Creating Healthier, More Equitable Communities

The removal and placement of Indian children away from their families and communities is a central component of historical trauma. Indian child welfare practice must contend with both the restoration of balance at the level of the individual the family and the community while negotiating with a system which has been an instrument of community disruption in the past. The 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was designed to address the race equity issues in the child welfare system that historically and disproportionately harm Indigenous youth and families. 

Within the local government context, municipal code enforcement involves relatively entry-level decision makers operating across a highly uneven and diverse tapestry of neighborhoods and living situations. Implicit in code enforcement practices is a blending of objective health and safety concerns with highly subjective social and cultural norms.

Infant mortality, defined as the death of a baby after birth up to one year of age, is a national indicator of population-level health. The United States has an average infant mortality rate (IMR) of 6 deaths per 1,000 live births, a rate that is more than 70% higher than other comparable, high-resource nations.

The research team will work with individuals with lived experience in the justice system to contribute to a participatory action research-informed approach, with the goal of understanding how the impacts and policy changes uncovered translate into the human experience—including implications for well-being, health, and mental health. 

Senate Bill 535 and Assembly Bill 1550, combined, require the state to dedicate a minimum of 35 percent of revenues raised through Cap-and-Trade to communities that are environmentally overburdened and socially vulnerable. This was an explicit effort to promote health, economic, and racial equity in California's climate policy strategy. This project will research and evaluate the implementation of the $12.6 billion California Climate Investment program (SB 535 and AB 1550) in creating solutions that promote health, economic, and racial equity in environmentally disadvantaged communities.

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 study develops a national picture of home energy policies and programs, examines differences in receipt for three energy service cases, and explores barriers for households of color. Along with presenting the first cross-case comparison in the scholarly field, the research team hopes to inform discussions of improvements in energy providers' programming and prompt conversations around energy as another source of racial disparity. 

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

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 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.