People who take advantage of nonprofit credit counseling services have statistically significant reductions in consumer debt, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.
Category: News Type
How Dan Ariely Sees the Future of Financial Advice (Links to an external site)
Centene Center Faculty Director and behavior economics researcher, Dan Ariely, PhD, MA, talks with ThinkAdvisor about the future of financial advice and how he sees the role of financial advisor evolving over time. He discusses why the usual motivator of paying people can backfire, as well as why people make irrational decisions regarding their money. Rusoff, J. W.
Social Policy Institute receives $385,000 grant (Links to an external site)
The newly established Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis has received a $385,000 grant from JPMorgan Chase & Co. as part of the company’s $125 million, five-year global commitment to promoting customers’ financial health.
New consumer protection director to speak June 12 (Links to an external site)
Kathy Kraninger, who was named director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) six months ago, spoke about the bureau’s new directions and initiatives in savings policy in Hillman Hall’s Clark-Fox Forum. Michal Grinstein-Weiss, professor in Brown School and SPI director, will oversee a panel focused on the importance of savings in economically vulnerable communities.
Where Do You Get Your Health Information? (Links to an external site)
In a recent study conducted by the Centene Center for Health Transformation, Medicaid, and commercially insured individuals shared their top resources for learning about health topics. Not surprising, both groups communicated that their top three sources were the Internet, doctors/healthcare providers, and valued personal supporters such as family members of friends, preferably those with health-related training like nurses.
The Connection between Unmet Social Needs, Stress, and Health (Links to an external site)
Research results from a recent study completed by the Centene Center for Health Transformation show that the more unmet social needs someone has, the more barriers to self-care, worse health behaviors, and worse health outcomes they experience.
Behavioral Factors Impacting Diabetes (Links to an external site)
This Centene Center for Health Transformation™ video highlights the growing diabetes epidemic and the Centene Center’s collaborative research on the behavioral factors that impact diabetes management.
Israel’s Child Development Accounts Appeal to Families (Links to an external site)
Schoenherr, N. When Israel implemented a child development account policy, 65 percent of households actively enrolled in the first 6 months, research finds.
Participation is high in Israel’s universal CDA program, the first in the world (Links to an external site)
Schoenherr, N. A new analysis by the Social Policy Institute at Washington University in St. Louis examines enrollment and participation trends in a newly implemented national Israeli child development account (CDA) policy, finding that 65 percent of households actively enrolled in the program during the first six months.
Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD Inducted into American Academy of Social Work (Links to an external site)
Michal Grinstein-Weiss, PhD, MA, MSW, Director of the Centene Center for Health Transformation, was recently inducted into the American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare (AASWSW). The AASWSW is an honorific society of distinguished scholars and practitioners dedicated to achieving excellence in the field of social work and social welfare through high-impact work that advances social good.
Breaking Down Barriers to Better Health (Links to an external site)
A new short-format video produced through Centene’s industry-academia partnership, the Centene Center for Health Transformation™, sets the stage for current and future investigation into the impact of social determinants on health behaviors and health outcomes.
Health Education and Behavior Publishes Centene Center for Health Transformation Research Examining Social Needs and Health Outcomes (Links to an external site)
Unmet basic needs — which include but are not limited to food, housing and utilities — have long been associated with a range of negative health-related outcomes. New research by the Centene Center for Health Transformation now confirms that people with multiple unmet needs have even worse health outcomes.
Obamacare helps people make mortgage payments and rent, study concludes (Links to an external site)
The passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act provided many more Americans access to health insurance, but Obamacare’s legacy goes beyond medicine. According to new research, greater access to health insurance also leads to a significant reduction in Americans becoming delinquent on rent and mortgage payments. Riquier, A.
Fresh Food Rx Secures Food for Healthy Moms and Babies (Links to an external site)
A collaboration between SSM Health DePaul Hospital and Operation Food Search connects obstetrics patients in the St. Louis area with nutritious food and other necessities to promote healthy pregnancies and improve birth outcomes for mothers and babies.
