Development Induced Displacement and Women's and Children's Wellbeing
An estimated 200 million people will be forced to migrate over the next 10 years to make way for development projects including hydropower dams, mines, and urban infrastructure, with potentially hazardous implications. This project uses a novel longitudinal study design to uncover the complex dynamics between development-induced displacement and women and children’s health and well-being. It focuses on households displaced due to the Belo Monte Dam, which was recently completed in the Brazilian Amazon and is the fourth largest hydropower dam in the world. The project uses a novel longitudinal study design that links pre-displacement household survey data with post-displacement in-depth interview data. The goals are to (1) understand the ways that women and children experience and respond to DIDR, focusing on children’s well-being as well as maternal, infant, and reproductive health; and (2) identify the mechanisms underlying relationships between DIDR and women and children’s well-being.
Funding Resource: NIH/NICHD R21HD107468
Project Lead: Heather Randall (PI) and Scott Yabiku
Heterogeneous Effects of Education on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementia Among Demographic Groups: A Multigenerational and Multilevel Study
The protective effect of education against Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) is found to be smaller for racial/ethnic minority individuals than for non-Hispanic White individuals. This project merges individual- and contextual-level data to estimate the heterogeneous effects of education on ADRD risk among demographic groups. This project also examines how the multigenerational process may have contributed to the racial/ethnic disparities in ADRD risk.
Funding Resource: NIH/NIA R01AG078518
Project Lead: Liying Luo (PI), David Baker, Melissa Hardy, and Alyssa Gamaldo
Longitudinal School Attendance Boundary Study
A project out of Penn State University, the Longitudinal School Attendance Boundary Study (LSABS), is a novel data collection effort that aims to collect longitudinal data on school attendance zone boundaries from school districts across the country. Co-led by Chris Fowler and Erica Frankenberg, the project will lead to a database of attendance zone boundaries from 1990 to 2020, which will be made available to the public for research. Upon completion of the project, the researchers will produce a publicly available data source that captures boundary changes from 1990 to 2020 for a national sample of K-12 school districts. Among other uses, the new database can help enrich our understanding of the relationship between school and housing patterns, especially allowing for analysis of the changes in school and neighborhood demographics over time. It can also provide a new and unique option for scholars/researchers to use as a proxy for “neighborhoods” in demographic research and writing. While census tracts or block groups have traditionally been used to approximate “neighborhoods,” school zones may more accurately reflect the way people think of their own communities.
Funding Resource: National Science Foundation
Project Lead: Dr. Christopher Fowler, Dr. Erica Frankenberg
Residential Characteristics And Child Health And Well-Being
This exploratory study asks whether children receiving housing assistance experience better health and wellbeing outcomes than their peers who are not in households receiving such assistance. The project also considers the impacts across different housing programs (e.g. public housing, housing choice vouchers, and multifamily).
Funding Resource: NIH- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, R21HD095329
Project Lead: Dr. Andrew Fenelon
Crossnational Comparisons Of Kinlessness And Health: Past, Present And Future
The second demographic transition engendered a reorganization of family formation processes in many places; these processes are ongoing, but retreats from marriage, increased divorce, and greater levels of childlessness are spreading to ever more contexts. The natural consequence of these combined forces is a world where older adults in many countries lack the types of living family members that are the mainstays of social support networks. This project, examines how the family networks of older adults are changing across countries, how they will likely change in the future, and how shifts in kin availability will impact health through mechanisms of loneliness and social isolation.
Funding Resource: National Institute on Aging, R01AG060949
Project Lead: Dr. Ashton Verdery
Family Migration and Early Life Outcomes
The Family Migration and Early Life Outcomes (FAMELO) project examines the dynamic role migration plays in children's development, education and transitions to adulthood. We study these processes by collecting comparative longitudinal data on children and their caregivers in three diverse contexts of migration: Jalisco, Mexico, Gaza, Mozambique & Chitwan, Nepal. The project is a collaboration of investigators from five US universities and three international institutions.(https://famelo.netlify.app/)
Funding Resource: NIH- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, P01 HD080659
Project Lead: Dr. Jennifer Glick