Winter 2023
School Updates

Funding and publications

Read more about new grants, publications, and other recognitions for Pitt Social Work.

Grants

Associate Professor Jaime Booth is coinvestigator on the project Investigating Links among Racial and Ethnic Discrimination, Neurobiology, and Internalizing Symptomology funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.

The University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work is excited to announce a new grant-funded partnership with the Office of Gender-Based Violence at Arizona State University to expand Survivor Link through the Public Health AmeriCorps program. Professor Sara Goodkind will manage the program, which will include funding for nine field placements at local nonprofits, training, and networking nationwide with other social work students dedicated to disrupting gender-based violence.

James Huguley, associate professor and associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the School of Social Work, and Ming-Te Wang, professor in the University of Pittsburgh School of Education, have received a $4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Elementary and Secondary Education to expand their Just Discipline Project model to other middle schools.

A new project led by social work faculty members has received a Faculty Internal Research Pilot Project Grant to explore burnout among BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) graduate students. Taking Off the Cape: Removing the Cloak of Invincibility to Support BIPOC Graduate Students is led by Child Welfare Education for Leadership Academic Coordinator Alicia Johnson and includes faculty members Yodit Betru, assistant professor and MSW program director; Aliya Durham, assistant professor and director of community engagement; Toya Jones, assistant professor and BASW program director; and Deborah Robinson, field assistant professor.

Assistant Professor Nev Jones, Lisa Dixon of Columbia University, and Howard Goldman of the University of Maryland have received a $3.6 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health for their project, Optimizing Disability Benefit Decisions and Outcomes in First Episode Psychosis.

Associate Professor and COSA Chair Mary Ohmer and Jason Beery of the UrbanKind Institute have received a grant from AmeriCorps for their Research for Equity and Power project. Community researcher Donnell Pearl will assist with the project.

Research Associate Professor Mary Rauktis and Arnold Arluke, professor emeritus at Northeastern University, have been awarded a grant from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) to explore pet ownership in lower-income communities. This is the first time ASPCA has funded research at the University of Pittsburgh.

The Pittsburgh Foundation awarded $1.3 million to University of Pittsburgh health sciences researchers through 10 grants, including more than $500,000 for addiction-related research and resources. This funding will support the Department of Medicine at Pitt’s Bridging Connections in Addiction Research, a consortium to develop and nurture a multidisciplinary addiction research community that includes Professor Daniel Rosen.

The Richard King Mellon Foundation has awarded the University of Pittsburgh $250,000 to support the Pitt Black Faculty Development Initiative, a program that seeks to improve the lives of Black Pittsburghers by supporting research focused on equity, health, and well-being in the city. This program is part of the larger Race and Social Determinants of Equity, Health, and Well-being Cluster Hire and Retention Initiative. The office of Vice Provost for Faculty Diversity and Development John Wallace, along with the Center on Race and Social Problems in the School of Social Work, will steward the grant.

 

Publications

Race and Social Problems, the Springer journal that is housed in the Center on Race and Social Problems, has received an increase in its impact score to 2.88, placing it in the top quartile of journals in its category.

Professor Valire Copeland wrote two entries in the “Encyclopedia of Social Work”: “Black Women and Maternal Death” and, with Shaun Eack, professor and associate dean for research, an entry about former Pitt Social Work dean Larry Davis. Copeland also published “Cardiovascular Disease and African American Women” in the spring/summer 2022 edition of the National Association of Social Workers’ Health Specialty Practice Section newsletter.

Dean Betsy Farmer, postdoctoral fellow Daniel Lee (PhD ’18), Christina Huerta (PhD ’21), and doctoral student Amanda Cruce completed a study that collected surveys from 1,418 people who were incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail. The study, requested by the Inmate Welfare Fund of the Jail Oversight Board and funded by the Inmate Welfare Fund and Allegheny County Department of Human Services, focused on jail residents’ experiences and views on a variety of issues, with an intent to provide point-in-time data that could drive change and provide a baseline for annual surveys in the jail.

Assistant Professor Victor Figuereo published a chapter in “The Edinburgh Companion to the Politics of American Health,” titled “The Role of the Health Care System on the Incorporation of Latinxs into American Society.”

Professors Sara Goodkind and Jeffrey Shook and Kess Ballentine (MSW ’17, PhD ’21) published an article in the December 2022 issue of Health Affairs, titled “How Low-paid Parents Navigate the Complex Financial Landscape of Benefits Cliffs and Disincentive Deserts.”

Goodkind, coauthor Beth Sondel, colleagues from the School of Social Work, and other collaborators have completed the report: “Post-Shuman Visioning: Reimagining Safety for Young People and Communities.” Pittsburgh’s Shuman Juvenile Detention Center was closed due to unsafe conditions in September 2021, and in the aftermath, Allegheny County leaders have been faced with difficult decisions about what comes next.

The Pittsburgh College Access Alliance; Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion James Huguley; and other researchers from the School of Social Work and Center on Race and Social Problems published a report, “Strength for the Journeys: Lessons from African American Families on Academic Programming and Educational Involvement in Greater Pittsburgh,” which discusses findings on African American families’ educational involvement and experiences in the greater Pittsburgh area before and during the pandemic.

Results of the Pittsburgh Hospital Workers Survey, produced by Shook and other members of the Pittsburgh Wage Study team, were released in an April 2022 report. This survey was the largest of Pittsburgh hospital workers ever conducted.