WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST. LOUIS - Key Persons
Aviva Needle earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Yeshiva University where she was awarded a Presidential Fellowship for Community Leadership. She arrived at the Brown School with over 6 years' experience as an accounting assistant for Washington University's Performing Arts Department. Aviva's experience in journalism as a writer and editor have been instrumental to the Health Equity Works project. She now serves as the administrative assistant with Health Equity Works and provides support for the project through event planning, technology integration, and organization of project data.
Job Titles:
- Research Project Coordinator
Job Titles:
- Principal Investigator
- Project Director
- Associate Professor in the Brown School at Washington University
Health Equity Works Director Dr. Jason Purnell is an associate professor in the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. He is trained in both applied psychology and public health and is a licensed psychologist in the State of Missouri. Dr. Purnell's research focuses on health equity and the social determinants of health, with a special emphasis on the social, cultural, and economic factors that influence health behaviors and health outcomes. He is also interested in how communities can be mobilized to respond to health inequity. These interests were the foundation for the 2014 For the Sake of All report and subsequent project of the same name. Dr. Purnell's work has been published in leading scientific journals such as JAMA, American Journal of Public Health, Annual Review of Public Health, and Journal of Clinical Oncology. Interest in the For the Sake of All initiative and resulting programs has earned media coverage by The Huffington Post, CNN, NPR, the Washington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek, Mclean's (Canada), Korea Times (Korea), the "Joe Madison Show" on SiriusXM Radio, Vice News, vox.com, and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Dr. Purnell earned his degrees from Harvard University (BA, government and philosophy), The Ohio State University (PhD, counseling psychology), and the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry (MPH, public health).
Job Titles:
- Assistant Director of Communications and Dissemination, Center for Public Health Systems Science
Laura Brossart is the Assistant Director of Communications and Dissemination for the Center for Public Health System Science at Washington University's Brown School. She directs the Center's communication plan and activities, overseeing all internal and external print and electronic communications with Center partners. Laura also oversees the design, development, and production of all Center evaluation and research products (print, web, and interactive). Additionally, Laura serves as the Co-Investigator for the User Guide project, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The User Guides are a series of implementation guides on specific topics within the State and Community Interventions category of the CDC's 2014 Best Practices for Comprehensive Tobacco Control Programs. Laura joined the Health Equity Works project team in 2014 and has been instrumental in development of Discussion Guides and Action Toolkits, as well as other project communications tools, including its website. She will continue to help guide project communications and dissemination efforts.
Michelle Witthaus is the Program Manager for Health Equity Works and oversees the project's strategic partnerships and community-centered initiatives including efforts to improve the region's access to affordable and inclusive housing. Michelle has a diverse background in education, community organizing, and philanthropy. Before joining Health Equity Works, Michelle worked as Program Associate for the Incarnate Word Foundation, where she managed grantee partnerships, foundation programs, and philanthropic collaborations. Prior to her work at Incarnate Word, she launched an initiative called Participatory Budgeting-St. Louis, which aimed to bring about a more democratic way of spending public money. The initiative was launched in St. Louis's Sixth Ward and allowed residents to decide how to spend 40% of the ward's capital improvement funding. At the time of inception, St. Louis was the fourth city in the United States to implement this inclusive process.
Job Titles:
- Co - Director, THSS Associate Director, Brown School Evaluation Center
Nikole Lobb Dougherty has a diverse background in research, evaluation, and project management. Nikole's primary interests include public health and systems-level research and evaluation, health equity, qualitative methods, data visualization, and innovative and effective dissemination and reporting. Nikole has served as the Evaluation Manager of the Health Equity Works initiative since 2014. In this role, she oversees evaluation planning and implementation. Nikole also supports Health Equity Works on its school health initiatives. Nikole previously worked with Dr. Purnell on an evaluation of a school-based health center in the St. Louis region. Currently, Nikole also serves as the Co-Director of a Robert Wood Johnson Together for Healthy and Successful Schools Research and Translation grant, which works with two high-need St. Louis area school districts to determine the key relationships, messages, and systems necessary to make schools healthy environments for learning and development. Nikole is also the Associate Director for the Center for Public Health System Science at Washington University's Brown School where she facilitates the development and implementation of the Center's strategic plan, provides overall programmatic and operational guidance for Center staff, and identifies and implements new research and evaluation opportunities and partnerships.
Job Titles:
- Research Project Coordinator
Rachel Barth earned a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology from Eastern Illinois University and a Master's in Social Work with a community concentration from Saint Louis University (SLU). During her time at SLU, she worked on research studies examining the impact of a microloan program in a rural community in Haiti and the impact of the redevelopment of downtown St. Louis. Rachel joined the Brown School at Washington University in 2012 with the Center for Public Health Systems Science where she worked on an evaluation of the Missouri Foundation for Health's Healthy and Active Communities initiative and the Best Practices User Guide project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Rachel joined the Health Equity Works project team in 2015. As Project Coordinator, Rachel leads the research activities of the project.