CSDE News & Events

Affiliate Scott Allard, Professor at the Evans School of Public Policy and Governance, was quoted in an Atlantic article about new Census data that indicate improvements in the nation’s poverty rate. According to Allard, who published the book Places in Need: The Changing Geography of Poverty earlier this year, “it looks like the labor market growth is finally reaching down to some of our most vulnerable populations.” Allard is still concerned,

In a recent article, affiliate Emily Williams–Associate Professor of Health Services–and colleagues examine smoking and alcohol use patterns among military members to determine whether experiences of sexual assault or harassment pose an increased risk for these behaviors. In the article, which was published in the Journal of Traumatic Stress, the authors find that individuals have unique responses to experiences of sexual trauma in the military depending on their gender and history of smoking or alcohol use.

CSDE Affiliates Jennifer Otten (lead author), Jake Vigdor, and Mark Long (along with UW colleagues James Buszkiewicz, Wesley Tang, Anju Aggarwal and Adam Drewnowski) recently published a paper titled “The Impact of a City-Level Minimum-Wage Policy on Supermarket Food Prices in Seattle-King County” in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Many states and localities throughout the U.S. have adopted higher minimum wages, and higher labor costs among low-wage food system workers could result in higher food prices.

Affiliate Betty Bekemeier, Assistant Professor in Psychosocial & Community Health, recently co-authored an article that aims to assess the gap between spending on foundational public health services by local health jurisdictions (LHJs) and the costs for these jurisdictions to provide them. In the article, which was published in the August issue of the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice, Bekemeier and her co-authors find that spending by sampled LHJs is just 65% of what is needed to provide foundational public health services,

Affiliate Melissa Knox was recently awarded a Pilot Grant from the Center for Health Trends and Forecasts (CHTF) at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which provides funding for pilot projects of up to two years to conduct novel social science research. Knox, a Lecturer in the Department of Economics, received the award for her proposal, “Demand for preventative care services and health disparity among Mexico’s vulnerable populations in the era of universal health care”.

According to a study co-authored by affiliate and Professor of Social Work Karen Fredriksen-Goldsen, lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) adults over the age of 50 are more likely to suffer from chronic health conditions than their heterosexual peers. The study, which was published in the August edition of the American Journal of Public Health, finds that older LGB adults are more likely than heterosexual adults of the same age to suffer from pain the low neck or back,

In an article published in the August edition of the Journal of Consumer Affairs, affiliate Scott Allard, Professor at the Evans School, and colleagues explore the association between food insecurity and access to food retailers in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Although their findings—based on a set of access measures developed by the authors—indicate that vulnerable populations in Detroit have similar or greater access to food retailers than do their less vulnerable counterparts,

Affiliate Tom Burch, Adjunct Professor of Sociology at the University of Victoria, recently authored a book titled Model-Based Demography: Essays on Integrating Data, Technique and Theory. Slated to be published this fall in the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research series Demographic Research Monographs, the book provides a view of demography as a complete scientific discipline—rather than a branch of applied statistics—from a model-based perspective. In addition to print,

Cori Mar, CSDE Methods and Data Director, recently co-authored an article titled “Evaluating Variance Estimators for Respondent-Driven Sampling” that was published in the Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology. The authors evaluated the performance of RDS variance estimators via a simulation study based on 40 respondent-driven sampling (RDS) surveys of injection drug users in the U.S. This analysis was the first to study the performance of the multiple RDS variance estimators. The study showed that confidence intervals and design effects of RDS variance estimators are often acceptable,

Affiliate David Grembowksi, Professor and Director of the PhD Program in Health Services, recently published an article about Vermont’s new statewide health system in Population Health Management. In the article, Grembowski and his co-author discuss the ten conditions that advanced the state’s readiness to implement a unified, all-payer integrated delivery system. According to the authors, these consist of a mix of social conditions–including a common vision and collaborative culture–and support conditions, –such as statewide data and legal infrastructure–all of which may have a higher chance of occurring in states with regulated markets.