Emerging evidence demonstrates that female-authored publications are not well represented in course readings in some fields, resulting in a syllabi gender gap. Lack of representation may decrease student awareness of opportunities in professional fields and disadvantage the career success of female academics. We contribute to the evidence on the syllabi gender gap by: 1) quantifying the extent to which female authors are represented in assigned course readings; 2) examining representation of female authors by gender of instructor and discipline; and 3) comparing female representation in syllabi with the workforce and with representation as authors of peer-reviewed journal articles. From a list of courses offered in 2018–2019 at Washington University in St. Louis, we selected a stratified random sample of course syllabi from four disciplines (humanities; social science; science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; and other). We coded the gender of course instructors and course reading authors using the genderize application programming interface. We examined representation of female authors at the reading, course, and discipline level using descriptive statistics and data visualization. The final sample included 2435 readings from 129 unique courses. The mean percentage of female authors per reading was 34.1%; 822 (33.8%) of readings were female-led (i.e., a female first or sole author). Female authorship varied by discipline, with the highest percentage of female-led readings in social science (40%). Female instructors assigned a higher percentage of readings with female first authors and readings with higher percentages of females on authorship teams. The representation of female authors on syllabi was lower than representation of females as authors in the peer-reviewed literature or in workforce. Adding to evidence of the syllabi gender gap, we found that female authors were underrepresented as sole and first authors and as members of authorship teams. Since assigned readings promote academic scholarship and influence workforce diversity, we recommend several strategies to diversify the syllabi through increasing awareness of the gap and improving access to female-authored publications.

Purpose of review To highlight the various uses of social media by public health practitioners and organizations, with special emphasis on how social media has been successfully applied and where applications have struggled to achieve the desired effects. Recent findings Social media has been used effectively in improving the timeliness and accuracy of public health surveillance. Social media has also been used to communicate information between public health organizations and reinforce consistent messaging about enduring threats to public health. It has been applied with some success to coordinate of disaster response and for keeping the public informed during other emergency situations. However, social media has also been weaponized against the public health community to spread disinformation and misinformation, and the public health community has yet to devise a successful strategy to mitigate this destructive use of social media. Summary Social media can be an effective tool for public health practitioners and organizations who seek to disseminate information on a daily basis, rapidly convey information in emergent situations, and battle misinformation. Social media has been uniquely valuable and distinctly destructive when it comes to protecting and improving public health.

In 2020, two key elections in St. Louis, Missouri, took place in the midst of the intertwined pandemics of COVID-19 and racialized violence. Local community leaders in St. Louis emphasized a need to mobilize voters, particularly in communities of color, to engage in the elections in August and November 2020 as a tool for advancing health and racial equity. COVID-19 created a new set of barriers to voting. This study documents two typologies of challenges that organizers faced in their efforts to mobilize voters and increase participation in the election. The first is corporal — the use of one’s physical body and the risk within. The second is cognizant — the regulatory proficiency needed to navigate the shifting rules of the voting process. In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of twenty-eight mobilizers working within low-income, poverty-impacted neighborhoods in St. Louis City and St. Louis County, which disproportionately consist of residents of color. Findings suggest COVID-19 created additional unforeseen barriers to voting. Corporal: Local ordinances that mandated limited in person gatherings and social distancing were serious obstacles to traditional voter mobilization efforts and created trepidation about in-person voting for fear of being exposed to the virus. Cognizant: The state of Missouri in an effort to address some of the public health concerns created additional rules for absentee or mail-in voting for limited populations with a complicated set of rules that confused mobilizers and voters.

PurposeThe 2020 election season brought with it a global public health pandemic and a reenergized racial justice movement. Given the social context of the intertwined pandemics of COVID-19 and racialized violence, do the traditional predictors of voter turnout – race, poverty rates and unemployment rates – remain significant?Design/methodology/approachUsing county-level, publicly available data from twelve Midwest states with similar demographic and cultural characteristics, voter turnout in St. Louis City and St. Louis County were predicted using race, poverty rates and unemployment rates.FindingsFindings demonstrate that despite high concentration of poverty rates and above average percentages of Black residents, voter turnout was significantly higher than predicted. Additionally, findings contradict previous studies that found higher unemployment rates resulted in higher voter participation rates.Originality/valueThis study suggests that the threat of COVID-19 and fear of an increase in police violence may have introduced physical risk as a new theoretical component to rational choice theory for the general election in 2020.