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Luis Zayas

URL: http://news-info.wustl.edu/sb/page/normal/660.html

Media Assistance:

Jessica Martin
Director, News & Information for the School of Law and the George Warren Brown School of Social Work
jessica_martin@wustl.edu
(314) 935-5251

Shanti K. Khinduka Distinguished Professor of Social Work

Expertise: adolescent mental health, maternal mental health in pregnancy, parent-child relations, cross-cultural factors in child-rearing behavior, family functioning, psychiatric diagnosis, alcohol use by Latinos

Bio:
Luis Zayas
Luis Zayas
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Luis Zayas' primary interests are in clinical practice with adolescents and families and in training clinical practitioners. His clinical experience spans 25 years of working with children, adolescents, adults, and families in community mental health, psychiatric clinics, pediatric rehabilitation, and community-based primary care medicine. He is a licensed psychologist and social worker. Zayas' research has examined child and adolescent mental health, maternal mental health in pregnancy, parent-child relations, cross-cultural factors in child-rearing behavior, family functioning, psychiatric diagnosis, alcohol use among Latino men, and psychosocial interventions in community-based primary care health centers. He is currently conducting research on the influence of ethnicity and language on the psychiatric diagnostic process, and preparing studies on the sociocultural and developmental processes that influence suicidal behavior among adolescent Latinas and on treating perinatal depression in urban health center. Zayas has received several awards, among them the Rafael Tavares, MD, Award from the Association of Hispanic Mental Health Professionals in 2000 for outstanding research and clinical practice with Hispanics.

WUSTL Contact Information:
Work:(314) 935-9448
E-mail: lzayas@gwbmail.wustl.edu
Address:One Brookings Drive
Campus Box 1196
St. Louis, MO 63130

Education:


News Stories & Tip Sheets:

Showing 1 Stories.
Confronting startlingly high rate

Mental health expert creates first research model to study high rate of U.S.-born Latina teen suicide attempts (http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/6681.html)

March 1, 2006 --
In recent years, one in five U.S. Latina teens attempted suicide. Though this rate is startlingly higher than their non-Hispanic peers, "efforts to understand the phenomenon have been hampered by a dearth of solid statistics and research," says Luis H. Zayas, Ph.D., professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on mental health issues in the Latino community. "We have developed a new research model that will help us to understand what is really behind those statistics." More... (http://news-info.wustl.edu/tips/page/normal/6681.html)



Showing 1 Stories.
Clips:

Showing 2 Clips.
Crying Out For Help
The Washington Post and 1 others

Jan. 22, 2008 -- Article looks at the alarming suicide risk facing young Latinas.
WUSTL social work professor Luis Zayas is in the middle of a five-year study of more than 150 young Latina girls who have attempted suicide. He says cutting is also finding a following among Latinas.


Editorial: Young Latinas and a cry for help
The New York Times

July 21, 2006 -- Editorial responds to a recent series in the Spanish-language New York newspaper El Diario/La Prensa sheds some light on a mostly overlooked national phenomenon, the misunderstood and endangered young Latina, who represents one of the fastest-growing segments of the American population. Hispanic teenage girls attempt suicide more often than any other group. A five-year study now in its second year in New York is being led by WUSTL social work and psychiatry professor Luis Zayas, who says the self-destructive behavior seems to affect Latinas of every origin and every region of the country.



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Related Links:
•Faculty Web page (http://gwbweb.wustl.edu/Faculty/FullTime/Pages/LuisHZayas.aspx)

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