Research into Action

Starting this month, nine new P4A research teams will embark on projects to illuminate how policies and laws (at the local, state, and national levels, and in the private sector) can help improve population health, well-being, and equity. With topics including paid family leave laws, substance use interventions, and vaccine exemptions, our newly funded research projects represent truly innovative thinking on some of the most urgent issues of our time.

Manmeet Kaur, executive director and founder of the Harlem-based community health organization City Health Works, is the inaugural recipient of the Janice Nittoli Practitioner Fellowship. Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Nittoli Fellowship is awarded to innovative, entrepreneurial practitioners working in communities to address inequalities and is open to applications.

Twitter has emerged as a key tool for scientists — and for the journals in which they publish their findings — to share new research with the world. A new study shows a way for that research to reach even more people, spreading new ideas and findings further.

By law, private foundations like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) are prohibited from lobbying or financially supporting any lobbying efforts of its staff, grantees, or other partners. But as researchers working on high-profile policy issues, it is not always clear if our activities could be considered lobbying.

A lack of a shared language is one barrier to turning research into action, but it’s not the only one. A few weeks ago, we sat down with a group of local decision-makers to find out how we, as researchers, can more effectively ensure that our research contributes to real-world improvements in population health, well-being, and equity.

A few weeks ago, we sat down with a group of local decision-makers to find out how they think about and use research, and what facilitates or hampers acting on research to develop evidence-based policies. In part two of this series, we’ll share some of their advice for communicating and disseminating your work to non-researchers more effectively.

This project will estimate the effects of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a policy intended to reduce inequality through financial access, on disparities in entrepreneurship, employment, and poverty outcomes by race and ethnicity, asking whether the CRA reduces racial inequality in entrepreneurship, employment, and income. 

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.