Creating Healthier, More Equitable Communities

This study will investigate the causal impacts of implementation—and, in more recent years, repeal—of state sentencing policies on racial disparities in health among infants and young adults.

This project will quantitatively assess whether the impacts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) on health care access and utilization were equitable between Indigenous and non-Indigenous women.  

This project will evaluate the two-tiered wage policy and its impact on racial equity, by comparing the racial wage gap and related health impacts, especially during COVID, on service workers between the seven states that require all workers to be paid a full minimum wage with tips on top and the 43 states that allow a subminimum wage. This research will help to inform discussions around policy being considered in 7 states and at the federal level to eliminate the subminimum wage for tipped workers.

This study will examine how formal declarations of racism as a public health issue can be used to create, maintain, or strengthen local policies and systems intended to dismantle structural racism and invest in community well-being.

This research will generate key evidence needed to understand the effects of exclusionary discipline on equitable access to education and potential alternative strategies that address or prevent the behavioral and emotional difficulties that have given rise to exclusion. 

This research will provide actionable results as counties develop their mental health diversion policies and procedures in accordance with AB 1810, particularly as courts re-open in the wake of COVID-19. In so doing, this project will not only benefit racial justice in the criminal legal system in California but also efforts to pursue racial equity through the increased use of mental health diversion nationwide.

This project will evaluate the impact of resolutions declaring racism a public health crisis on subsequent policy development and implementation.

This project evaluates the effects of the passing of Amendment 4 in Florida, which was designed to restore the voting rights of Floridians with felony convictions after completing all terms of their sentence, including a requirement that people with felony records pay all fines and fees associated with their sentence prior to the restoration of their voting rights.

This research will provide valuable evidence of the effects of a guaranteed income on families with low incomes and allow other jurisdictions who may be considering similar policies to use the program in Compton, CA as a model.

This project will examine the impact of existing student debt forgiveness policies on racial wealth gaps, specifically on Black-White and Hispanic-White wealth gaps.

The US is facing a housing affordability crisis that continues to exacerbate economic and racial inequities. Inclusionary zoning policies (IZ), which require real estate developers to include below market-rate units in new housing projects, and rent control regulations, which place caps on rental price increases, have reemerged as potential solutions to the housing affordability crisis. However, rent control and IZ policies are complicated and controversial. Studies generally find that rent control decreases rents for tenants in controlled units, but that these benefits may be offset by greater costs in the uncontrolled rental market. Likewise, while there is some evidence that IZ policies can provide economic opportunity for residents with low incomes, critics argue that they also reduce the overall supply of housing and serve as a short-term solution to the larger problem.

Long before the novel coronavirus, poor and working-class communities of color across Florida were weathering a pandemic of multilayered oppressions. COVID-19 lays bare the systemic and structural inequities as pre-existing conditions for the most historically marginalized among us. And while housing is one of the most researched social determinants of health, effective policies have not been adopted to promote residential stability. Florida’s complicated political landscape has led to weak and fragmented tenants' rights protections and limited tools for affordable housing, which creates a structural vulnerability for the most underserved communities. In this project, the research team will study three Florida urban counties that have implemented COVID-related tenant protections in divergent ways (Miami-Dade, Orange, and Hillsborough counties).