Academic Research Centers

Analyzing the Relationship Among Early Childhood Conditions, Reproduction of Socioeconomic Inequalities and Adult Health Disparities. This project analyzes the relationship between early health conditions, adult socioeconomic attainment, and adult health. The first goal of this study is to document the impact of early health conditions on adult socioeconomic and adult health outcomes. More

Biodemography of Exceptional Longevity in the United States. This project proposes to investigate why some people manage to survive to extreme old age (100+ years) and what are the biological and social correlates of exceptional longevity. These are important issues not only for demographic forecasts of human mortality and population aging, and the policy implications on health-care and pension expenditures, but also for improving our understanding of the fundamental mechanisms of human aging and longevity. The project proposes to explore the effects of early-life living conditions, adult physical characteristics, marriage, and reproductive history on exceptional longevity, and will test a number of related biomedical and social hypotheses.  The project is designed as an interdisciplinary study of exceptional human longevity. To contribute to the research infrastructure for subsequent longevity studies world-wide, a database with integrated, matched information on longevity predictor variables will be developed, and made available to the research community on the Internet. More

Economic Shocks, Neighborhood Food Infrastructure and Very Low Food Security Among Children. Drawing on a recent panel survey of a representative sample of metropolitan Detroit, Scott Allard and U Michigan researchers will explore the extent to which two types of adverse economic shocks experienced by low-income households with children—job loss and parental divorce or separation—are associated with increased risk of very low food security among children. We will further explore the importance of food assistance program participation and access to the local food resource infrastructure as key moderators of these relationships. To our knowledge, this is the first study to examine the relationships between economic shocks, access to local food resources, and child food security. More

Food Assistance During and After the Great Recession in Metropolitan Detroit. Food Assistance During and After the Great Recession in Metropolitan Detroit will use unique panel survey data from a representative sample of working-age adults in the Detroit Metropolitan Area to explore three research questions related to the receipt of SNAP among low-income households: How have low-income families in the Detroit Metropolitan Area bundled SNAP with other types of public assistance, help from charitable nonprofits, and informal social support in the wake of the Great Recession? When controlling for economic shocks and respondent characteristics, to what extent is access to local food assistance resources related to receipt of SNAP assistance? How are receipt of SNAP assistance and economic shocks related to household food shopping behaviors, food security, and financial hardship? More

Getting on Track Early for School Success: An Assessment System to Support Effective Instruction. Stephen W. Raudenbush and a team of co-investigators from the University of Chicago’s Committee on Education, Urban Education Institute, Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education, and NORC at the University of Chicago are developing objective, valid, and instructionally relevant tools for assessing the literacy and math skills of children of ages three and four.   More