Food Prescription Program Sends Groceries to Pregnant Moms in Need (Links to an external site)
SSM Health DePaul’s OB Care Center and local food bank Operation Food Search partnered to create the “Fresh R-X” program. Doctors and nurse practitioners screen expecting mothers for food insecurity during checkups.
Operation Food Search Launches New Program to Help Pregnant Women (Links to an external site)
Lucinda Perry from Operation Food Search promotes “Fresh RX-Nourishing Healthy Starts”, a fresh food prescription program that aims to help pregnant women make good food choices.
The View from Here 1.23.19 (Links to an external site)
Michal Grinstein-Weiss, Associate Dean for Policy Initiatives and professor at the Brown School, recently represented Washington University in St. Louis at the University Social Responsibility Summit, co-hosted by the University of Haifa, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Niemeyer, K.
Hope You Aren’t Counting on Getting a Tax Refund This Winter (Links to an external site)
While the Trump administration has pledged that the Internal Revenue Service will still issue tax refunds, recent changes to the tax code will make that promise difficult to keep, especially with regard to these critical refunds. As the shutdown stretches on, people who depend on the EITC for relief may face serious hardship. Capps, K.
Health insurance or house payments? Obamacare means many poor Americans are able to pay their rent and mortgages on time by reducing health care costs, study shows (Links to an external site)
Researchers from University of Colorado at Boulder and Washington University in St. Louis analyzed three years of tax data and survey responses from 15,000 people to test the effect of having health insurance among low-income Americans. They found that low-income people who purchased health care through an Obamacare marketplace were 25 percent less likely than poor Americans without health insurance to miss housing payments. Bauman, V.
Five things to know about Financial Wellness Programs (Links to an external site)
According to a 2017 survey by benefits consultants Alight Solutions, almost 25 percent of employers have a financial wellness program in place, and almost half are in the process of creating one. Some three out of four firms with more than 10,000 employees now offer a financial wellness program, according to a recent study by the Employee Benefits Research Institute. Wasik, J.
The “Save for Every Child” program is a success – but there are those who will make more money (Links to an external site)
The Government Savings for All program, launched in January 2017, is relatively successful for similar programs in other countries, but raises concerns that should be taken into account – a study that accompanies the plan shows. Heruti-Sover, T.
The Savings for Every Child program is a success – but there are those who will earn more (Links to an external site)
Heruti-Sober, T
Test the Psychology behind Food Indulgences: How We Trick Ourselves into Thinking Overeating Is Fine and That We’ll Bounce Back Quickly (Links to an external site)
New research from the Duke researchers at the Centene Center for Health Transformation™, published this month in the journal Appetite, explains how our lay beliefs, or naïve models, lead us to faulty assumptions about how our “dietary splurges” impact our weight, resulting in a lack of compensation following these indulgences and self-serving biases.
Growing old is nice, but boy is it costly (Links to an external site)
Half of Americans have no retirement savings, according to a Brookings Institution article of three years ago. Hasty reactions to market fluctuations result in escalating debt, according to Michael Grinstein-Weiss, associate professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis and associate director of the Center for Social Development. Shea-Taylor, B.
Financial Planning: Prepare now, avoid bankruptcy later (Links to an external site)
In 2015, Brookings Institution economist Michal Grinstein-Weiss testified before the Senate Special Committee on Aging that 45 percent of Americans had no retirement savings. Without corrective action, we can expect the rate of elder bankruptcy to persist or even increase in coming years. Merrel, S.
Senators propose ‘Rainy Day’ act to urge Americans to save (Links to an external site)
U.S. Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Jerry Moran (R-KS) proposed a plan to encourage Americans to build emergency funds. Under the bipartisan Refund to Rainy Day Savings Act, tax filers who receive a direct-deposit tax refund would be allowed to defer 20 percent of their refund by opting into the Rainy Day Savings Program on their 1040 tax form.
WashU Expert: Getting a tax refund? Consider saving it (Links to an external site)
Refund To Savings (R2S), is a collaboration of academic researchers from the CSD, Duke University and Intuit Inc., the maker of TurboTax tax preparation software. R2S builds a saving-promotion experiment as a randomized controlled trial into the TurboTax Free File Online product that is available free to low- and moderate-income households.