Published on Show Me Mizzou April 24, 2025
The gift of passion
In the largest-ever gift to the University of Missouri’s College of Health Sciences, Leonard and Barbara Bush pledged $4.4 million from their estate to provide scholarships for students with financial need, an endowed professorship for the college and an unrestricted support fund for the dean.
Leonard Bush, BHS ’82, says the estate gift represents the couple’s shared passion for health care and quality education. “This is our way to give back and provide an opportunity for advancement to students and for the college,” he says.
An app for adolescent obesity
While developing the forthcoming CommitFit smartphone app, Health Psychology department chair Crystal Lim and colleagues decided to take advantage of the adolescent tendency to be immersed in one’s phone. To tackle adolescent obesity, the app gamifies healthy living — and even rewards it financially.
Lim’s interim study looked at whether adolescent-parent pairs would use the app together in a buddy system to improve their health by getting more sleep, exercise, fruits, vegetables and water, or by imbibing fewer sugary drinks. Study participants chose one or more health goals, received reminders and logged their behavior for three months. In one of two experimental groups, the adolescents also could earn up to $52.50 by accumulating successes. Results were promising: Both groups improved, but the compensation group was 60% more likely to reach health goals. Their parents also were more likely to achieve goals.
Lim says CommitFit promises widespread access to high-quality weight-loss help. That goes for people in food deserts, where access to grocery stores and healthyrestaurants is limited, or food swamps, where high-fat and high-calorie offerings such as fast-food restaurants and convenience stores dominate the market.
Mental health matters
Throughout his tenure at Mizzou, Aaron Thompson, director of the School of Social Work, has created programs that start on campus, ripple through the surrounding Mid-Missouri community and then influence social workers nationwide. For instance, Thompson — a steadfast advocate for children’s mental health services — and several faculty partners developed the Family Access Center of Excellence (FACE), a suite of programs that connect children and families in need of services in Boone County to case management services.
“We are reducing the number of children who get caught up in the juvenile justice system by ensuring collaboration among law enforcement officials, school administrators, mental health professionals and families,” Thompson says. The program has become a model for the nation and has been recognized as one of the National Association of Counties’ “100 Brilliant Ideas at Work.”
Thompson’s impact on students and practicing social workers earned him one of the Mizzou Alumni Association’s 2024 Faculty Awards. In addition to leading the School of Social Work, Thompson serves as associate director of the Missouri Prevention Science Institute and helped found the Boone County Schools Mental Health Coalition.
A dose of knowledge
To reduce future opioid overdoses in five of Missouri’s high-risk rural counties, Julie Kapp is making a powerful online tool available to childcare providers, social workers, emergency medical services, law enforcement and other community professionals.
Kapp, chair of the Department of Public Health in the College of Health Sciences, has created a tutorial that explores how childhood trauma — such as neglect, domestic violence and parental separation — can contribute to future substance use disorders and other harmful consequences. Through a three-year U.S. Department of Agriculture grant, Kapp provides virtual training about the impact of adverse childhood experiences on young people. Kapp seeks to prevent these consequences by closing the knowledge gap that separates the world of academic researchers from community service professionals.
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