News Archive
Research
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In the United States, a person dies by suicide every ten minutes. This is a public health epidemic that has consistently increased over the past 15 years and incurred more than $70 billion in medical costs and lost productivity. It has become all too common in the wake of an individual’s suicide to hear family, friends, colleagues - even the media - say, “If we had only known how bad things were.”
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There’s an invisible, unpaid workforce caring for the 6 million Americans currently living with Alzheimer’s disease. The USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics estimates that 11 million family caregivers bear this emotional, physical and financial burden, mostly on their own.
USC experts say that while we wait for better Alzheimer’s treatments, there’s something we can do right now: Turn our attention to the caregivers.
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About 40% of eligible Americans ages 12 and up remain unvaccinated for COVID-19, according to the CDC. Karen Lincoln, associate professor, and other USC researchers explain who the unvaccinated might be, as well as the challenges in persuading people to get their shots.
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For members of the military who have experienced sexual assault while serving, the trauma and life-changing impacts of the violence and retaliation for reporting are crushing. Winning the battle against what Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin, III has called the “scourge of sexual assault” may not be easy, but there is a path forward, according to USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work researchers who specialize in military social work.
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Each year, USC recognizes six current PhD students, and their primary advisor, with exceptional academic profiles. Tasha Perdue, graduating PhD student at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, and Alice Cepeda, associate professor, are 2021 recipients of the USC PhD Achievement Award for Perdue’s dissertation work focusing on the illicit drug market in Dayton, Ohio.
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Growing up in a disadvantaged neighborhood is related to children’s brain structure and neurocognitive performance, according to a study published May 3, 2021 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
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For several years, PhD student Abigail Palmer Molina has focused her dissertation study on the experiences of mothers participating in an intervention for maternal depression, implemented as part of the Head Start program in South Los Angeles. The majority of the mothers were Latina immigrants, and Palmer Molina looked at their experiences to provide a richer picture of the intervention's effectiveness. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit last year, she was compelled to find out how these women, and their communities, were being affected.
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Eunhye Ahn has a passion for improving the lives of children and families. Her journey to social work, however, was not a straight line. With an undergraduate degree in business, she began her professional career in the private sector and it was there that she became interested in the potential for data collection and analysis to be used for social good.
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Tens of thousands of Americans die from drug use and addiction every year, with overdoses killing over 63,000 people in America in 2016, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Add in deaths linked to alcohol overuse and tobacco, and the number climbs above half a million Americans.
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When Robynn Cox, assistant professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, was a young girl, she constantly searched for fairness in life. She would beseech her mother with, “But that’s not fair!” In response, Cox’s mother used the power of their family’s legacy to urge and embolden Cox to change the unfairness.