Creating Healthier, More Equitable Communities
The places where we live, learn, work, and play all contribute to our ability to become and stay healthy. A Culture of Health means everyone has the basics to be as healthy as possible—like access to quality education, employment opportunities, and safe, clean neighborhoods across rural and urban settings.
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Children and FamiliesCombating Unstable Schedules for Low-wage Workers in Oregon
In this report, P4A researchers Amelia Coffey, Eleanor Lauderback and H. Elizabeth Peters, along with their partners at the University of Oregon’s Department of Sociology Lola Loustaunau, Larissa Petrucci, Ellen Scott and Lina Stepick, examine Oregon’s implementation of S.B. 828, the first statewide predictive scheduling law in the nation, in its first year.
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Children and FamiliesThe Long-Term Effects of Childhood Exposure to the Earned Income Tax Credit on Health Outcomes
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one of the largest safety net programs in the United States. In 2019, the EITC reached 25 million tax filers at a total cost of $63 billion. Using variation in the federal and state EITC, Breno Braga, Fredric Blavin and Anuj Gangopadhyaya evaluated the long-term impact of EITC exposure during childhood on the health of young adults.
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Employment and WorkplaceConsequences of Work Requirements in Arkansas: Two-Year Impacts on Coverage, Employment, and Affordability of Care
Arkansas implemented Medicaid work requirements in June of 2018. To maintain coverage in the state, adults ages 30-49 were required to work 20 hours a week, participate in “community engagement” activities, or qualify for an exemption. By April 2019, when a federal judge halted the policy, more than 18,000 adults had lost coverage. As an update to research published in 2018, Benjamin D. Sommers, Lucy Chen, Robert J. Blendon, E. John Orav, and Arnold M. Epstein analyzed the policy effects before, during, and after implementation in this Health Affairs brief.
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Health Care Systems and ServicesAssessment of Perceptions of the Public Charge Rule Among Low-Income Adults in Texas
A recent expansion of the federal “public charge” rule allows the government to deny immigrants permanent residency based on their income or health status or if they participate in programs that did not previously trigger the rule, such as Medicaid or the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program [SNAP]. Critics contend that this will dissuade individuals from participating in programs or obtaining medical care. In this JAMA Network Open paper, Benjamin D. Sommers, Heidi Allen, Aditi Bhanja, Robert J. Blendon, John Orav, and Arnold M. Epstein examine perceptions of the new public charge rule and its potential impacts on public program participation and medical care among low-income adults in Texas.
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Children and FamiliesAmong Low-Income Women In San Francisco, Low Awareness of Paid Parental Leave Benefits Inhibit Take-Up
Paid family leave policies have the potential to reduce health disparities, yet access to paid leave remains limited and unevenly distributed in the United States. The US is the only OECD country that does not provide paid leave for new parents, and just 8 states and the District of Columbia have passed partially-paid family leave policies. In a new paper, Julia Goodman of the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health, Will Dow of UC Berkeley, and Holly Elser of Stanford University examine the impact of the 2017 San Francisco Paid Parental Leave Ordinance (PPLO), the first in the US to provide parental leave with full pay.
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Children and FamiliesThe Effects of State Earned Income Tax Credits on Mental Health and Health Behaviors: A Quasi-experimental Study
The earned income tax credit (EITC) is the largest US poverty alleviation program for families with children, with well-documented positive effects on recipient health. In addition to the federal EITC, over half of US states have implemented supplemental EITC programs.
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Children and FamiliesExpanded Job Protection Improves Racial and Socioeconomic Equity of Parental Leave Access
Paid family and medical leave has important health benefits for parents and their children, but access to job-protected leave is limited and highly disparate in the United States. Increasingly, state and local governments have established policies such as paid leave to support parents and other caregivers. While these policies have been crucial in enabling more workers to take leave, their effects have been weakened due to only partial coverage of job protection laws. As part of their ongoing work evaluating the 2017 San Francisco Paid Parental Leave Ordinance, investigators Julia M. Goodman (Oregon Health & Science University/Portland State University) and William H. Dow (University of California, Berkeley) published an issue brief examining paid leave protections in the California Bay Area.
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Financing, Implementation & Policy ModelsState Legislative Strategies to Pass, Enhance, and Obscure Preemption of Local Public Health Policy-Making
Local governments are often innovators of public health policymaking, and local control over public health issues that are vital to addressing social inequities. But states are increasingly preempting, or prohibiting, local control over public health issues. In a new paper, Jennifer Pomeranz and Diana Silver of the New York University School of Global Public Health, systematically identified strategies to pass, obscure, or enhance preemption in five policy areas.
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Employment and WorkplaceMandated Sick Pay: Coverage, Utilization, and Welfare Effects
The United States is one of three OECD countries that does not provide universal access to paid sick leave for all employees. Over the past years, just 12 states have passed sick pay mandates. In a new working paper, P4A researcher Nicolas R. Ziebarth of Cornell University and colleagues Catherine Maclean and Stefan Pichler provide first-of-its-kind evidence on how state-level sick pay mandates affect coverage rates, sick leave utilization, and labor costs.
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Many public and subsidized housing developments in the U.S. are aging and in need of significant repairs. In a new article in Health Affairs, Ingrid Gould Ellen, Kacie L. Dragan, and Sherry Glied from the P4A Research Hub at New York University Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, study the impact of a recent renovation and transfer program of public housing in New York City on the health and well-being of residents.
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Turning research into actionThe Need for Actionable Policy-Oriented Evidence Is Greater Than Ever
Policies for Action is entering its fifth year with a growing community of researchers across the country and a maturing pipeline of research to support critical policy development. Find out how we're expanding the quality and reach of our work in 2020.
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Children and FamiliesThe Effects of Income on Children’s Health: Evidence from Supplemental Security Income Eligibility under New York State Medicaid
Approximately 16 percent of children in the U.S. live in families with incomes below the federal poverty threshold. This early-life exposure to poverty may have negative long-term health effects. In a new working paper, Hansoo Ko, Renata Howland, and Sherry Glied of the P4A Research Hub at New York University Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, estimate the causal impacts of the Supplemental Security Income program on child health outcomes and medical expenditures.
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