Recently, I had the opportunity to give a webinar on disability cultural competence to social service workers, but was met with many blank stares. As a disabled social worker myself, I often notice that the disability community is not recognized as a cultural group. Disability is also not considered as a social identity in diversity […]

View Full Article - What Do You Know About Disability Cultural Competence?

America is a pretty angry place these days. Formerly respectful spaces like school board meetings have become bitter battlegrounds. Some people are harassing healthcare workers and threatening restaurant staff for enforcing COVID protocols. Others are openly furious with the vaccine-hesitant. Everyone, wherever they stand on the (deeply divided) political playing field, is outraged about something. Sure, […]

View Full Article - America Has an Anger Problem – Can Better “Mental Nutrition” Fix It?

Pediatric neurologist Jane Tavyev, MD, has advice for parents looking to help their children learn social skills after pandemic isolation. Tavyev’s strategies include: Staying engaged at home. Tavyev, also an assistant professor of Pediatrics at Cedars-Sinai, pointed out that kids who turned 2 or 3 during the pandemic might have little experience interacting with people who […]

View Full Article - Five Tips to Ease Kids’ Social Reentry

When Frank Kilpatrick set out to convince more younger people to get the jab, he knew he’d have to overcome several roadblocks. One, young people tend to feel invincible, and thus somehow unaffected by the COVID-19 virus. Two, they aren’t moved by data that shows the benefits of vaccination. Three, they tend not to watch […]

View Full Article - Too Many Young People Aren’t Getting the Jab – Can Music Change Their Minds?

As researchers investigate reasons for America’s persistent gender wage gap, one possible explanation that has emerged in roughly the last decade is that women may be less competitive than men, and are therefore passed over for higher-ranking roles with larger salaries. But a new study suggests that it’s likely not that simple. Researchers found that […]

View Full Article - Study Casts Doubt on Theory That Women Aren’t as Competitive as Men

Banning right-wing extremists from social media can reduce the spread of anti-social ideas and conspiracy theories, according to Rutgers-led research. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, examined what happens after individual influencers with large followings are banned from social media and no longer have a platform to promote their extreme […]

View Full Article - Permanent Twitter Ban of Extremist Influencers Can Detoxify Social Media

The Rutgers School of Public Health and the Mason Gross School of the Arts have launched a collaboration to support community-engaged, arts-integrated research projects that will result in performances or productions of art. The projects, led by teams made up of faculty from both schools, include Pilates workshops, photo series, and oral history performances. Devin English, assistant professor […]

View Full Article - Public Health and Art

Debates about the value and meaning of public education are not just about report cards and standardized test scores. The hope is that public education will equip youth with what they need to reach their full potential and flourish as the next generation of citizens. To achieve this goal, most people realize that public schools […]

View Full Article - How Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Schools Prepares Young People to Thrive in a Multiracial Society

Are you a fan of “Bachelor in Paradise?” Whether you realize it or not, this season of the “Bachelor” franchise spinoff took on the topic of disability empowerment. Which is not exactly an expected topic for mainstream television. For years, the “Bachelor” series has been criticized for featuring primarily White contestants, and has worked to […]

View Full Article - What “Bachelor in Paradise” Can Teach us About Empowering the Disability Community

It’s striking and familiar. A new report finds women physicians across all races and ethnicities earn less than their male counterparts. In fact, women physicians earn between 67 cents and 77 cents on the dollar compared to white men physicians. This new data, which comes from the Association of American Medical Colleges, reinforces that academic medicine […]

View Full Article - Among Physicians, Men Make More Than Women: How Do We Change That?

The drawing and redrawing of electoral districts – which happens every ten years after the Census – is a hotly contested ritual in American politics. At the center of these disputes is partisan gerrymandering, a process in which elected officials draw electoral districts to increase the likelihood their own party will win more seats in […]

View Full Article - Why Independent Redistricting Commissions Should Draw Electoral District Maps

Ideally, local governments as the smallest jurisdictions in the American political system allow citizens to engage in a direct and substantive way. Local elections are one way this happens, as citizens select about half a million elected officials, one for every 450 adults, to serve in more than 85,000 U.S. local governments. But despite their […]

View Full Article - The “Money in Politics” Debate and Effective Ways to Improve Local Democracy in America

On October 11th, the National Football League (NFL) community was shocked when news surfaced that Las Vegas Raiders Head Coach Jon Gruden announced his resignation just five weeks into the season. Gruden was one of the most high-profile figures in the NFL over the last 20 years, serving both as a Super Bowl-winning Head Coach […]

View Full Article - The Jon Gruden Case and Why the NFL Still Isn’t Serious About Social Justice

We’re all public health nerds now, and many of us have stepped up our games when it comes to washing our hands and sanitizing surfaces at home. With all the added stressors that come along with global pandemics, it can be easy to let health and fitness goals slip. The World Health Organization (WHO) has […]

View Full Article - How Health & Fitness Businesses Are Flexing Their Muscles For Customers Right Now

You know that being kind to others is good for the recipient (obviously), but did you know that it’s also good for the giver, too? Yep, that’s right. Being kind to others will improve your mental, emotional and physical well-being. Here are six reasons that being kind to others makes you feel better, plus ideas […]

View Full Article - How Being Kind to Others Make You Feel Better

As the lead social worker in charge of the behavioral health screening protocol at Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware, Jessica Williams, MSS, LCSW is responsible for educating clinicians, staff, and families about the one thing they can do to identify kids in crisis: ask them the right questions. “Kids that appear to […]

View Full Article - Depressed Kids Do Not Have A Look – Identifying Children in Crisis

State-wide school closures for an extended amount of time due to a worldwide pandemic is truly unprecedented. Families, school systems, and entire communities are now in a position like we have never known before. Aside from the logistics involving everything from last-minute childcare to methods for providing meals to local FARMS (free and reduced-price meals […]

View Full Article - Remote Learning: Making Use of Time at Home During School Closures

Happily married couples enjoy better mental health status, according to researchers.  They fall sick less often, have fewer instances of depression and anxiety, and suffer less from loneliness and feelings of solitude.  A recent study in Sweden shows that mentally healthy married couples are less likely to get pneumonia, undergo surgeries, develop cancer or have heart […]

View Full Article - Good Mental Health Equals a Happy Marriage

At the gym, MSNBC plays on my treadmill monitor. Coverage of the shootings in El Paso and Dayton have been nonstop, and I watch compulsively, trying to find a way to understand this horrific violence. My search for answers yields nothing but a mounting sense of helplessness. Beside me, a woman younger than I am […]

View Full Article - The Woman Beside Me – Living in the Era of Trump

The history of homelessness in Australia stems back to our nation’s colonization by our British counterparts which moved Indigenous Australians out of their physical living structures. As Australia became more industrialized nearing the 1970’s, the contrast between homelessness and the rest of society become starker as the mainstream society had higher living expectations and standards […]

View Full Article - The History of Stereotyping Homelessness in Australia