also look at how factors including income inequality, structural racism and residential segregation play a role in the increased mortality rate among black women, who are currently three to four times more likely than white women to die during pregnancy or post-partum periods.
9. Tulane awarded $2.3M to study impact of clearing blight on family violence

   Can cleaning vacant lots cause a chain of events that curbs child abuse or stops a teen from falling victim to violence? That’s the provocative question behind a new Tulane University research project to study whether maintaining vacant lots and fixing up blighted properties in high-crime areas reduces incidents of youth and family violence. The National Institutes of Health awarded Tulane a $2.3 million grant to test the theory in New Orleans.
10. Dr. Kat Theall awarded $2.3M to reduce blight and prevent violence

    Tulane researcher Dr. Katherine Theall was just awarded a $2.3 million grant from the NIH for a first-of-its-kind study. The study seeks to learn if cleaning up overgrown, vacant lots and blighted houses can decrease youth and family violence. “To our knowledge, no other studies have examined the impact of blight remediation on youth and family violence, specifically,” said principal investigator Katherine Theall, PhD, Cecile Usdin Professor in Women’s Health. “However, research on other forms of neighborhood disorder suggest that it could have a substantial impact.”
11. Dr. Emily Harville on post-disaster mental health recovery

    Dr. Emily Harville, an associate professor at Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans, said most people will be back to where they were within a year or so, but others will have difficulty for a longer period. "There will be a small group that continues to have long-term mental health issues," she said.
12. Tulane debuts "Race & Inclusion" requirements for new students

    As of the Fall 2018 semester, all new full-time, first-year undergraduate students will be required to complete at least one of the approved courses on Race and Inclusion. More than 50 existing classes have been approved as options with more coming in the future. This curricular requirement was one of several recommendations of Tulane’s Presidential Commission on Race and Tulane Values, which was initiated by Tulane President Mike Fitts in 2015 to make the university a more racially diverse, inclusive community. The commission includes Tulane faculty staff, students, alumni and board members.
13. Tulane researchers and community partners promote "trauma-informed" school environments

    Tulane researchers conduct 4-year study, "Safe Schools NOLA," on trauma-informed approaches across 5 schools in New Orleans. These approaches include training for teachers to recognize signs of trauma, finding ways to make children feel safe, teaching coping skills and eliminating harsh discipline policies. The Institute for Women and Ethnic Studies, a key community partner for many Tulane researchers, surveyed New Orleans youth over the past several years to learn how deep the mental health issues are stemming from untreated trauma.
14. Dean Thomas LaVeist on racial gap in health outcomes

    In Baltimore and other segregated cities, the life-expectancy gap between African Americans and whites is as much as 20 years. This reality is a part of a much bigger story, one of how African Americans became stuck in profoundly unhealthy neighborhoods, and of how the legacy of racism can literally take years off their lives. Far from being a relic of the past, America’s racist and segregationist history continues to harm black people in the most intimate of ways—seeping into their lungs, their blood, even their DNA.
15. Dr. Charley Zeanah on the toxicity of detention centers on children

    Officials defend immigration-related detention facilities in Texas saying that shelters provide nutrition, hygiene and medical care. This isn’t enough. Children need consistent and individualized care from loving adults. Deprived of these experiences, a young child’s development is derailed.
16. Parkland shooting survivors host gun violence prevention panel at Tulane

    March for Our Lives – a student-led organization responding to the Parkland mass shooting – held a panel at Tulane as New Orleans was the group's last stop on the Southern leg of its Road to Change tour, which brought together survivors of the Parkland shooting and local activists and organizers to discuss topics including school-based gun violence prevention strategies and how to push politically for more restrictions on guns. Being conscious of their location, the panelists also turned to the issue of violence in urban environments, especially that which affects young people.
17. Dr. Catherine Burnette on preventing intimate partner violence in indigenous communities

    Dr. Burnette has dedicated her career to studying the health disparities of indigenous peoples, examining everything from domestic violence to substance abuse. Her latest article, “Indigenous Women and Professionals’ Proposed Solutions to Prevent Intimate Partner Violence in Tribal Communities,” was selected as the 2018 Best Paper by the Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work.
18. Dean Bordnick awarded again for addiction recovery technology

    Social Work Dean Bordnick this week received The Visionary Award for Outstanding Contributions to Youth Recovery Research at the 2018 Association of Recovery for Higher Education Conference (ARHE) in Houston for his work developing virtual reality solutions to substance misuse / addiction. Tulane is working to bring a recovery program to campus, and Bordnick said the School of Social Work is poised to be leader in this effort since social workers provide most of the treatment services for substance misuse issues.
19. Dr. Stacy Drury on childhood trauma impact on DNA

    Researchers have found the amount of violence in a neighborhood can directly impact a child biologically, so much so, that the rate of violence directly correlates to the length of telomeres at the end of a child’s chromosomes. “We have evidence that there are changes in the actual DNA in the cells within each child. We have evidence that it changes how children's stress response systems work,” said Stacy Drury, the Associate Director of the Tulane Brain Institute.
20. Dr. Ashley Wennerstrom on NOLA LEADs project training community health leaders

    NOLA LEADs includes a series of six trainings held over three months that focused on helping people develop the skills and knowledge needed to advocate for changes in structural conditions that contribute to health disparities. Much of the program was modeled after the Louisiana Community Health Worker Institute, a program founded and directed by Ashley Wennerstrom (NOLA LEADs co-investigator).